Movie and DVD database

In an effort to do something useful besides sit around being uncomfortable and impatient, I decided last night I was finally going to finish organizing our DVDs into a database. A while back I bought some great software called Movie Collector (from collectorz.com) which is essentially a movie/DVD cataloging tool. I also bought a barcode scanner to make the process easier, so all I had to do was scan each barcode, and download the details for each DVD from the central database. The level of detail for each DVD title is impressive, including such information as region codes, thumbnail images of the cover/s, running time, release year, director, actors, plot summary… you name it.The part that was most time-consuming was alphabetizing all our titles in their new cupboard according to the order in the database. We also added our own ratings for each title and notes about when the last time we watched each one so that when we’re trying to think what we haven’t seen in a while, I can just search by date.

For an organiser (read control freak) like me, this is DVD library heaven. It also allows us to take notes of who has borrowed our DVDs, and on what date. Considering we own over 300 titles (and that’s just counting by title, not by disks, episodes, individual titles within box sets etc), this can be VERY handy. I like to be able to share my movies with friends, especially since we do have quite a few fairly obscure titles, but it can be extremely difficult to remember who has what, and how long they’ve had it. No one likes to admit it, but it does get frustrating to lend out movies and have people not take the initiative to return them, resulting in regular conversations beginning with, “Did you guys borrow [insert DVD title here] a while back….?”

Apart from the serious sore back I had after spending several hours crouched amongst teetering towers of DVD cases while I put them all in order and added our personal details to each database entry, it was a great activity to divert my buzzing brain. Next stop, Book Collector and my bookcase!

In the meantime, you can check out another of Movie Collector’s features, which is the ability to export the entire database to html, ready for upload to the web: www.zoeselina.com/movies

Note: Collectorz.com also has databases for video games, CDs/MP3s, books and comic books – all of which have the same features as Movie Collector, and all compatible with a range of barcode scanners.