Existing users, 
Data management, performance, stability: Not tested, due to the 10 CD limit of the unregistered version. (CDpedia might behave very differently when the database contains 1,000 CDs instead of 10.)
Interface: Clean, well-designed, integrates well with Mac OS X. Main view is customisable, and visible data can be edited, but editing full CD info requires a separate window.
Database design: Geared towards Western pop music collections. Adequate for this job, but inadequate for anything else. Two major flaws: no track "Composer" fields, and no provision for titles made up by more than one CD.
Data export: Fairly extensive export to plain text files, including HTML, CSV and tab-separated. Most export templates are HTML, but custom text-based templates can be added.
Data import: Import from CSV and tab-separated text (not tested), but not from tagged text. Direct import for some applications; direct import from iTunes database is limited (only playlists can be imported, not dismounted CDs). No import from CD Info.cidb, no custom templates for tagged/structured text. (Cover art import not tested.)
Data input (manual): Through CDpedia's form; well designed, but not customisable; limited copy/paste capabilities.
Data input (automatic): From on-line databases; info from on-line sources can also be added to existing data. General limitations are those of the databases: music other than Western pop is more often than not unavailable or incorrectly listed, classical music data is painfully mangled, etc. However, there are significant CDpedia-specific issues: no custom templates to access other sites; no spell checking; scanning mounted CDs is hit-and-miss; and others.
Scripting: No AppleScript support, so repetitive tasks can't be automated (huge flaw).
Conclusion: If stability and performance with large collections are good, then it's a useful tool for an average user with a collection of mostly Western pop music. The dedicated music lover, who wants his database to hold more data is going to be disappointed. CDpedia is equally unsuitable for classical music and for non-Western CDs. It doesn't handle well Macs with more than one CD/DVD drive, and its capabilities can't be extended by scripting.
CDpedia
CD cataloging app with net search, iTunes integration and iSight barcode scanning.
Version: 4.5.4
Not for Dedicated Collectors
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: Alex_6 Sunday, December 31 2006 @ 10:14 AM PST
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Less than a month
Recommend Product: NO
Overall Rating:
Ease of Use:
Features:
Price:
Comments
Not for Dedicated Collectors - gslusher
Your comments are well-taken and I hope that Bruji Software will read them and see if they can do something about them. A good way to show "Composer" would be very nice. I also agree about the titles with multiple CDs. (It's not just classical music, either: compilations and "career collections" often have 2+ CDs.)One of the problems is the frustrating inconsistency in the online information sources for CDs. Go to Amazon and get a list of tracks. Then, go to the iTunes Store and find the same CD. Notice that the track titles are often slightly different. (Even worse, on many compilation CDs, the artist for each track is given as the same, sometimes using the album title. I've had to go in and manually change the artists based upon another list.) Another problem is that CDs can be released in different markets/countries with the same title, but different tracks or the same CD (same tracks) has two different titles. For example, check Nana Mouskouri's discography. She has put out about 450 albums. (I am NOT kidding. She's sold something like 300 million albums, more than any female singer.) I have one that has one name on the CD insert, but shows up with a different name on the iTunes Store. Worse, Amazon had (may no longer) BOTH names. (One may be a re-release.)
There's not an easy solution for classical CDs, I expect, because the inconsistency in available information is even worse than pop music. Some sources list the movements of a concerto, for example, as "Adagio," etc., without the concerto name/number. Some do put in the larger work title and/or number, but AFTER the movement, so that they don't list together. (E.g., "Adagio Horn Concerto in G Major" and "Presto Horn Concerton in G Major.") Very often, one database (e.g., iTunes Store, Amazon) will use different conventions for different CDs. It would be nice if there were a conventional way to list classical music. I know that music librarians have good ways to do this, but are they being used by online databases? If so, let Bruji know.
It would also be helpful if there were more than one "line" for titles for classical music: one for the larger work, another for the particular movement. That would make searching and sorting much easier. Soundtrack albums could have the source (movie, TV show) and particular song in separate lines. However, that probably cannot be done automatically the way the available databases are screwed up.
Sunday, January 28 2007 @ 12:18 AM PST
Not for Dedicated Collectors - Alex_6
Another alternative to CDpedia, which I discovered since posting this review, is ReaderwareAW. I can't recommend it, because it has significant shortcomings of its own (no support for mounted CDs or CDDB/freedb, limited import/export capabilities, incomplete Unicode support -- and it's a Java app), but the database structure is superior to CDpedia's and comes much closer to what is required.> There's not an easy solution for classical CDs, I expect, because the
> inconsistency in available information is even worse than pop music.
Yes, there is inconsistency, but IMHO the real problem is CDpedia's design limitations. Inconsistency can be handled by different filters for different databases (e.g., EndNote or other reference managers).
> Very often, one database (e.g., iTunes Store, Amazon) will use
> different conventions for different CDs.
iTMS, Amazon, etc, are not in business to provide music collectors with free data -- they're in business to sell stuff. The free data is merely a sales aid, and it's kept to the minimum required for that purpose. The dedicated jazz fan, for instance, would very likely want to record in his CD collection manager such items as personnel, venue, and recording date for each track. The fact that those databases do not provide such data is no reason why CDpedia should have no means of storing and managing it.
> It would also be helpful if there were more than one "line" for titles
> for classical music: one for the larger work, another for the
> particular movement.
Again, the problem stems from CDpedia's design limitation. CDpedia's basic element is a record (CD) with multiple subrecords (tracks), i.e. a two-level hierarchy (CD > tracks). That's why it can't accommodate multi-CD sets, or classical music. A better, more flexible system would have a four-level hierarchy (set > CDs > groups > tracks) -- cf. iTunes' "Grouping" ID3 tag field).
Tuesday, January 30 2007 @ 04:57 AM PST
Not for Dedicated Collectors - Alex_6
Another alternative to CDpedia, which I discovered since posting this review, is ReaderwareAW. I can't recommend it, because it has significant shortcomings of its own (no support for mounted CDs or CDDB/freedb, limited import/export capabilities, incomplete Unicode support -- and it's a Java app), but the database structure is superior to CDpedia's and comes much closer to what is required.> There's not an easy solution for classical CDs, I expect, because the
> inconsistency in available information is even worse than pop music.
Yes, there is inconsistency, but IMHO the real problem is CDpedia's design limitations. Inconsistency can be handled by different filters for different databases (e.g., EndNote or other reference managers).
> Very often, one database (e.g., iTunes Store, Amazon) will use
> different conventions for different CDs.
iTMS, Amazon, etc, are not in business to provide music collectors with free data -- they're in business to sell stuff. The free data is merely a sales aid, and it's kept to the minimum required for that purpose. The dedicated jazz fan, for instance, would very likely want to record in his CD collection manager such items as personnel, venue, and recording date for each track. The fact that those databases do not provide such data is no reason why CDpedia should have no means of storing and managing it.
> It would also be helpful if there were more than one "line" for titles
> for classical music: one for the larger work, another for the
> particular movement.
Again, the problem stems from CDpedia's design limitation. CDpedia's basic element is a record (CD) with multiple subrecords (tracks), i.e. a two-level hierarchy (CD > tracks). That's why it can't accommodate multi-CD sets, or classical music. A better, more flexible system would have a four-level hierarchy (set > CDs > groups > tracks) -- cf. iTunes' "Grouping" ID3 tag field).
Tuesday, January 30 2007 @ 05:04 AM PST
Not for Dedicated Collectors - MarkSealey
> CDpedia might behave very differently when the database contains 1,000 CDs instead of 10.I have thousands - and it's just as excellent!
Sunday, January 28 2007 @ 01:02 PM PST
Not for Dedicated Collectors - Fred E--2008
More than a two-level hierarchy for multiple-CD sets might be nice for classical collections, but I get around that with a modified title for each CD within a set. E.g. Bach: Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 1/3, Bach: Matthäus-Passion BWV 244 2/3, etc. Three or four levels of hierarchy in fact might not be as transparent, and could be cluttered (I would like to hide a number of fields that I do not use anyway). Given that such information is not available from Amazon or FreeDB, I am happy not to bother with that additional manual entry. Downloaded track names often take care of the problem anyway. And regarding that issue, I often try to catalog a CD in two ways - one by bar code entry, the other by scanning the disk itself. One of them (not always the same method) produces track titles that are useful. If not, an import from iTunes' Gracenote track listings usually works. Readers of this may gather that almost all my classical collection is in the form of CDs. I can understand why those who download more would like tighter integration with iTunes, although iTunes's classical selection is quite limited. In general I am delighted with CDpedia as it is, particularly with instant searching across all fields.Saturday, May 05 2007 @ 06:44 AM PDT
Not for Dedicated Collectors - chinarider128
I have about 1600 CD's in CDpedia and the program is ultra fast and has never crashed. As far as the limitations, keep in mind there are 4 user definable fields in addition to the 36 info fields built in. Plus the summary field doesn't have to be limited to Amazon reviews...it can include any info you want. Personally, I have a lot of live recordings so I defined the extra fields as Venue, Date, Sound Source and Sound Quality. My standard CD's can be sorted and viewed exactly as I want them, and my live collections can be sorted and viewed in a different and more appropriate way. I have found the program to be fast, versatile, rock solid, and the developer to be very responsive. I have tried all the oher programs mentioned and CDpedia is by far the best.Friday, July 20 2007 @ 10:26 AM PDT
Alternatives - Alex_6
There are few alternatives to CDpedia. Delicious Library is a rather expensive toy; InCDius GH seems to have been abandoned; iCDc has a somewhat unusual interface and it appears to crash a little too often; and I haven't tried Music Collector because it required an installer and it didn't say what and where was going to be installed. There's also CDFinder, an excellent tool which does handle audio CDs (data is imported from freedb or from the local CD Remote Programs file), but, as a media cataloguer, it was designed for a different job.CDpedia could be much improved if it acquired some of the features of InCDius (automatic scanning of mounted CDs, customisable per-track or per-disc fields, extensive AppleScript support).
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Thursday, January 04 2007 @ 09:59 AM PST