Importing large collections from other CD/DVD organizers

[bradandbree]

Hi all,
I am considering purchasing the CD and DVD apps to catalog my collections. Currently, I'm using MyMusic for my CDs, which is now defunct, and DVDAttache for my DVDs, which as a freeware app is fine but limited in support and is frequently flaky in performance. My first attempt at exporting my DVD collection as XML and importing into DVDpedia went nowhere -- absolutely nothing happened when I selected my XML file. Thought it might be a trial version thing, so I created a new "collection" in DVDAttache with only three titles, exported as XML, tried again, and still nothing. My 1000+ titles all have coverart, so this is not something I'm prepared to redo with a CSV file even if DVDAttache could export that format, which I don't think it can. Is there any way I can convert from DVDAttache to DVDpedia?

On the CD side of things, I haven't looked that closely at the app itself, but the forums yielded only two postings with keyword MyMusic, and neither of them were in regards to export/import. Is it possible to covert from MyMusic to CDpedia?

Any help with either or both of these conversions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Brad

[Conor]

I have created an import for the DVDAttache XML file. Leave the file in the default export location that DVDAttache uses (inside it's data folder) so that DVDpedia can find the images by referencing that location's subfolder images/large. You will have to download a new copy of DVDpedia. (Some of the data in DVDAttache is horribly formatted such as the sound and extras, since most of this data came from Amazon as well, I have left it out of the import; after importing select all the movies imported and choose the menu Advanced --> Get Advance Info --> Amazon US to download the rest of the data in a nicer format, UPC, Languages, Subtitles, Sound, Viewer Rating and List Price.)

My 1000+ titles all have coverart, so this is not something I'm prepared to redo with a CSV file even if DVDAttache could export that format, which I don't think it can.

DVDAttache can't export that format, but DVDpedia can import covers from a CVS export from a URL field both on the local disk or on the internet. Also many programs have the UPC or ASIN number in them and DVDpedia can then look up the cover based on that information after the import. I think this is your best option with MyMusic to try to get it to export some kind of text file with your information that you can import into CDpedia. Even just a list of ASINs, UPCs or titles to use in the add multiple. We couldn't get any reasonable export out of my My Music to create a specific import. [/quote]

[bradandbree]

Conor, thanks. I have heard through the internet grapevine that support for the *pedias is excellent, and you do not disappoint. I have now successfully converted my DVDAttache library into DVDpedia, and purchased my license codes for DVDpedia and CDpedia. The check is in the mail, as they say.

I'm still struggling to extract usable information from MyMusic, since I've never found the standard reports or the ad hoc report generation very user-friendly. If you have any specific tips, I'd be happy to try them; otherwise, I'll just keep trying different things and hopefully find a way to convert MyMusic into CDpedia.

Thanks,
-Brad

[Conor]

Excellent news about the DVDAttache import and that you have purchased our programs. You have encountered the same roadblock that we encountered when trying to export from MyMusic, we couldn't make heads or tails out of it. If you do find a solution do consider posting it as there some other MyMusic users; although I think they gave up on getting anything useful exported out of MyMusic and re-entered their collection.

[bradandbree]

Hi Conor,
Regarding getting my collection out of MyMusic and into CDpedia, I just remembered that the reason I used MyMusic in the first place was that I needed a new application when OS X came around. Prior to that, I was using an app called Audiofile which never made it out of OS 9. I actually have my Audiofile CSV text file from 4 years ago, but I can't seem to get the fields to line up the right way for a CDpedia import. If I sent it to you as a zipped file, could you possibly see if it could be imported? I've bought a lot of CDs in the last 4 years, but at least it would be a start!

Thanks,
-Brad

[Conor]

I would be more than happy to look at the file, however I can't seem to find the file. Did you send it to the support email?

[bradandbree]

I would be more than happy to look at the file, however I can't seem to find the file. Did you send it to the support email?

I didn't want to send something without asking first. It's on its way.
Thanks!
-Brad