I'm a huge physical media aficionado with a massive (at least compared to anyone else I know, with one POSSIBLE exception...  never seen his whole collection!) movie collection.

I was going to create my own database using a spreadsheet, but decided to see what was out there and ran across this (highly recommended) on a Google search.  I bought the full license, sight-unseen, based upon those, and now have it running on my office PC, my home theater PC, and an android version on my phone.

It's pretty nice overall...  I'm more than satisfied.  Using the UPC code numbers to enter it into the library is a great feature which is speeding me through my library quickly.  In only one case has the cover art I've found not been consistent with the physical copy I have, and I was able to update that (though I now have to update it on my other computer and on my phone, if possible...  not sure how to do it on the phone).

There are a few issues I've come across so far.  Quibbles, or just insufficient docuentation (presumably) I think.  Some may be solved, and I just haven't found the solution...  if so, I'd love to hear about that solution!

1)  It would be nice to have a "media library view" apart from the "working screen" which just shows... well, maybe a scrollable "bookshelf" with all the movies (with a hideable sorting tab?).  The subwindow is OK, but not exactly what I'm thinking about.  This is NOT a "functional" issue with the software, just a visual one... but it would be wonderful to be able to show someone my collection (so that they can pick something out) without having all the technical stuff in their face.

2)  I TRIED to enter stuff using my phone (scanning the UPC barcodes).  It worked...  seemingly.  That is, it found the entry, gave me a window with a "next" screen, then another...  and then nothing else.  No "finish entering it" button, nothing along those lines.

So...  am I missing something?  Is this actually non-working?  Or is there some further (non-obvious) step I need to take to get phone-scanned barcodes entered as entries into my collection database?

3)  Sort of as a corollary to #1...  I wonder how hard it would be to create a Roku app just to display the movie collection?  (Or an AppleTV app, or a Chromecast app, I suppose...)

4)  Believe it or not, I still have some VHS tapes in my library.  (Stuff that's never been re-released, etc.)  I've actually captured these via computer and written them to DVDs, in some cases...  but, is there anything out there similar which includes VHS tapes, laserdisks, whatever?  Or is there any way to bring them in here without causing problems with the "online database" I'm syncing with?

5)  I know that there's an add-on for keeping further data re: streaming service "digital copies."  I'm considering installing that, but I think this really belongs in the main application, as a separate tab.  A LOT of films come with "digital copies" in one form or another.  I have the "downloaded" ones (pretty much worthless at this point, as my PC identification info is long since changed so these are all lost to me!), but a lot of other versions (Amazon Prime, Ultraviolet->Fandango, Vudu, etc...  Google Play...  and lots of these are nominally "part of the box set."

I know I can enter that info into the notes fields, but it seems to me that it makes sense to incorporate that info into the database proper...  so, say, I can search my library for just the stuff that is also on my Vudu account, for example.  It seems like just a couple of additional fields.

The reason I'm disinclined (at least in part) to use the add-on is because I can't find any documentation re: it, so I don't even know if it does what I'd like it to do, and more importantly... because it then has to be loaded into every machine that MIGHT access that database library, wouldn't it?  (I mean, if there are new fields on a database, with the add-on, which I then attempt to read on a machine which DOESN'T have the add-on, how might that screw things up?  Without seeing the code, I can't possibly guess!)

Streaming should not ever be the "core element" of this software, IMHO.  But it's way too big of a factor in modern disk purchasing to neglect it.

6)  One LAST request.  The "entry" popup window for new disks... I'm running the program on my HTPC in my media room while I'm entering most of my disks.  I usually leave the screen resolution of that at 1366×768, leaving the standard windows font sizes readable from my couch.  However, the program itself seems to really need a higher resolution, so I've readjusted my screen to 1920x1080 for the purposes of running this program.  The problem is, the "UPC code entry popup" for bringing in new disks uses a very small font...  making it nearly impossible to enter stuff from my media room couch, and requiring me to stand right in front of the screen in order to do this stuff.  Maybe...  make the "entry screen" window there use a larger (and bolder?) font size in the code entry field?

All in all, I love the software.  The above are, as I said, mostly "quibbles," but things that would add a lot of value to the software, as far as I'm concerned.  Take it for what it's worth!

Thanks for listening!

Quoting CLBrown:

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I know I can enter that info into the notes fields, but it seems to me that it makes sense to incorporate that info into the database proper...  so, say, I can search my library for just the stuff that is also on my Vudu account, for example.  It seems like just a couple of additional fields.

I would suggest using Tags instead of Notes. Makes it easy to filter for Vudu, or whatever.

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The reason I'm disinclined (at least in part) to use the add-on is because I can't find any documentation re: it, so I don't even know if it does what I'd like it to do, and more importantly... because it then has to be loaded into every machine that MIGHT access that database library, wouldn't it?

First of all, the database is not designed to be shared directly by multiple PCs. Sharing is done through the main PC and offers a subset of the functions (similar to how the phone apps work). Secondly, if you were to add custom fields through a plugin, and then access the database w/o the plugin, I'm sure that this would work fine.

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It would be nice to have a "media library view" apart from the "working screen" which just shows... well, maybe a scrollable "bookshelf" with all the movies (with a hideable sorting tab?).

You get that with the iOS app on the iPad.

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Believe it or not, I still have some VHS tapes in my library.  (Stuff that's never been re-released, etc.)  I've actually captured these via computer and written them to DVDs, in some cases...  but, is there anything out there similar which includes VHS tapes, laserdisks, whatever?  Or is there any way to bring them in here without causing problems with the "online database" I'm syncing with?

You can create custom media types for that. (See Tools / Edit Media Types in the menu). That's fine for your local database, but they can of course not be contributed to the online database.