Personal Video Database

Hi,

I'm having a minor issue with duplication of movies in my database. Here's what's happening:

I like to maintain a [reasonably] complete filmography for each of the actors in my database. So, for each actor, I use the IMDB People plugin to import the filmography from IMDB. The plugin is set to overwrite filmographies, and "Merge filmography" selected in Preferences.

This works well enough most of the time. But occasionally, for certain movies, IMDB lists a different release year than the one I already have in my database record for that movie. This causes the actor's filmography to have TWO entries with that movie title, one for the complete movie record I already had, and another linking to an "invisible" movie record with the release year from IMDB.

Now, I can usually get rid of the duplicate entry by editing my "complete" movie record to match the release year from IMDB (this has the effect of merging the two records, as long as the titles match exactly). Occasionally, though, I also have to take the additional step of clicking on the imported IMDB title in the actor's filmography to make the movie record visible in Movies View, then holding down the CTRL key while deleting it.

What I'd like to know is, is there a simple way to scan through all of my actor filmographies to find these duplicates? Right now, I'm dealing with them as I notice them, but I suspect there are a ton more I haven't found yet. I don't know if the "Delete movie duplicates" in "Tools/Optimoze Database" will do what I want, and I'd rather not risk having it delete any "complete" movie records.

Aimhere

Hi,

I was wondering, is there any [semi-]automatic or programmatic way to remove embedded images from a group of records?

I have screen shots (thumbnails, really) for most of my movies, as well as multiple photos for many actors and actresses, but my database is really swelling in size. I'm considering the removal of most or all of the screen shots, as well as the extra person photos (all but the first photo for any given person). But not if I have to go through all the records one-by-one and remove the photos manually!

I realize there's no real upper limit on the size of a PVD database, but I just fear that it'll eventually become unmanageable and start to slow everything down. Already, if I'm in People View and choose "View/Group by/Career", it takes a few seconds to process the over 4000 performers in my database.

So, it would be nice if there was a menu item or script for removing certain types of images, but since there doesn't appear to be, is there any alternative?

Aimhere

Is it not possible others may want to use Media count/type/name for it's intended purpose, while also wanting what you're asking for? It seems to me this should be a request for File count/type fields that are populated on media scan.

Yeah, a "File Count" field would be more appropriate. I've only been using "Media Count" because there isn't a "File Count" field.

Quote

But I do like to keep track of the number of files associated with a given movie, and the fact that it's an AVI (as opposed to an MPEG, M4V, a Video DVD, etc.).

It's not clear from this what you're really after. AVI, M4V, MKV, etc. are container formats and have no bearing on what's inside them. I'm not sure what difference it makes what kind of container the media is in or how many are used. Note that you can filter on container type using Advanced search (of the extension in File path).

The "container" matters because I want to keep track of how many of my movies are AVI files (which are only playable on computers and certain DVD players) and how many are Video DVDs (which play everywhere).

When doing a file scan on new AVI movies stored on recordable discs, PVD insists on setting the "Media type" to "DVD5". And in my mind, "DVD5" doesn't reflect the computer-centric nature of the AVI/Divx/Xvid formats. So, I change it to "AVI File". All of my Video DVDs, in contrast, are entered into the database by "New Movie Master", and I set their "Media Type" to "Video DVD" myself. This way, to get a quick count of how many movies are in which format, all I have to do is go to the menus and choose "View/Group By/Media Type". (The "Media Type" tab on the Statistics window works as well.)

Using Advanced Search, as you suggest, is less convenient, as I'd have to do a search for file paths containing ".avi", look at the count of "visible" movies, then do math (ugh) to figure out how many Video DVDs there are. The "group by media type" method just works better and faster... as long as I have "Media type" set properly on each movie.

My methodolody is simply a matter of making the AVI movies stand out from the DVD movies in my records and statistics-tracking.

I suppose I could create a custom "format" field for AVI vs. Video DVD... but it wouldn't work with the Statistics tool, nor with the Multiple Movies Editor. And I really don't want to have to go back and set a custom field value for thousands of movies that don't already have it, one at a time!

As for tracking the number of files involved with the AVIs, well, you kinda got me there.    It doesn't really matter, but I've been doing it this way since I started building my database, so why stop now?  

Aimhere

Rick, I have one word for you:

D'oh!!!

That was it! I never considered that PVD would "wrap" multiple files in a playlist, but that's exactly what it was doing! I confirmed that PVD would launch Media Player Classic for single-file movies (while still launching Winamp for multiple-file ones). All I had to do was go into MPC's file type settings and have it take control of the "playlist" file types. After that, PVD behaves the way I was expecting, and launches MPC for everything.

It wouldn't have occurred to me to check for that, as I never really use playlist files much myself. And I hadn't tested single-file behavior from PVD, since the bulk of my movies are in two or more parts.

Thanks a ton!

Aimhere

I realize the following may be outside the scope of PVD, but thought I'd ask anyway.

I'm having a problem with my file type associations and PVD. Specifically, AVI files are associated in Windows with Media Player Classic HomeCinema, yet when I click the "Play movie" button in PVD, it runs Winamp instead.

What's more, Winamp doesn't even start playing the movie. Instead, it displays an "Open" dialog, with the folder path set to "C:\Users\Public\Music\Sample Music" (no file selected).

I'm sure I must have had Windows set to run Winamp for AVI files at some point, then changed it to MPC-HC. But if MPC-HC is honored everywhere else in Windows as my player of choice for AVIs (e.g. double-clicking in Explorer), why isn't PVD recognizing the fact?

I've tried changing the association for AVI to other media players (Windows Media Player, VLC Player, J. River Media Center), but each time I test in PVD, all I get is Winamp!

Any ideas why PVD isn't launching the right app?

Running PVD 0.9.9.21 on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Aimhere

Hi,

I think an IMDB update may have broken the functionality of the IMDB people plugin (0.3.0.5) with regard to importing Biography information.

I don't normally use IMDB biographies for actors in my database, preferring to get that information from another source. And I usually get that information before running the IMDB plugin (which is set to not overwrite the Biography field if it's already occupied). But today, I forgot to do that, and ran IMDB anyway. Suddenly, my Biography field was filled with a huge, multi-page block of raw IMDB webpage text, with bits and pieces of Javascript thrown in!

I'd post a sample, but I'm afraid it would be too long to post here in its entirety.

Furthermore, I then tried to erase the garbage text and replace it with some normal bio info. But when I saved the changes, the correction wouldn't "take" (that is, the garbage remained). I eventually managed to get rid of it by clicking on another actor, then going back to the first one and deleting the garbage before saving it again, this time it worked. (Apparently PVD has difficulty handling blocks of imported text with so many lines? The imported garbage had to be at least 15 screen pages long, and I've never had trouble getting edits in text fields to "stick" until now.)

Nostra, please take a look at the IMDB "people" plugin. In the meantime, I'll have to be careful not to import IMDB biographies. Thanks!

Aimhere

Awesome. Nostra is da man.

I personally wouldn't use it, but the reviewer thought it was important.

Hi,

Thought I'd start a new thread with links to reviews of PVD.

Here's a review of DVD cataloging software on Gizmo's Freeware:

 http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-dvd-collection-software.htm

The author of the review rated PVD three (out of five), comparing it to the likes of DVD Profiler, Griffith, Eric's Movie Database, and Movie Collector. He liked its extensive list of features, but gave it dings for a "rudimentary GUI", lack of certain fields in the default configuration, and no UPC-based identification (apparently some of the others let you look up movies by UPC barcode instead of title when adding a new movie).

I registered for the site's forums, and posted a couple of comments on PVD.

If anyone else has seen PVD reviewed somewhere, please feel free to add to this thread! 

Aimhere

Hi,

When presented with the dialog for choosing which plugins to install or to update, a couple are listed as being for English ("EN") under the Language column, but the associated websites are NOT in English. In particular, "Beyazperde.com" and "Mymovies.it".

Nostra, could you please twiddle the code to correct this? Thanks.

Aimhere