Bruji News

Andrea Guglielmi, Italian DVDpedia user, created a plug-in for his favorite site DVD-store. He has spent a couple of weeks tweaking it to perfection and collaborated with DVD-store manager to develop the DVD-Store plug-in. They even went so far as to amend their search routine output to allow him to create the link back URL to DVD-store reliably so that clicking the title of imported movies opens directly to DVD-Store details page for a single movie and not search results. That is some outstanding support from a DVD website for a single DVDpedia user. Not only do they have good support and a big database they have some good prices on Blu-ray titles if you are living in Italy.

Kindly they have both agreed to share the plug-in with other DVDpedia owners, so our Italian users can jump right in by downloading the plug-in. We really appreciate Andrea’s work and DVD-store for providing access. This is Andrea’s second plug-in for DVDpedia (his first plug-in, included with DVDpedia, is for Terminal Video).

Yes, you read that right: wedding bells are sounding at Bruji these days. Conor and Nora are getting married this weekend and to celebrate, all the Pedias are 20% off from the 16th till the 23rd.

Since we’ll be a little occupied with non-Bruji things in the coming days, please don’t be upset if we don’t answer your email straight away. We promise to be back to our normal routine shortly.

There are lots of new features and great improvements in the latest version of the Pedias. Blazingly fast and updated iSight scanning, several new search plug-ins, including The Open Movie Database (more about that a little lower down), a searchable and sortable HTML export template “FancyIndex” written by Pedia user April King and an automated Delicious Library 2 importer so there’s no need to export your data to DL 1.5 XML format anymore before importing data into the Pedias.

For a full list of what’s new, check out the release notes: DVDpedia, Bookpedia, CDpedia, Gamepedia. To download version 4.6, use the ‘Check for Updates’ menu command found under the program menus or use these direct download links: DVDpedia, Bookpedia, CDpedia, Gamepedia.

A little more about the open movie database (TMDb): this is a very exciting new project put together by Travis Bell and as the name says, it is a movie database along the lines of the IMDb but even better it is open for users to edit and add to, much like Wikipedia.

Anyone can enter new information, improve listings and thus make it better for everyone. And now DVDpedia can tap into that movie goodness thanks to the included API that makes it easy to access the site and download information.

Travis and others have been working on the API for many months now and with version 2 (just released), it’s become a very powerful search engine indeed. At the moment the search works only on titles but we’re hoping that this will be expanded in the future to include broader search options such as actors and directors and the option to mix keywords.

Enjoy version 4.6!

The Pedias have been recognizing barcodes from images since back when the external iSight was the hottest new gadget. The code has withstood over the years and being open source has been used in several other projects. However, with the semi-newer Mac Book Pros that not only have a fixed focus iSight but also a lower capture resolution the code was not handling well. (All built in Mac iSights are fixed focus, impressively the iPhone 3GS does have focusing capabilities and hopefully these will make it to the Mac line in the future too).

One of our fellow developers, Chris Karr, decided to improve the situation and spent Christmas building a new recognition engine from the ground up.

His new code is built with the idea of incorporating my old version as well as new solutions in a structure that allows the insertion of different scanners for the same image and then pick from the best results. Chris is using OpenCV, an extensive image processing library, to handle his video and prepare the frames for scanning. I’ve been trying to improve on his results but have had little success in bettering his already impressive work using OpenCV to which I am not accustomed.

My original scanner works directly by accessing the incoming QuickTime buffer and I am no expert on video but working with QuickTime I’ve come to learn its ways as well as the UYVY native format. So I decided to blend the new and the old. I did this by taking some structure ideas from Chris (in order to clean up my code that’s looking a bit messy due to all the optimizations) as well as the new excellent barcode scanning library called ZBar that Chris is using as one of the scanners and keeping my Quicktime capture. With these changes I was able to improve the current version.

The result of all this mixing is for the moment a new impressive scanning engine for the Pedias. In the long run hopefully we’ll be able to bring all these improvements together with Chris’ version of the framework that is better structured for future improvement and make even further advancements. In the meantime if you’re looking for a scanning engine take a look at Zbar as it even has an iPhone project included in the source (the old barcode scanner code has been very popular with users wishing to port it to the iPhone, this new project will save developers a lot of work).

I want to thank both Chris Karr and Jeff Brown, the creator ZBar, for their work in building great tools for the Cocoa community.
Go ahead  and play with the latest Pedias and let us know if the iSight’s even more magical than before (now scans upside down codes as well).

Thanks to DVDpedia user Burkhard Mudrick DVDpedia has two more iPhone-optimized export templates, Dark and Safari.

As the titles imply, one design is dark (sleek greys and black) while the other one integrates with the light and crisp Safari theme (cool blues and grey).

Both templates include a large number of fields in a neat collapsed form so as not to take up valuable real estate on your screen. Cover images get a shiny jewel-case look that works especially well with the Dark template, in my humble opinion.

These versions on our Extras page are the ‘midi’ versions of the template which include most but not all fields. If you want them all or just the basics, head over to Burkhard’s website to download the ‘mini’ and ‘maxi’ versions as well. (They’re all included in the download on his site.) He’s also got loads of screenshots of the templates there, in their various sizes.

Although Pocketpedia is not available anymore, there are still a few ways to get your Pedia collections onto the iPhone and iPod Touch. They are not as ideal as Pocketpedia but are valid options nonetheless.

1 – HTML export

Use one of the iPhone optimized templates such as “iPhone” or “iPhone Grouped” from the HTML export feature to export your collection from the Pedias. Upload the export to a server and access your collection through Safari on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

These iPhone export templates have an index, for quick searches, and are optimized for the smaller screen. You can find another iPhone-optimized export template on our Extras page for download as well or if you have some HTML experience, write your own. Take a look at the Help file under ‘Export > Customizing HTML templates’ for more information.

2 – PDF sync

Use the Print or export feature in the Pedias and then create a PDF of that print or export.
For the Print feature, press the ‘Print’ button on the first dialogue and then press ‘PDF’ on the second window. Save the preview as PDF.
For the Export feature, export the collection and when the preview opens in your preferred browser, choose ‘Print’ and save as PDF as described above.
Then use a free program such as Evernote to sync the PDF over to your iPhone.

SmallCovers print template, in PDF format viewed in Evernote on the iPhone

ListThick print template, in PDF format viewed in Evernote on the iPhone

Of course, if all you want is a list of your titles as a quick reference then a simple text export from the Pedias will suffice. Just use any free notes app for the iPhone/iPod touch to import the text file and you’ll be good to go.

We managed to talk with an Amazon representative over the phone about Pocketpedia2 and although thrilling to finally have a two-way conversation it proved to be neither enlightening nor productive. Amazon made it clear that they are not okay with Pocketpedia2, even though it censors their data. We were told that even the most common of attributes, the title, cannot be synced to a mobile device.

In order to put Pocketpedia2 back up we would have to block all information from Amazon. Entries would need to appear as “?” or not at all on the iPhone. This would not only cause a terrible confusion but also make Pocketpedia2 useless for most users. Since the Pedias do have a number of data sources we understand that Pocketpedia2 would still work for users who gather their information elsewhere or enter it manually. However, given the popularity of Amazon as a search and the support issues we would encounter with users unaware of the restrictions we have chosen to keep Pocketpedia2 off the App Store until the time when we can produce, without limits, an iPhone app we can be proud of. So for those of you that were able to acquire a copy of Pocketpedia2 during its short life at the App Store, be sure to keep it safe.

As expected, the reasoning behind the exclusion could not be discussed. The likelihood of a change in the terms that would allow Pocketpedia2 to exist could also not be discussed.

Tomorrow is an exciting day for Apple followers and likely all computer enthusiast. We have no doubt that tomorrow’s announcement will also be classified as a mobile device by Amazon. The devices of the future are being built by Apple and Amazon doesn’t want to be the provider of data for those devices. All we’re lacking now is an open, rich and international data service.

Sadly, here we go again. Amazon has informed us this morning that we have to “cease displaying [Amazon's] content and links to [Amazon's] site on [our] mobile application and accessing the Product Advertising API through [our] mobile application.”
Of course, once again there is no email address to respond to directly so our reply sent through the Contact Us link on the Amazon page will very likely get lost in the maze of their company or otherwise take a long time to reach someone who might be willing to send us a response. As a software company we understand the need for a support desk system, but it leaves us awe struck that they have no direct communication with a representative, especially when their signature is “Associate Account Specialist”.

But what’s even worse is that they obviously haven’t bothered looking at Pocketpedia2: there ARE no links to Amazon anywhere in the application. It’s impossible to access the site through the program. And as for content, we have explained that the Pedias block any Amazon data from being synched over save for the cover image, title and director/artist/author/platform (so it wouldn’t seem like your Amazon added items just went missing). We’ve offered that we’d pull this information as well if that would allow us to keep Pocketpedia2 going but don’t hold your breath…

Of course we have also asked for an explanation or reasoning once again on why mobile apps specifically are singled out under the Associates Operating agreement. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe this time we’ll receive a response. This is starting to feel a bit like talking to the Queen of Hearts.

We know that many of you wrote to Amazon last time Pocketpedia had to be pulled from the App Store. We’re very grateful for your support. We know that Amazon is not our only input method to catalog your collection (we are routinely impressed with the number of people that painstakingly enter all the details manually). This was the main reason we released Pocketpedia2, an Amazon-stripped version of the original Pocketpedia. However, while we get a dialog going with Amazon we have no choice but to pull Pocketpedia2 from the App Store for the time being.

Stay tuned. Hopefully, there will be a solution to our problems through communication with Amazon or at least some answers from “earth’s most customer centric company”.

In conjunction with the death of Pocketpedia2, Amazon once again killed our access keys and we’ve had to apply for new ones. These are part of the latest version release so make sure you download version 4.5.5 of the Pedias for your searches to continue without trouble.

For the remaining days of 2009 we’re running a Full Pedia Bundle promotion that is just too good to miss: all four Pedia programs for just $39!

If you know someone who’s interested in the Pedias or you’re looking for a gift for that special Mac user in your life, this is the perfect time to head over to our holiday page and get a bundle of joy!

Happy holidays to all and best wishes for the coming year, Conor & Nora

Gamepedia user April King wrote a very cool HTML export template for the program. Not only can you sort its columns on the fly, it also has a lightning-fast live search included.
On top of that it has a details view and several links to outside sources (Google and Amazon). Do your Gamepedia database a favour and download this template now.

You can click on any of the column headers to sort the template.

The details view that appears when you click on the title link.