June 2009

Your Collection's Corner

OK, I’ve got all these movies on disc -- how do I keep track of them?

Serious film buffs often ask me about the best way to keep track of their collections of movies. I watch movies almost every night, and take detailed notes about anything I might want to refer back to. Most of you probably aren’t that obsessive, but everyone asks questions like . . .

1. I know I’ve seen that actor before. What’s his name? What other films has he appeared in?
2. Have these two actors worked together before?
3. What other movies has this director directed?
4. How many of my favorite films came out in 2003?
5. Have I seen this film before?

There are dozens of ways to ferret out the answers. What’s a film lover to do? It all depends on your level of devotion to detail, and the intensity of your desire to educate yourself about the movies you see. The system that can answer most of the questions above is a simple database. But for those who go cross-eyed whenever they open Microsoft Access, there are easier options.

The most important step in setting up a database is making sure it can provide all the data that are important to you. If you only occasionally want to know who the head gaffer was, then that’s something you can look up elsewhere. If the film’s composer is of vital importance to you, then there should be a Composer field in your database.

For instance, here’s what I consider important:

There are a few cryptic fields that I should clear up. Rating is my own judgment of the film. OAR is Original Aspect Ratio (Yes or No). Cult refers to films listed in the three volumes of Danny Peary’s fantastic Cult Movies. (I collect the films listed therein.) Source refers to items I may have recorded off the air. Movie asks if it is or isn’t a movie. Recorded is a date, and also refers to movies recorded off the air. CC means has it been (or should be) the subject of a "Collector’s Corner" column.

Let’s start with two ways of putting together a film database.

EMDB

Eric’s Movie Database (EMDB) is the simplest of the programs, and it’s free (www.emdb.tk) -- but don’t think it’s a lightweight. It comes with most of the fields I’ve listed, and a good number more. Its only drawback is that you can’t add your own categories, such as Songs Used in Film, or Oscars Won. The database commands are limited to Sort and Search, which may be the biggest problem for those used to MS Access. Say you want to find all the directors from the 1940s who made Oscar-winning pictures when they were between 30 and 40 years old. This would be no problem for a more full-featured database, but EMDB can’t do it.

Still, this little program is so good that I’m considering dropping Access (see below). EMDB has one feature that’s a Godsend for collectors: as soon as you type in a movie’s title and hit "Search IMDb," EMDB goes to The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and pulls down the film’s actors, director, plot line, length, the year of its release, its country of origin, and a picture of the cover of the Blu-ray or DVD edition. The savings in time, especially if you have a large collection, is amazing, and the number of false readings is about nil. The creator of EMDB asks for a small donation; although the program works fine even if you don’t donate, I gave Eric what was suggested, $10, and feel it would be a bargain for a good deal more. And he responds personally to requests for help. Dynamite program.

Microsoft Access

I could just as easily have chosen as an exemplar OpenOffice’s Base, or any other big relational database -- all allow much more precision in the manipulation and defining of data. As in the example above, of Oscar-winning directors of a certain age from a certain era, these big databases can sift and sort on any combination of fields, with macros and user-definable lines, all to help us see the film forest by showing us the trees.

The illustration above is straight from my Access 2007. Over the years, I’ve added and subtracted fields from this program, using it to form the backbones of databases of music recordings, wines, friends’ addresses, and books I want to read. The learning curve is steep, but after that Access works seamlessly, offering complete manipulation of data. But unlike EMDB and Base, both of which are free, Access costs $219.

There are also Internet data-management tools. Websites that deliver bits to movie lovers, whether via the Web or discs in the mail, all know that their futures will depend on their being able to deliver both intelligent content and high-definition media. Netflix and IMDb are trying to figure out the best route, and though neither has come up with it yet, I’m sure they soon will.

Netflix

Although Netflix currently makes money by renting DVDs and Blu-rays through the mail, they know that the future lies in streaming video via the Web, and they’ve dipped their toe in those waters with the Roku. They’re also looking over their shoulder at the folks at IMDb, which is owned by Amazon.com. Netflix knows that Amazon won’t cede the streaming-video business without a fight, and the current battlefield is value-adds.

Netflix’s ability to keep track of your collection and what you’ve seen is rudimentary at best. First, it tracks only what you’ve rented from Netflix. Even for that, you have to dig around until you come to a button on the Customer Service page, which pulls up a list of the last 100 DVDs you’ve rented. Hit another button and your entire rental history is displayed. Not much help for our needs. The search function is better, though it covers only films that have been released on DVD and that Netflix carries.

Netflix’s raison d’être is its recommendation engine. It keeps track of how you rate the films you rent from Netflix, then suggests other titles it thinks you might like. The concept is a winner -- if they can make it work. I’ve rated about 1500 films for Netflix, and still regularly get about 20% bad advice. Still, the concept is a winner. If Netflix is to dominate video streaming the way they’ve dominated DVD rentals, they’re going to have to figure out some way to make all these products click together.

IMDb

IMDb is the single best website for movie information. The fact that the information it lists is almost always accurate, despite its being largely the result of the work of volunteers, is amazing. IMDb’s ability to sort and search movie data is unparalleled. Want to know how many times Fred MacMurray was directed by Billy Wilder? Go to the bottom of the actor’s page, type Billy Wilder in the box, and bingo, there’s your answer: Double Indemnity and The Apartment. In the data category, IMDb wins.

IMDb does less well at keeping track of your needs. A tab near the top of the page, "My Movies," allows you to enter the titles of films you own or have seen, though it takes a bit of careful renaming to make it genuinely useful. Once you’ve entered your movies, sort and search functions are available, as well as direct hyperlinks to the films you’ve entered.

Bottom line

If you’re satisfied with EMDB’s lack of user-defined fields, then its price and quality make it a no-brainer. It gives you a close look at your data via sorts and sifts, and it beats all the competition in ease of use. IMDb and Netflix both have promise, but for our purposes aren’t really useful yet. The main advantage with Netflix is that you’re just a click away from renting a DVD. But if you want full control of your data in a number of ways, you need a relational database like Microsoft Access.

. . . Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com

• Go Back