Ted Todorov
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2000
- Messages
- 3,709
I recently migrated my DVD database from ReaderWare to DVDPedia and will say a few words about DVD Pedia and Mac cataloging software in general.
First thing first: DVDPedia (along with CDPedia & BookPedia -- for anyone with a comprehensive collection I recommend getting all three) is an excellent new program and I highly recommend it.
Ironically I ended up getting it after a friend kept pushing me to try Delicious Library. Delicious Library, while a nice idea with a good user interface is far from being a usable program for any serious collector. It is buggy, and only supports data import from Amazon -- not having other sources especially the IMDB (and FreeDBD/CDDB and Library of Congress for other media) makes it a non option for any serious collector. D.L.'s support is also bad -- my e-mail concerning a program crash wasn't answered for over a week. One with suggestions never was. Delicious Library also doesn't seem to release patches as bugs are fixed -- only major releases (so far 1.0 and 1.1), so it may be a long wait until the current crop of bugs are fixed. Indeed the only unique to Delicious Library feature, is it's ability to scan barcodes using iSight, which can work better than a CueCat on small barcodes. On the other hand D.L. does not support unmodified CueCats which are much more common than the $149 iSight...
Delicious Monster, the company behind Delicious Library has some talented programmers and some big ideas, so maybe a year from now it can be revisited. For now it makes a cute demo and nothing more.
DVDPedia is a far superior product. They do have very good IMDB support, which produces an elegant cast list as well as filling numerous other fields. They do support Amazon, but through plugins they also support a few other international e-tailers. And proper CueCat support.
DVD Pedia has:
-- an excellent, Mac OS X user interface
-- some great features including easy to use .Mac and iPod export, ability to include and play previews for your DVDs, etc.
--it's very fast, especially compared to ReaderWare.
--a functional import from ReaderWare, though that took trial and error: the trick is to use a TAB delimited file for export and to limit the number of fields you try to import -- it is better to do an IMDB update once your records are in DVDPedia
--pretty good support, including forums on their website (Bruji.com) and generally fast response to e-mail.
--it is still a relative young and slightly buggy piece of software, but one that is being improved and is clearly headed in the right direction.
--and as it is right now (version 1.6.3) it is clearly superior to ReaderWare 2.91.
Edit: The reason that I moved away from ReaderWare is that it is an ugly Java cross platform program, that will never have the take-your-breath-away goodies that native Mac programs like DVDPedia or Delicious Library can and do have -- everything from the Address Book integration to integrated .Mac/iPod support and indeed to iSight scanning -- and of course the clean, easy, logical, pleasant and pleasing user interface. Once you taste first class Mac OS X software, it just isn't possible to use anything else.
Ted
First thing first: DVDPedia (along with CDPedia & BookPedia -- for anyone with a comprehensive collection I recommend getting all three) is an excellent new program and I highly recommend it.
Ironically I ended up getting it after a friend kept pushing me to try Delicious Library. Delicious Library, while a nice idea with a good user interface is far from being a usable program for any serious collector. It is buggy, and only supports data import from Amazon -- not having other sources especially the IMDB (and FreeDBD/CDDB and Library of Congress for other media) makes it a non option for any serious collector. D.L.'s support is also bad -- my e-mail concerning a program crash wasn't answered for over a week. One with suggestions never was. Delicious Library also doesn't seem to release patches as bugs are fixed -- only major releases (so far 1.0 and 1.1), so it may be a long wait until the current crop of bugs are fixed. Indeed the only unique to Delicious Library feature, is it's ability to scan barcodes using iSight, which can work better than a CueCat on small barcodes. On the other hand D.L. does not support unmodified CueCats which are much more common than the $149 iSight...
Delicious Monster, the company behind Delicious Library has some talented programmers and some big ideas, so maybe a year from now it can be revisited. For now it makes a cute demo and nothing more.
DVDPedia is a far superior product. They do have very good IMDB support, which produces an elegant cast list as well as filling numerous other fields. They do support Amazon, but through plugins they also support a few other international e-tailers. And proper CueCat support.
DVD Pedia has:
-- an excellent, Mac OS X user interface
-- some great features including easy to use .Mac and iPod export, ability to include and play previews for your DVDs, etc.
--it's very fast, especially compared to ReaderWare.
--a functional import from ReaderWare, though that took trial and error: the trick is to use a TAB delimited file for export and to limit the number of fields you try to import -- it is better to do an IMDB update once your records are in DVDPedia
--pretty good support, including forums on their website (Bruji.com) and generally fast response to e-mail.
--it is still a relative young and slightly buggy piece of software, but one that is being improved and is clearly headed in the right direction.
--and as it is right now (version 1.6.3) it is clearly superior to ReaderWare 2.91.
Edit: The reason that I moved away from ReaderWare is that it is an ugly Java cross platform program, that will never have the take-your-breath-away goodies that native Mac programs like DVDPedia or Delicious Library can and do have -- everything from the Address Book integration to integrated .Mac/iPod support and indeed to iSight scanning -- and of course the clean, easy, logical, pleasant and pleasing user interface. Once you taste first class Mac OS X software, it just isn't possible to use anything else.
Ted