computer died

[spanky]

Hi all,
A little while back, my mac suffered a catastrophic failure. Fortunately, I was able to recover the harddrive, and extract the data for use on my new windows pc. Is there a way to salvage my dvdpedia library, and avoid having to re-log my 500 or so titles/metadata?

[Conor]

So your new machine is a Window software computer? DVDpedia is Mac only. However the data is stored in an open format called SQLite, that you should be able to read under Windows. You will have to find software to do that on Windows. The file would be on your rescued hard drive at ~/Library/Application Support/DVDpedia/Database.

[spanky]

Hi Conor, thanks for your help. I am indeed using windows for the time being, so I suppose I'll have to find a new program to import this database into. I navigated to the folder you mentioned, and found the following files:

Covers/
Plug-ins/
Templates/
autofiss.xml
backup1Month.dvdpd
backup2Months.dvdpd
backup3Months.dvdpd
Database.dvdpd
temppage.html

I suppose Database.dvdpd is the file I want? Thanks again for your help.

[Conor]

Database.dvdpd is indeed the file with all the text info, the "uid" of the entries in the file link to the covers in Covers. If a file has uid 1, then the cover would be Covers/1.jpg. The trick is no program will display it as nicely as DVDpedia. There are a number of SQLite browsers for Windows. The trick is deciding how you want the data and what you would like to do with it on Windows. I even think Excel might be able to read the file, certainly Access. You can then massage it into your preferred form.

[spanky]

Thanks again Conor. I tried both excel and access, with no success. The first bit of software you linked to, SQLite Database Browser, is able to open Database.dvdpd, but I'm having trouble deciphering the content. I had hoped it would be a simple table, but I've obviously miscalculated the complexity of the SQLite format.
I've found a number of dvd library programs for windows that allow the import of an excel file, but none that well let me import an SQLite file. Is there a simple means of converting this database?

[Conor]

Use SQLite Database Browser open the Database.dvdpd file and then select "Browse" from the tabs. From there select the "zEntry" table. This is the information you really want. It will include all the info about your movies. Then on one of the menus there should be a "Export->Table as CSV File". With that file you will be able to import almost all the info into several programs that do text files (links, credits and what collection and entry was in will be missing). It has a lot of columns you might not be interested in, but with the title and director column it should be enough to get you started in a Windows program.

Otherwise send us the file Database.dvdpedia file and I can run DVDpedia and use the DVDpedia export to get you same CSV file back that you would get via the export above, since DVDpedia has several export options. Or even a more limited set if you tell me what fields you would like exported.

[spanky]

Hi Conor,
I was worried at first, as my "zEntries" table just had two coumns of numbers. However, the "zEntry" file had everything, and I was able to export it as a csv! Thank you for all of your help; I've been cringing at the prospect of re-entering this data for months, but it seems you've saved the day!

[Conor]

Excellent news.

Sorry about the typo, the "zEntries" is the mapping of what collections an entry was in instead of the actual data.