DVD Profiler is nice and all but if you're like me, you also have laserdiscs, VHS, Video CDs, DVR recordings, and online movie downloads, and DVD Profiler can't include them.  I have a considerable amount of movies not on either DVD or Blu-ray.  And I have tons of TV shows that will never ever be on any home video format at all (Oscar shows, rare TCM movies, and the likes).  In my case, DVD Profiler just seems woefully inadequate to catalog my collection.  So I decided to take matters into my own hands.  It had to involve IMDb, since it is the only possible place for me get info on any title conceivable.

If you have programming skills then you must have thought of doing something like this, or may have already done it.  First, I installed the Python programming language.  Then I installed IMDbPY, a set of Python scripts that can retrieve data from IMDb.  I modified the scripts to suit my particular needs.  I created a text file of all my movie titles in my collection.  I imported the file to a Python script, and got a list of IMDb movie IDs (e.g. 0157059) in return.  I used the movie IDs and ran another script, and got a list of cast and crew of all those movies.  I transferred all the IMDb data I got to my choice of database program (in my case, Microsoft Access).  Lastly, I wrote a few vbscript web pages that connects to the Access database.  The webpages let me search for names and return the info I want.

I had thought this project would take me ages, but it didn't!  I have 5000+ movies and TV shows in my collection and it only took me a week and half to get the necessary IMDb data for about 4000 shows into my database.  And the process was not entirely automatic either - I had to look up IMDb movie ID one by one.  But IMDbPY performed pretty speedily.  It took only 1-2 seconds to look up an ID.  It took just less than an hour to retrieve the complete cast and crew of a THOUSAND movies.

Of course, I had looked for third-party software that can import IMDb data but none worked as I had wanted, mostly because they retrieved incomplete data.  With IMDbPY, I was able to retrieve COMPLETE cast and crew, complete everything, just like you see them on the website.

Has anyone here actually done this??  Now I'm able to say that I have.

Quoting movie_madness:

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DVD Profiler is nice and all but if you're like me, you also have laserdiscs, VHS, Video CDs, DVR recordings, and online movie downloads, and DVD Profiler can't include them.

Really?  It includes mine.

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Quoting scotthm:

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Quoting movie_madness:

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DVD Profiler is nice and all but if you're like me, you also have laserdiscs, VHS, Video CDs, DVR recordings, and online movie downloads, and DVD Profiler can't include them.

Really?  It includes mine.

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Locally, Scott, yes. But that is all.

Quoting KinoNiki:

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So you have succeeded in creating another IMDb clone... You're definitely not the first nor the last person to do so, but personally I fail to see what the point is.

DVD Profiler is unique in that it tries to capture what is actually on the disc/film credits. Of course it requires more work than simply scraping data that is already available on the net. But if one doesn't care about the quality or source I guess the latter is acceptable for some people. I use IMDb myself and each tool has its use but I wouldn't like to mix them.

Not an IMDb clone, but something that has the advantage of DVD Profiler, except that it also includes my LDs, VCDs, VHS, etc.  What I did was I imported IMDb's data and linked them to my own collection data, so I can get search results that are actually linked to my collection.  If I search IMDb for something, I get a long list of titles and credits, and they don't tell me if I have them in my collection or not.

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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Quoting movie_madness:

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DVD Profiler is nice and all but if you're like me, you also have laserdiscs, VHS, Video CDs, DVR recordings, and online movie downloads, and DVD Profiler can't include them.

Actually, DVD Profiler can, it's called custom media types.  Using those, you can track anything you want...even wine.

I've only got about 15 bottles of wine and I tend to drink them anyway, so I'm not sure it's worth bothering. 

Can you use it for cacti?

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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Quoting movie_madness:

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DVD Profiler is nice and all but if you're like me, you also have laserdiscs, VHS, Video CDs, DVR recordings, and online movie downloads, and DVD Profiler can't include them.

Actually, DVD Profiler can, it's called custom media types.  Using those, you can track anything you want...even wine.

Hmm, I wonder if Kino or Universal make any wine that comes in wide screen and region-free.  But joking aside, the main flaw I notice in DVD Profiler is that it doesn't have a SEPARATE movie database and a SEPARATE *disc* database.  DVDP seems to use one big database with all the movie and disc details.  If you enter 3 editions of the same movie (say, DVD, BD, HD DVD) into the database, you have to enter the same movie details such as cast and crew 3 different times.  If I create a custom VHS media type like you suggest, I can't enter a VHS edition of a movie and have the movie details "carry over" from an existing DVD or BD edition. 

The technical term used by database professional (which I am one, and I'm sure Ken Cole is too) is that the database is not "normalized", and that leads to a lot of redundant data.

It can even serve as babe profiler. Imagine the ar data, lol. We wont even talk about runtime.

But your custom media data is not contributable. There is info somewhere around here about creating clone profiles.

Quoting TheMadMartian:

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Yes, you can.  I am not at my home computer, so can't check the exact menu selection, but there is a 'Copy DVD/Paste DVD' function that will allow you to copy and paste whatever data you desire into the new profile.

There is still the problem that a lot of movies are not on any home video medium and thus, not in DVDP's database.  I have thousands of those.  And as I said in my previous posts, a lot of DVDP entries have blank cast and crew too.  The crux of the matter is DVDP just doesn't have a big enough database.  I understand, of course, far fewer people manage DVDP's database than those who manage IMDb.

I stand corrected that you can copy and paste entries.  But here is still the problem that if you make corrections on one, you have to do the same for other entries.