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Movie Database Development

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rick.ca:
Oh, what a timely post! I've been thinking about this, but from a somewhat different angle. I, too, am hugely impressed with MC. But, for many of the same reasons, I love using Personal Video Database [http://www.videodb.info/forum_en] for maintaining my video information. PVD is freeware built on Firebird RDBMS. It downloads information and images from IMDb and other sources, and presents that information nicely. Most importantly (for me) it does a very good job relating all the people associated with the movies. I'm tempted to argue it's the best video database software available, but that would be way off-topic...

My point is, after seeing what PVD can do with it's focused task, I find it impossible to believe MC could ever come close to providing the same functionality. So I wonder what the prospects are for the two moving closer together, for the sharing of data, for some sort of "convergence." It would be wonderful if there was a tagging convention for video files like ID3 for music files. Then we could expect all such software, whatever it's primary purpose, could read and write to tags and thereby share information. But, it doesn't look like we're going to see that any time soon. I imagine it would be easy for MC developers to write code that reads movie information from a SQL database, but it's unreasonable to expect they would do that for one obscure program (Libra, DVDProfiler or PVD).

While I don't have a clue how to do it, I suppose exporting to, and importing from XML might be the best available solution. I note that PVD will export to XML. Maybe cncb can point me in the right direction for learning how to import that into MC.

BTW, darichman, "a copy paste job for each individual film"?  :o Stop that right now!!! Use PVD.  ;D BTW, I've configured PVD to download information from IMDb, a synopsis, categories and an additional rating from AMG, and a poster from Amazon. It's all automatic.

hit_ny:

--- Quote from: rick.ca on July 25, 2008, 11:23:52 pm ---It downloads information and images from IMDb and other sources, and presents that information nicely. Most importantly (for me) it does a very good job relating all the people associated with the movies. I'm tempted to argue it's the best video database software available, but that would be way off-topic...

My point is, after seeing what PVD can do with it's focused task, I find it impossible to believe MC could ever come close to providing the same functionality. So I wonder what the prospects are for the two moving closer together, for the sharing of data, for some sort of "convergence."
--- End quote ---

Is it only the integration with online sources that makes videodb so good ?

or is it also functionality too ?

It would be interesting to hear where you think MC could improve.

MC targets, Audio, Video, Images as well as 'others'.

The idea is a similar interface regardless.

Naturally this puts constraints on over specialising in one format at the expense of another, a delicate balancing act which to date has been maintained IMO.

Now you could get best of breed for each media type but then you would have 'x' apps to manage it all instead of just the one :)

rick.ca:

--- Quote ---Is it only the integration with online sources that makes videodb so good ?
--- End quote ---

I didn't mean to imply PVD is perfect in this regard, or this is all it's good at. Many here ask, "Can't MC just pull the video information from IMDb?" I'm not a programmer, but it's obviously easy to do. My experience with PVD, however, suggests the issue is much broader than that. There are many different variations in the content a user may want. IMDb does not seem to be the first choice for European, Russian and Asian users. Even I, a unilingual Anglo, want my information from two different sources. My point is, doing this well is beyond the scope of what MC intends to be.


--- Quote ---or is it also functionality too ?
--- End quote ---

Yes, very much so. It has the powerful database features you'd expect from a relational database application—filtering, searching, handling relations like a complete filmography for each person in the database. It handles multiple posters, covers and screenshots. It includes a fully-configurable web search function to facilitate searching for information beyond that it automatically downloads. And there's much more, but...

I'm not trying to say PVD is doing anything MC should be doing better than MC. If you consider why I maintain a video database, it may help you understand my point-of-view: Unlike many MC users, I have little interest cataloging video media. I'm primarily interested in maintaining a database of movies I've seen, and may want to see. While downloading is overtaking DVD rentals as my media source, I delete most downloaded media after viewing. I may be wrong, but it seems MC wasn't designed to catalog media that doesn't exist. At the same time, I would very much like MC to be able to use the information I have in PVD about the media I have on hand at any point in time.


--- Quote ---It would be interesting to hear where you think MC could improve.
--- End quote ---

I wish I could express that in term of concrete feature proposals, but I'm still to new to MC to do that. My hope is those with more experience might understand my point-of-view, and offer solutions for my particular needs, as well as possible paths for MC development in this area. My gut tells me the answer is in somehow better facilitating the exchange of media meta information, but I'm not sure how that might be done. Since my last post, I looked at the possibility of importing data from PVD via XML. That might work if MC offered some kind of mapping utility. Without that, however, doing so on my own seems out of the question. Even if it would work, it wouldn't be a very practical solution for keeping the information up-to-date on a daily basis.

Others have requested (for some time now) improvements to Theatre View for displaying video information. Some have gone as far as recommending the information source issue (e.g., downloading from IMDb) be set aside until this is done. I whole-heartedly agree. There's little point in getting information into MC unless there is a way to use it. I realize this is a selfish view—I already have and use the information with PVD. All I'm looking for is the ability to use it in a 10-foot display.


--- Quote ---...a delicate balancing act which to date has been maintained IMO.
--- End quote ---

I understand and appreciate the design premise of MC, so I agree with you completely. Although it often makes my brain hurt, the power and flexibility of its common media management architecture is very impressive and attractive. However, that just make me want to use it more. Clearly, I'm not alone in that sense. Maybe this is an indication of where MC is in it's development. The guts of it are complete and stable, and users are very impressed and happy with it. As well, the developers have been disciplined enough to not try to make it do everything—to keep it "well-rounded." So MC really can be used to manage all media, and can be configured and used in ways to satisfy just about any need. It follows the development focus should be to improve and add tools that help users adapt MC to their own particular needs. This would include generalized import routines to facilitate getting whatever information a user wants into the database. On the "other end," it would include making Theatre View more configurable so that information can be used.

In conclusion, MC does not intend to be a "movie database manager." I believe it's (potential) strength lies in it's ability to be an excellent media manager that can used by most for all of their movie information needs. At the same time, I think it can be made to also accommodate those who are compelled to use more specialized software to maintain their movie database. There may even be a common solution for both "regular" and "advanced" users: Provide a utility function for importing a file in a specified, easy-to-use format (e.g., CSV). Also provide, or encourage user development of a plugin that will download information from IMDb and create such a file. Alternatively, an advanced user would be able to export information from their specialized software in the specified format. The same general facility could be implemented for all media types—and so be in keeping with MC's purpose and architecture.

darichman:
In what ways can you export the data from DVDProfiler and PVD... I wouldn't mind giving one or both of them a try... Anyone out there used both? Advantages? Disadvantages?

I would love to see this functionality or similar in MC, but IF they decided to go down this road, three rather major things would have to happen.

WHERE DO WE GET THE DATA?
1. Hook up to a database. I don't think YADB would work for this - no one is going to type out all the information and submit it, sorry. For this to work, J River would need to make a deal or hook into one of the existing databases - open (IMDb/AMG) or closed (DVD profiler etc)

HOW DO WE DISPLAY THE DATA?
2. Develop specific information views. Currently, most of MCs "view" capabilities surround "finding" the file you want... not viewing information about it. We'd need a way to display all the people and film data for a particular film.

rick.ca:

--- Quote ---In what ways can you export the data from DVDProfiler and PVD...
--- End quote ---

PVD is set up to handle text exports using user-configurable templates. So I suppose the correct answer is you can export in whatever way you want. Sample templates are provided for CSV, XML, a few plain text lists, and several HTML formats.


--- Quote ---J River would need to make a deal or hook into one of the existing databases - open (IMDb/AMG)...
--- End quote ---

Probably a good reason why it should be left up to individual users to access such databases for their exclusive personal use. J River would have to make some sort of deal if they would otherwise be seen as exploiting these services for their own benefit. I don't see anything wrong with providing users with the tools necessary to access the information, however.


--- Quote ---Move to a relational database.
--- End quote ---

This board must be built on a relational database. I search for "relational database," and my screen instantly fills up with your posts. ;D  That's okay—it really is necessary for movie/people databases.

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