Hello,
I've just downloaded DVDPedia and BookPedia in the hope that they could catalog italian dvds and books.
I thought it did so because it stated to use search sites (that i can see in the apps) such as ibs.it and dvd.it.
Alas, NONE of the italian books or dvds I tried to add to the collection was recognized. The only things that i was successful in adding were the few dvds and books I purchased from amazon and whose information is found on amazon itself.
I think these programs have good potential, but please don't advertise a functionality that doesnt work at all.
I found another app called Booxter that indeed does work for italian books.
I whish its interface and features were more like the pedias but that's it.
Until these apps work with italian information I cannot use them for any good purpose...
I've seen numerous posts regarding the pedias and italian information but even when "a fix" or an implementation for a features is said to have been added still I can't see it working in the latest version I've just downloaded.
In the end all I can say is let's hope one day they will get it right, along with "campa cavallo che l'erba cresce"....
The Pedias and Italian Information
Have you tried different ways of searching? For the ibs.it plug-in, you can do keyword and ISBN searches and you can also drag the URL from Safari straight into the Bookpedia table view to start a search.
With the bol.it plug-in you can only do keyword searches at the moment. But we're working on getting the ISBN search and the URL dragging incorporated.
If you didn't have any luck with any of those methods, please send me a few of the keywords or ISBNs that you were using for the search (or just the titles of the books) so I can try to recreate the problem.
Regarding dvd.it - as far as I know they don't offer a search by UPC so keyword searches are the only way to go at this point unfortunately.
With the bol.it plug-in you can only do keyword searches at the moment. But we're working on getting the ISBN search and the URL dragging incorporated.
If you didn't have any luck with any of those methods, please send me a few of the keywords or ISBNs that you were using for the search (or just the titles of the books) so I can try to recreate the problem.
Regarding dvd.it - as far as I know they don't offer a search by UPC so keyword searches are the only way to go at this point unfortunately.
Actually I've only tried ISBN/UPC searches and I did not have any luck... so i guess the search with ibs.it has something broken.
The point is that it should be a snap to just scan the barcode and have all the details in instead of having to search by keyword which is like looking to buy the same thing again...
Anyway I'll have another try with ISBN on ibs that you say should work, I'll post the codes tried should they not work again... by the way, just to make sure, I'll try codes of book purchased at ibs so i know they have it for sure.
As a hint, can I suggest you implement an ibs.it plugin into dvdpedia as well?
ibs has a large stock of dvds so it may be a start to cover italian dvds with UPC search...
The point is that it should be a snap to just scan the barcode and have all the details in instead of having to search by keyword which is like looking to buy the same thing again...
Anyway I'll have another try with ISBN on ibs that you say should work, I'll post the codes tried should they not work again... by the way, just to make sure, I'll try codes of book purchased at ibs so i know they have it for sure.
As a hint, can I suggest you implement an ibs.it plugin into dvdpedia as well?
ibs has a large stock of dvds so it may be a start to cover italian dvds with UPC search...
Shinzon, I can confirm that ibs and bol search will work with BP. With bol I had to change the Sort Order from ISBN to Alphabetical in the Search Web window in order to get it to work properly (still searching the ISBN, it's just the order option that needs changed). I am italian in case you're wondering.
Jexter, thanks for you input, following your advice i found that with the bol plugin im able to get italian book information.
the ibs one is still not working though, and i have a few books that would be recognized by ibs and not bol but this is a start.
by the way, im italian too
What i've also found is that the isight barcode reading feature which i find really useful doesnt work well at alll... it reads random numbers instead of the real upc/isbn and that at the beginning of my new test was the reason for many failures... it would be great if this could be fixed or improved...
Also, is it possible to use other barcode readers with the pedia to overcome this problem? like a bluetooth reader?
the ibs one is still not working though, and i have a few books that would be recognized by ibs and not bol but this is a start.
by the way, im italian too
What i've also found is that the isight barcode reading feature which i find really useful doesnt work well at alll... it reads random numbers instead of the real upc/isbn and that at the beginning of my new test was the reason for many failures... it would be great if this could be fixed or improved...
Also, is it possible to use other barcode readers with the pedia to overcome this problem? like a bluetooth reader?
You can use any pretty much any firewire camera or USB scanner to scan barcodes into the Pedias.
A bluetooth reader will most likely need additional software that converts the scanned information into a keyboard input. I believe most bluetooth readers will come with software like that but I know that for example for the Flic scanner you will need to install a programm from SerialMagic to convert the input before the Pedias can read it correctly.
What search keywords or ISBNs are you using on IBS? So I can try to recreate the problem, see what's going wrong. Thanks.
For the iSight scanning - take a look at the Bookpedia Help file for some tips on how to work with the feature. We've also put up a movie to illustrate how the scanning should look: http://www.bruji.com/temp/iSightCapture.mov
Hopefully that'll help you get the iSight scanning to work.
A bluetooth reader will most likely need additional software that converts the scanned information into a keyboard input. I believe most bluetooth readers will come with software like that but I know that for example for the Flic scanner you will need to install a programm from SerialMagic to convert the input before the Pedias can read it correctly.
What search keywords or ISBNs are you using on IBS? So I can try to recreate the problem, see what's going wrong. Thanks.
For the iSight scanning - take a look at the Bookpedia Help file for some tips on how to work with the feature. We've also put up a movie to illustrate how the scanning should look: http://www.bruji.com/temp/iSightCapture.mov
Hopefully that'll help you get the iSight scanning to work.