thajeztah wrote:Which is exactly why we're planning on moving away from Amazon and towards our own database
I think i missed that one (haven't been watching the forum for a while). Great news!
If possible (I understand that, from a commercial view, this might be challenging), please try to
co-operate with other organizations like collectorz.com or discogs.com. I think a '
shared' database may be more attractive to all parties than yet another, not-so-complete database.
Whatever direction you're choosing, you've got my support
In case you need assistance in database-designs or webservices, I'm willing to give a hand; It's my job and I can always ask my colleagues to join in..
I agree in principle with the idea of DVDpedia having its own database. TBH, for DVDs at least, I can't see why anyone really needs more than the IMDb - especially if we get an Option in DVDpedia to select local IMDb versions instead of just the US site. HST, although I pull the main information for my DVDs from IMDB, I do still do a second pass on Amazon UK - mainly for the UK BBFC ratings (similar to the US MPAA). Even the UK IMDb site doesn't give BBFC ratings, which is odd and the BBFC don't have an API currently. HST, Collectorz online database doesn't seem to give give ratings anyway (eg:
http://connect.collectorz.com/movies/da ... e-box-2008) and as the site is totally US-centric even if it did it wouldn't be of any use to me. EDIT: I just downloaded and quickly tried their program and the ratings info etc *is* pulled in when I added that same movie. I disliked the interface mostly but there are some good points, especially their editing pane.
This seems to me to be the main challenge with an 'own label' database: ensuring the information is accurate and up to date and, most of all, comprehensive. I struggle to believe that every DVD and every *version* of each DVD would be included in an own label database.
At the end of the day, to get 100% data accuracy, the individual is always going to have to do some final tweaking of the data IMO. It is terrific to have a resource like the IMDb that DVDpedia can access at will, but the IMDb is for *movies* not for DVDs and the difference shows - for example DVDs have Extras and movies obviously don't! The main benefit of an automated data source is when you initially add hundreds or even thousands of DVDs to a database in one go - checking each record is then very time consuming. Once all your DVDs are entered, then adding new ones is relatively simple and it's easy to give the entries the once-over to make sure the data is how you want it, manually changing any bits you don't like. I check each entry every time I play a DVD and correct any obvious errors or omissions at that time.
Nothing is perfect but DVDpedia comes closest IMO - and the really, really, really amazing thing about DVDpedia is the level of support from the developers and their willingness both to listen and to change things to suit the users. Like you, I would give my full support to Bruji in whichever way they decide to go - it's a shame that Amazon are being so thick-headed about all this, at no discernible benefit to themselves AFAICS.
Kind regards,
Keith
