Can DVD Profiler be imported to DVDPedia?

[NJRonbo]

Long time DVD Profiler user under Windows -- now migrating
to Mac.

I have a collection of 2100 DVD titles all catlogued under
DVD PROFILER.

I hesitate at even attempting to re-enter all that information
through DVDPedia. Thing is, I don't want to use Windows anymore
so that leaves me little choice.

Is there any way that all my DVD PROFILER information can
be imported to DVDPedia will all the necessary fields intact?

Look forward to the responses.

[Nora]

You can do an import from DVD Profiler, yes. You need to export the DVD Profiler file in XML format and then export the cover images. The folder for the covers should be called IMAGES, this is what DVD Profiler names it, and it should go into the same location as the exported XML file.
Once you've done that, go into DVDpedia and use the 'Import collection' command found under the File menu.

To give you the opportunity to check that the import went correct, the entries will be put into a library-independent collection first. (Marked with a grey collection icon instead of a blue one.) To make the import part of your library, select the imported collection and choose 'Include Collection in Library' from the File menu. After that you can delete the imported collection if you like.

[NJRonbo]

Nora,

If this works, I owe you BIG TIME!

Small problem....

Exporting the database in XML was easy.

IMAGES are another matter. There is no IMAGE directory,
and this could be because I am using the new 3.0 version that
has recently been released.

Any suggestions for getting those images?

[NJRonbo]

Nora,

Switched back to the older version of DVD Profiler.

I now have an IMAGES folder with all my cover scans.

The GOOD NEWS is that I just imported 2075 of my titles
from the collection.xml file. The BAD news is that all the
titles are INVISIBLE.

This may be because I haven't uploaded the cover art (images).
Can't figure out how to do that using the IMPORT command.

Any advice?

[Conor]

If they recently released version 3.0, they probably made some changes to the XML format. We would appreciate it if you could send us your XML file and two or three images so that we can try out the new XML file against our import and fix any bugs. The images are not linked to the title but the UPC code of the movie. The images should be in a folder named "IMAGES", as Nora mentioned, and named [UPC]f.jpg; the f is how DVD Profiler denotes that it's the front cover. The files should look like this before import:

Code: Select all

exportedFile.xml
IMAGES
    0123456789512f.jpg
    6123456789512f.jpg
    ...

There must also be a way to export the images from DVD Profiler 3.0. If you do run into how to export the images with the new version do let us know so that we will be aware of the procedure for other users who are migrating.

[NJRonbo]

Conor,

Please provide me with an email contact and I'll send you the
XML file.

I went back to the older version of DVD PROFILER so I am
ready to try this again.

I really need more detailed instructions how to import all the
titles and images. I have the .XML file and I have the IMAGES
folder. I see how to import the .XML, but have no idea how to
import the IMAGES as it looks like two different steps.

If you can give me easy-to-follow instructions, I'd be grateful.

In the meantime, absolutely, as soon as I get an email contact
address I'd be happy to send you the new DVD PROFILER .XML
and a few images.

[Nora]

You can find our email on the support page. (We don't list it here because it's got spam protection on our support page.)

DVDpedia will import the images automatically along with the data, as long as the IMAGES folder is located in the same location as the .xml file. But maybe the image naming changed for DVD Profiler. We'll be able to tell you more once we get the data.

[NJRonbo]

Well, I am happy to report that after switching back to the
older version of DVDPROFILER and following the instructions
above, I successfully imported my entire collection over to
DVDpedia.

For anyone looking to see if this works or not -- IT DOES!

However, at the time of this post, you can only do it if using
any DVD PROFILER version below 3.0.

To Nora and Conor I offer my utmost thanks and
appreciation for their assistance. I have almost 2100 DVD
titles that would have taken me WEEKS to enter manually into
DVDpedia. Thanks to you, in a matter of minutes, I successfully
imported the entire collection over complete with IMAGES and
full details of every title.

I run one of the largest Home Theater/DVD sites on the Internet.
We have well over 70,000 registered members (plus a million+
readers), most of which use some sort of software to catalog their
DVD titles.

We are already discussing DVDpedia in our forum. It came so
highly recommended that when I switched from a PC to MAC, it
was the first program I sought out.

On behalf of the members of my forum, I have been asked to
urge the authors of this program to support Boxed Sets so
that all DVDs within an entered boxed set will show up as individual
titles.

The nice thing about transferring DVD PROFILER to DVDpedia was
that this sort of boxed set breakdown was preserved in the transfer.
It would be a very nice addition to this software if DVDpedia would
be able to support the same breakdown.

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday I posted a message
that I was rather disappointed in this software. Today, after being
saved weeks of heartache by the staff who helped here, I am very
excited that my future with this program looks very favorable.....

....and to show you just how favorable......I just deleted DVD
PROFILER from my hard drive. One less program I will have
to resort to Vista and Parallels for.

[Conor]

Thank you for the good words. They make a difference; 90 percent of our clients come through word of mouth. We are glad we were able to help you and you were able to import your large collection into DVDpedia. We have an upcoming beta and will keep you in mind as you could place DVDpedia through its paces with a large collection.

For box sets there is a niffty trick to link all the movies together for easy browsing. Select all the movies in the box set and then start dragging them from the table view while holding down the option key and release them over the info view. This will link each movie to every other selected movie. This way when you have your collection sorted by something that does not group box sets, for example Title, you can still see the related movies and jump to them directly with one click.

Thank you also for sharing your exported DVD Profiler XML file with us so that we could update our importer.

[KiplingCat]

For box sets there is a niffty trick to link all the movies together for easy browsing. Select all the movies in the box set and then start dragging them from the table view while holding down the option key and release them over the info view. This will link each movie to every other selected movie. This way when you have your collection sorted by something that does not group box sets, for example Title, you can still see the related movies and jump to them directly with one click.

By any chance is there another nifty trick to change the order in which the links appear? No matter what I do it seems the link for the set always appears last in the entries for the individual titles.

[Conor]

The links are created in the same order they appear in the table. They can be reorder after creation in the links table view. The links can also be created by keeping the edit window open and dragging to the links table, allowing you to quickly reorder the set link to the top.

[KiplingCat]

Thanks Connor. I should have realized it would be done the easiest way possible. I was looking to make it more complicated than it is, probably a result of having to work on a Windoz machine 40 hours a week!

[danio]

I too have recently discovered and purchased DVDPedia; transferring from DVDProfiler. I have owned, used and previously recommended Profiler since '99 I think, it was early on in it's development. One of the most frustrating features the program had was it's lack of developer support in forums and the feeling your point of view was ignored; reading the forums here, that doesn't look to be the case.

My aim as a new Mac user is to move as much or all of my functions from PC software to Mac software. DVDProfiler was one of my big 'worries' as I've invested huge amounts of time in data input and scanning covers into the program, DVDPedia has almost removed that fear, at least sufficiently for me to make the swap.

I too then have found the importing of my DVDProfiler database to be swift and almost data complete. I'm currently going through a validation process of each title which will take me a while to complete (just short of 1300 in total). I've so far completed and uploaded (via the ftp sync) the first 180.

My collection is broadly Hollywood titles, recently I have almost exclusively acquired HD-DVD titles though I plan to support Bluray too in the near future - Casino Royale is my 'driver' here as it's not on HD-DVD

I have always participated in Beta programs and would be happy to be included in any future Beta testing here too; how does a person register to be considered?

Anyway, happy to be here and using this software!

[Conor]

Glad DVDpedia fits your needs. We do store the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray information about a disc in the media field. However we are still testing the support for these discs as Video_TS folders for those linking them directly, very few clients have Blu-Ray or HD-DVD capable drives. There is a testers user group at the top of this forum for those wishing to try out betas. But I have already included your email in our testers list, it's a simple email newsletter, so you don't need to sign up.

[DrPaul]

Hmm. I just upgraded DVDpedia to 3.4.4 and now my import of an export from DVD Profiler is totally munged.

If I don't resort after import the image and data is off by one item. If I sort then the image and the data do not match at all. In all cases the XML string for the audio is visible.

I am running DVD Profiler 2.5.0 Build:868 inside Virtual PC on top of Win2K on a Quad G5 and MacOS 10.4.9 with 2.5GB RAM. I periodically try to upgrade DVD Profiler to a later version but it usually does not work in Virtual PC... weird redraw artifacts typically.

Is there a location where I can download DVDPedia 3.4.3? I carelessly deleted the older version.

Regards

Paul.