New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Talk to other Pedia users about the programs, share tricks and tips or ask questions about existing features.
Post Reply
audacious
Captain
Captain
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:35 pm

New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by audacious »

Hi all. I am a new convert, having used the Collectorz products for a number of years. I am presently getting familiar with DVDpedia and have a few questions. I looked through the help and perused the forum to no avail (suggestion - separating the forums based on the pedia would make it easier to review).

1. How do I handle boxed sets? Collectorz had a Box Set field that would allow you to create separate entries for each film and connect them with the boxed set field. A review by box set would then provide the cover art and some light detail on the set while an entry into the particular film would provide all of the detail.
2. Where would I see the episode detail for a purchased tv show / season. Example - Star Trek TOS Season 1 is a boxed set containing multiple discs and all of the episodes for season 1. Prior application had a tab for episodes and features where the episodes were listed out with description (features were the extras on the disc) and sub tabs for disc selection.
3. Often there are multiple editions of a blu-ray (or dvd) i.e. Collector's Edition, Limited Edition, 25th Anniversary Edition etc. Where would I select this?
4. Along the lines of #3, blu-rays these days often include a dvd copy or a digital copy or both. I often used the edition field for this - 'blu-ray / dvd' or 'blu-ray / dvd / digital' for example. I suppose I could use a custom field for this but wanted to see if there is a field where this should be.
5. How would I list multiple soundtracks? Most blu-rays include a DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 or 7.1 (English) and then possibly a French or Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1? or both Along these same lines - why is Doghouse feeding back only Dolby Digital or DTS for these blu-rays that have much more advanced soundtracks. I added Frozen today by UPC and got back only a generic (also - it's listed as a dvd not the blu-ray it is). Shouldn't Doghouse return the best available soundtrack if it is going to only return one?

I have recently converted my household to Mac and wanted applications with a greater focus on Mac. I like what I see so far. The applications look good, run lean and have a great Mac feel. Just trying to get used to some things I am used to seeing in one place that may be in another.

Thank you.
User avatar
Conor
Top Dog
Posts: 5343
Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:58 pm
Contact:

Re: New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by Conor »

Hi Audacious,

Welcome to the Pedias, glad to have you. There are plans to integrate more of the useful answer in the forum with our knowledge base after we upgrade that as well (currently on the cusp of upgrading the entire website).

1. Box sets have been a controversy over the years on how to best handle them. DVDpedia is movie oriented, so do enter each movie and then link all the entries together. To link them select them all and hold down the option key and drag the selection over the details view. This will link all the selected movies together. (Without the option key it would have linked the selected and dragged movies to the shown movie in the details view only, i.e. the last selection and not reverse links.) Some users go further and use a custom field to label box sets as well as turning on the "sort title" field and including a label to sort box set entries together keeping them as a unit as well as in order. I.e. "James Bond 1", "James Bond 2", "James Bond 3".
2. Similar to box sets episodes can be entered as separate entries and grouped together or all the information listed under a "custom text" field that will expand to fit all the information. The preference depends on how much episode information you want to have, there are several search sites that will download individual episode information.
3. When searching Doghouse you will see different editions listed as separate movies as there can be minor details changes, including runtime and release date. For the media information it goes in the media field, but it's shown in the search result drawer when displaying results for the user to select the correct version.
4. Included digital copies checkbox or field is not on our radar yet, so the edition field seems okay for this information.
5. The specific soundtrack information should be returned under the language field with what languages are in what encoding. Doghouse should return the best possible version in the soundtrack field, but it's up to the original information that the uploaded added to the Doghouse. Do feel free to create an account at Doghouse under the Doghouse menu with an email and you can use the "Mirror" command to update entries were generic information was added to be more specific.

Thank you for the kind words. Software is always evolving and we appreciate the feedback. We try to keep DVDpedia as flexible as possible, so a lot of the solutions do involve custom fields as it allows most users to adapt the program to their specific needs and workflow. As you will find in the forum a lot is always going on, but things are not always as easy as they sound. Starting by the simple fact that we would like to update the name to Moviepedia with the digital future but history is also important.
audacious
Captain
Captain
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:35 pm

Re: New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by audacious »

Thank you for the detailed reply Conor. It's great to receive this type of timely feedback and has me feeling very good about my decision to move over to the Pedias.

regarding #5 - I imported my collection from Collectorz and found that the selected audio track is the generic for all when I actually had DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby True HD 5.1 etc. I know I can fix them but is there a reason the import would have selected generic DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1 etc? It also grabbed only one of the subtitles selected. Spiderman 3, for example has subtitles for quite a few languages, all selected, but the import grabbed only Cantonese (the first one).

I can appreciate the difficulties in thinking of everything and then in putting it into practice. That you are responsive and engaged and always seeking to improve the application is what is most important and from what I can see from this response and the action on the forum, you have that.

I did sign up for Doghouse.
Side note - I did wonder about the names DVDpedia, CDpedia when I first looked at them and researched them a bit to confirm I wouldn't be signing up for something specific to that media. Both are a bit 2002 but that is understood and they get the job done. 'Movie' and 'Music' provide names that you likely would not feel the need to have to change again. Book and Game are good as they are.
User avatar
Conor
Top Dog
Posts: 5343
Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:58 pm
Contact:

Re: New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by Conor »

The import for Collectorz is hard coded from their XML format that can be extensive. In the case of the sound it picks the first one listed by Collectorz. I think Collectorz list them in the order that they were entered, hence why the default version comes before your entered information. I don't believe there is an option to reorder those in Collectorz to bring the important languages to the top.

I have updated DVDpedia to prefer anything with "DTS-HD Master Audio", "Dolby Digital True" and "Dolby True HD" in it's name, not sure how to go about creating a smart algorithm that would work for all formats, given the number of possible options. I've also updated the import to include all the soundtracks, that was an oversight on my part as the import was written when Collectorz did not yet handle multiple soundtracks.

All this will work with the beta version. Do a new import of the Collectorz file in the beta version and it will bring in that information. Not great if you have already started working with your movie information in DVDpedia, but there is no merge option for an import.

I should really move the soundtrack language information into languages were it belongs, but not sure I can trust Collectors to always have that information in brackets, although this is their new default it's user changeable so it might leads to bug, so I am leaving the language import as it from the language field that Collectorz uses. I shall add it to the to do list to look into.
audacious
Captain
Captain
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:35 pm

Re: New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by audacious »

Thanks Conor. If I were to add the additional soundtracks myself, how would I do that? The field contains a drop down, which I like, but does not seem to allow for a selection of more than one. The drop down contains only a few options are present and all are the more generic Dolby Digital and DTS, I presume because that's all it picked up on the import. I did add one new movie myself with the barcode - the Frozen blu-ray but Doghouse must have had the more generic soundtrack attached to it.

Just confirming on the boxed sets like the James Bond you mentioned. Forget the UPC and just add each film on its own and then link them via the method you described - correct? I suppose it will pick up the cover art for each film (not really the cover art as this is a boxed set but would want some associated with the film so okay there) but no cover art for the boxed set - correct? Just another way to look at it. I should focus more on the film and less on the media.
User avatar
Conor
Top Dog
Posts: 5343
Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:58 pm
Contact:

Re: New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by Conor »

The drop down (autofill as you type) presents the choices from information you have entered in the past. You can type in any value an it will add it to the movie as well as present it as a choice next time in the autofill and drop down. A neat trick is using the Preferences -> Autofill and "Rebuild" button for a field will show you all the values that you currently have for that field. If "DTS" keeps showing up, it means at least one movie has DTS as the value. It's a way to get really into a collection and clean out information.

It's a matter of preference on the box set. You can do either or both, I do the individual films and link them as mentioned. But adding the UPC will bring you the box set as a single entity and you can add the film titles to one of the custom fields (but to me that loses a lot of information that is hard to jam into a single entry, such as durations). I like to have the individual information for each film and care less about the fact that they belong in a box set, hence why the description of the James Bond setup. Another option is to add both box set and individual films and then just link the individual films to the box set and not between them. You could even modify the sorting to push individual film to the bottom or even store them in an excluded collection so that they are not part of your library but the information is still accessible from the link in the box set entry. There are actually quite a number o options to experiment with to find out what works best.
audacious
Captain
Captain
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2014 10:35 pm

Re: New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by audacious »

I think I like the way you are handling boxed sets. Makes sense.
Not sure I saw an answer on multiple soundtracks. Unless I am missing it, I can add one with the drop-down. How would add more?
User avatar
Conor
Top Dog
Posts: 5343
Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:58 pm
Contact:

Re: New to the Pedias. A few DVDpedia questions.

Post by Conor »

For the soundtrack we only handle the main one. Most users that add multiple version add it into the languages field as follows:

English Dobly Digital 5.1, French DTS, ...

But once again you could use a custom tag field that would show the blue bubble of multiple options and autofill as the languages does.
Post Reply