Movie Collection Database Software

TechBloxWriter — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:45:51 +0000

I just spent WAY too much time finding the perfect database software to create a nice “my movies”-website. The software should contain the following features:

I want to be able to efficiently enter new movie titles and retrieve corresponding information from imdb.com.
It needs to fetch large dvd covers or posters from a site like amazon.com, dvdempire.com, or Cdcovers.cc.
I want to export a customizable website, which let’s me browse the movies and find relevant information.

So I installed and tested the following programs:

All My Movies 5.9

(-/+) Template website generation, but limited.
(-) Commercial.
(-) Ugly company website made for stupid users.
(-) Stupid six-star rating instead of just two digits as on imdb.
(-) Can’t do Ctr+A in the edit fields, wtf?

FAIL, $40 is too much for what it offers.

Movie Collector 6.6

(+) Professional, large software.
(+) Very customizable html output.
(-/+) They have their own database of movie info and covers.
(-) Commercial.
(-) Not really connected to imdb -> You have to enter imdb rating for every movie yourself -.-

FAIL, I need imdb rating.

EMDB 1.06

(+) Free.
(+) Clean and fast.
(-) Website export really sucks.

FAIL, I need to have more control over website generation process.

MeD’s Movie Manager 2.9.1.3

(+) Free, java, opensource.
(+) Technical, no magic.
(+) Extensive interface for adding new films.
(-/+) Can generate nice reports (which I don’t need at all).
(-) Only basic website generation.
(-) Retrieves only low-resolution covers.

FAIL, I need large images on the website.

GCStart 1.5.0

(+) Free.
(+) Website generation not bad.
(-) Very comfortless software.
(-) Fails to fetch director from imdb.

FAIL, I like directors.

Griffith 0.11

(+) Can import from AllMyMovies, lol.
(+) Nice html export.
(-) Looks ugly.
(-) Retrieves only low-resolution covers.

FAIL, again, want large covers!

Personal Video Database 0.9.9.21

(+) Complete imdb information retrieval
(+) Large covers from amazon
(+) No magic, I can see what the software is doing.
(+) Clever, template-based website generation.
(-) Slow (For every new movie you add, it downloads a thousand covers images and let’s you choose one.)

PVD FTW!

This is a screenshot from the overview page:

And this is how a detail page looks like:

I’m genuinely happy now!

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