Collectorz.com Movie Collector - 2.1.2

If you own 100 or more DVDs (or other movie formats), this program is a must-buy. The cost of the program is roughly equivalent to that of one or two DVDs depending upon which version of the program you purchase. I have never written a review, nor am I affiliated in any way with the company producing this program.

My movie collection consists of about 600 DVDs, 100 VCDs, 200 ‘files’ (avi, mpg, wmv, etc.) and a handful of VHS tapes. I needed to get these movies organized. I tried trial versions of many, many different programs; DVD Sphere, DVDTheque, Movies Database, etc., then I stumbled upon Movie Collector. This program is light-years beyond anything of the others.

Pros:

‘Add Movie’ – Movie Collector (MC) allows you to search multiple sources for specific movie information. There are twelve sources to choose from, just checkmark the source you desire. Want a simple, straightforward description of the movie; go to ‘IMDb’. Want a detailed review and a description of the DVD’s special features; try one of the Amazon sources. Your choice; use as few or as many sources as you like. The download usually includes a ‘jpg’ file of the DVD cover. I went right to the ‘Advanced’ screen when ‘Adding Movies Automatically’. I found that ‘IMDb’ gave me the most succinct details as I wasn’t interested in DVD Special Features or a long review by a movie critic (like the Amazon sources). I often had to use the Amazon sources for music concert DVDs, or specific seasons of ‘series’ (e.g. The Sopranos First Season). You may also add a movie manually, say a VCD you made of martial arts fights.

‘Edit Movie’ – MC allows you to edit many different items of each movie. Is the downloaded title too long; just edit away. You can edit the genre, or even add your own. ‘Edit Movie’ allows you to change Title, Title Sort, Edition, Format, Genre, Release Date, Language, Subtitles, Region and lots more. Finally ‘Edit Movie’ allows you to assign your personal rating.

‘Columns’ – MC allows you to add or delete columns, drag-resize columns, shift columns, etc. Anyone familiar with iTunes should have no trouble with Movie Collector’s column functions.

‘Sorting’ – Like iTunes, MC allows you to just click a column heading for an alpha or numeric sorting. Sort by Title, Genre, Rating, etc.

‘Folders’ – What a nice feature. This function allows you to view your collection by Actor, Director, Genre, etc. and all within folders, really a nice feature.

‘Lists’ – This is where MC really shows its versatility. You can add any name to any list. As an example, I added ‘Instructional’ to the ‘Genre List’.

‘Search’ – Pretty straightforward, just type in any word and the results show. I tried ‘rabbit’ and ‘Harvey’ was singled out.

‘File’ – Sounds simple, but the ‘Save’ and ‘Save As’ function makes for a very easy backup of the ‘.mvc’ data file, just save the file to multiple locations to preserve your hard earned efforts.

‘View’ – Options include List, Thumbnails or Folders (Actors, Directors, etc.). The right side of the screen shows Movie Details. The view portion of Movie Details is also adjustable.

‘Loan Item’ – An easy to use function where names, dates lent, dates to return, etc. are added. This information can be added as a column.

Cons:

‘Add Movie’ – If a movie, especially a foreign movie, has several different titles a search of ‘IMDb’ often produced no results as MC does not seem to have the capability of searching for alternate titles. It was fairly easy to get around this; I simply kept the ‘IMDb.com’ site open and would type in the movie title that I possessed (e.g. ‘The Promise’) and ‘IMDb.com’ would give me the original title (e.g. ‘Wu ji (2005)’). I would then cut-and-paste that name to MC’s ‘Add to queue’ window and the correct movie would appear in the results.

A similar problem occurred when a movie title was too short (e.g. ‘Monster’). MC limits a search to 200 movies. A short movie title often excludes the desired movie from this results list. This was again easy to get around by searching ‘IMDb.com’, finding the desired movie, then cut-and-paste to MC (be sure to include the year).

‘Genre’ – When downloading movie details, multiple movie genres are often included in each movie (e.g. Action, Adventure, Romance). MC does not seem to have the ability to sort by these individual genres other than through the ‘Search’ function.

‘File’ – MC creates a ‘DVD Image’ folder that contains the (mostly) ‘jpg’ files of DVD cover art. To save this file, you must use Finder (or equivalent) rather than Movie Collector.

‘Manual’ – The manual is possibly just too basic, but in hindsight, the program is so easy to use that the simplicity is merited.

It was fun inputting my collection. The movie details brought forth many memories and the desire to re-watch a lot of good movies.