There are a handful of movie cataloguing programs and there were no comprehensive comparison/review so i thought i'd help out anyone else looking.
I tested these 3 programs:
1. Xtreme Movie Collection v1.5.3
2. Collectorz.com Movie Collector Pro v3.1
3. Extreme Movie Manager v1.2 b1Let me just clarify that I was looking for these features:
- Import film names from my old catalogue programs,
- Download film info & comments from IMDB or similar (offering me choices if there are several films with the same name),
- Download DVD covers from IMDB or Amazon or other,
- Export to standard formats like delimited text, XML, etc.
- Simple, clear interface to browse & search films by name, category, etc.
That's not too much to ask from a dedicated movie cataloguing app. Also let me clarify that I don't intend to read through pages of help files to find what should be an easy-to-find feature. So, if I can't find it then it ain't there.
1. Xtreme Movie Collection v1.5.3
This program's set-up weighed in at 13Mb. What for? It's completely lacking in features. It's like a poorly customised Microsoft Access form. :x
As far as i can find, you have to fill in the boxes manually. There's a "Lookup on IMDB" button but it just loads the IMDB Web page. No automated features.
The only 2 large info boxes are Plot and Special Features. The latter assumes we're cataloguing DVDs. Well my collection is mostly DivX so that's just wasting screen space. One benefit of the lack of features is that you won't get lost. Besides basic movie info, you can list the media type, movie format, purchase info, viewing date, a personal rating slider, lending info, and one DVD cover picture (for which you can only select an image on your hard disk).
XMC has simple searching and sorting.
Absolutely no importing or exporting or catalogue management. If you want to migrate to any other program in future you can forget it. You're stuck with this. Unless you're a techie and go to the program folder and manually work out which files to back-up, you'll be shafted if the program or your PC are corrupted. :devil:
My recommendation is to not touch this amateur software.
2. Collectorz.com Movie Collector Pro v3.1
The set-up size was only 2.17Mb. The first thing I noticed was the ability to create & manage several catalogues. I need only one, but it's good to know it has the flexibility to expand.
MCP can only import from it's own file format which is great for transferring movie info from 1 collection to another, but absolutely no use for importing from my old ZipCat Pro databases. ZipCat Pro is kind enough to export to a usable text format, so any decent program should import this easily importable info. Not MCP. MCP can, however, export to text and XML which is useful if you ever want to migrate to another program.
The interface is like working with Microsoft Access 97. The icons are reasonably straightforward to understand but could be better.
MCP does a good job of downloading movie info from IMDB and others. I tested this feature with Jackie Chan's Drunken Master 2, as there are 2 films of this name and MCP offered me a handful of choices. A neat feature is to check out the IMDB feature for each choice before choosing the correct one. Another neat feature is to just enter the IMDB number, which means no messing about.
MCP can store a lot of info about each film: movie format, release dates, cast, genre, film studio, audience rating, site URL, IMDB number (although it didn't fill in automatically), colour/b&w, movie format & region, purchase & viewing info, 4 user-defined fields, tape label & starting time, personal rating slider, front & back DVD cover picture (online query didn't work for back cover), DVD extra features, and large Plot and own notes boxes. There is also loans management section. One thing that is missing is downloading user comments from IMDB.
You can view films by genre, director, etc. and there is a powerful search filter feature using AND and OR, but no simple search feature.
The screen is split vertically by a spreadsheet-style film list on the left and an HTML page with movie info & cover pic on the right. The left pane can be customised and you can view tiny thumbnails instead. The thumbnails really are tiny and it's difficult to see. Sure, the film names are below but it defeats the point of using thumbnails. The HTML film info in the right pane looks tidy and it would be useful if it could be customised easily. You can choose between 2 styles which are very similar. I want to be able to see rating and plot at the top, directly followed by comments below that.
Overall, it's reasonably organised and straightforward to use and has simple customisation in everything EXCEPT the main movie info view, which is the one place that it matters for me. MCP does the job reasonably well but still misses some of the important points.
3. Extreme Movie Manager v1.2 b1
This took over 10 seconds to load up. Not really that long but noticeable. The set-up size was 7Mb.
The interface is more modern than the other 2 programs. It's more like what Windows 2000 / XP programs should be like.
Great catalogue database management! Easy to follow.
Browsing and searching for movies is more straightforward here. There is a quick-find box in the bottom-right corner of the interface which makes searching easier.
xMM catalogues actors as well as movies, which is a great addition, importing all the actor info & photo from IMDB. It stores LOTS of info about films: genre & sub-category, release year, rating (IMDB rating is automatically imported), original language & your media language, media info, plot & tagline (imported from IMDB), Web link & official site link (automatically imported), extensive film team info (auto import), loan info, user comments (auto import from IMDB), extra notes, FULL media info: xMM automatically catalogues your DivX files' audio & video codec & bitrate & other info!! How cool is that?!! And you can just drag'n'drop your files onto the xMM window to be catalogued!!! You can also add subtitle info, DVD format & region info and VHS info including staring position and packaging info. You can add up to 6 movie filenames and 2 trailer filenames, as well as the name of the media player to be used. xMM can also store CD label info and total file size. Still more: purchase / acquisition info, movie awards, date seen, colour/b&w, 10 user-defined text boxes, 1 user-defined large memo box.
xMM can change the view from editable text boxes to HTML-style MovieCards view as well as Thumbnail view. The Thumbnail view only displays Thumbnails at the moment and you can't click on a thumbnail to view the movie info. I believe the programmers will fix this in the next version. Still, the thumbnails are reasonably sized and it's like browsing at your local Blockbuster Video.
The MovieCards view has several choices to change the view. Sadly most of them are very similar, but I've seen more are downloadable from the program's official Web site. The default MovieCards are ok. They do the job.
xMM has AMAZING film info and cover image download ability! :eek: It downloads and stores several images from all over the Web including the large high quality DVD covers from Amazon. You can add info from several sources. Did i mention that there is a DVD covers manager? Unlike the other 2 programs, you can add several pictures for each movie. xMM does bring up an error box sometimes when downloading film info from IMDB but it does offer to Retry which always works so it's not really a problem. You can download a fix from the program's Web site. There is a "Chain" feature which I read is useful for foreign films for which you can't find much info in IMDB. It's supposed to check foreign film sites for info. I tried this feature with 1 film name but it gave me an error that i hadn't done something right so I just left it.
In fact, the program works around scripts and you can write your own scripts if you feel adventurous, otherwise stick to the huge choice already available in the program.
As i said before, the interface looks neater than the other 2 programs but the toolbar buttons aren't always obvious, but are certainly easy on the eyes.
Nearly forgot: importing & exporting. xMM has cool import ability: you can add movie by listing movie titles (which worked perfectly from my old ZipCat Pro exported list!!), or you can tell xMM to add movie by looking at files on your hard disk, or you can tell xMM to add movies from CDs that you insert in your CD/DVD drive. Sooooo cool!! I haven't tried out the last 2 features so don't blame me if they are buggy, but i haven't read of any problems with them. Exporting: there is a export management window. It can export as many fields as you like to one or several separate files to 7 different formats!!
including Delimited TXT, Excel spreadsheet, its own MovieCard format, XHTML and HTML. In future, there will be an option to export to NFO as well.
Phew, more features: Multiple Changes Manager, directly play moview or trailers, catalogue statistics.
My personal recommendation is eXtreme Movie Manager. :lovers:
Get it now!! It does a LOT more than the other 2 programs and is more reliable. I did read a warning of a crack not working with this program but I downloaded it from the SR main site only a few days ago and it worked perfectly.
Hope this helps,
May
