using isight

[DRL]

I enjoy classical music, but my expertise is very limited; I was under the impression that for classical music listeners searching by catalog number was common knowledge among those in the know. Probably those familiar with Arkiv know about the catalog search, but you are correct we should include it in our help for those not familiar with the site.

Thanks for the help. I had been searching using the iSight camera, so wouldn't that automatically mean searching by the barcode number, rather than the catologue number? Of course, ordering CDs is done using the catalogue number, but I had not realised that this was the way to do the search on CDpedia. So are you saying that, if searching on Arkiv, the camera is best ignored?

Your other suggestions, about substituting information, is something I will need to look at carefully. It looks complicated, but it will probably seem easier when I actually try it. Many thanks again.

[DRL]

I couldn't resist trying the substitution of the information from Arkiv. It's really straightforward!
One question: The tracks tab has three columns - Name, Composers, Duration. Only Name and Duration appear in the box when in Info mode. Is it possible to include composer as well? And, if so, is it also possible to put Composer BEFORE Name? Changing columns like that is easy on the Library list, but it doesn't seem to work here!

[Conor]

If searching on Arkiv, the camera is best ignored?

Yes, since there is no catalog number barcode to scan.

The order of the columns in the track tabs is fixed, thank you for the feedback that you would like it to be more flexible. At the moment it configures itself depending on the information available, this is why it only shows the name and duration as a default; once there is composer information the composer column appears. If you are adding information manually you can press the composer button at the bottom to make the column appear.

[DRL]

Thanks for the help, Conor. It would be helpful (to me at least) if there was flexibility in what information could be included. I see now that different CDs give different info, according to what they think is relevant. I have found it useful to delete certain pieces of information, which make it look cluttered. eg The artists on each track don't interest me. Do I have to delete the artists of each track separately or is there a way of deleting the whole column? Clicking on the heading just sorts the list by artist or whatever, rather than deleting it.

It's great to be gradually getting the hang of these little details.

[Conor]

Do I have to delete the artists of each track separately

Yes. But at least the return key will take you to the next row on the same column; once the first artist is selected for editing use return-delete combination to move to the next one.

[DRL]

Thanks for all that advise. I updated the details of a large part of my collection using the methods you mentioned. On the Tracks page it was easy to delete the unnecessary things (like long lists of artists for each track) and, where necessary, to type the composer's name on the extreme left, under Name. This then produced the result I wanted. In the case of the CD being all one composer, even that adjustment was unnecessary.

Arkiv had more sensible and concise listings than Amazon on most occasions. I also found Freedb useful, though I'm not sure what it stands for. It often gave shorter lists of alternatives than Arkiv's exhaustive list of options. I tried going back to see what Amazon UK had, after deleting the tracks and looking for alternatives, but I never got any results. Not sure why! It all works very well, though.

One surprise this morning. I tried to enter a new CD (AV 2145) into Arkiv, but it said the number was not recognised. I went back to iSight on Cascade and it was recognised by Amazon UK. When I then deleted the tracks and did a search on Arkiv, the details showed up. Any ideas why I had problems at first? (Actually on this occasion, Amazon's listings were more useful, with a few adjustments!)

Many thanks for all this help. I'm delighted by it all - especially finding that I can now do a search and the results will include everything I've entered under Tracks.

[Conor]

Very pleased that you found the program useful and functional. Thank you for all the information, strange that it did not find "2145" on Arkiv as I get 4 results for that catalog number, but their search might not have been available at the moment. The reason it worked by first looking it up in Amazon UK is that afterwards the get more info search is based on the title and the artist. Although the catalog number search is going to produce more specific results you can also search by keywords (title + artist + composer any or all combinations) on all of our search sites.

[DRL]

Thanks for the help, Conor.
I can see now what I was doing wrong this morning. I was entering AV 2145 on Arkiv instead of just the four numbers. The catologue number on the CD spine appeared to include the letters too, but I now see that it was just an abbreviation for Avie. As you said, four alternatives were given; the main one being something about film music, whereas I was looking for the Durham Concerto. I can see that all these little details fall into place as you gain familiarity with the program.

[tontonfranz]

Hi,
I'm trying all Pedias to see if I could buy them
I must admit that I also downloaded DL2 to compare.
First of all, I way way way prefer your app(s)...but (there is always a but ) I can't manage to read most of the barcodes with the build-in iSight (it works however wonderfully on DL2). I tried with more or less light, in front or not of a window, going slowly, fast, on one foot... let's say it works in less than 5% of the cases.... however when I enter the UPC code, no pb, but I'm too lazy to do all my books and DVDs this way.... HELPPPPPP!!!!!!
here is my config:
Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Built-in iSight:

Version: 1.84
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Micron

Thanks in advance,
Franz


PS: if you could also answer this: I own numerous french comics (Bandes dessinées) and also american ones (obviously not the same databases to search ) .... do you plan to make a comicPedia plugin for BookPedia or why not link it together with ComicBookLover? Also, living in Spain, I own more and more spanish DVDs, but they are completely unknow in all your bases, do you know of a plugin that could allow me to find them

[Conor]

Are you running 10.5 or 10.4? We do have some comic book sites we like to create plug-ins for but there no due date on those. The dvdgo plug-in has information on Spanish movies but they don't support UPC search, I believe they don't even have that information as part of their database.

[tontonfranz]

Hi,
yeah I forgot completely the OS!!!!!!!! 10.5.
It's a shame the dvdgo don't have PUPC search for Spanish movies.... I will have to use a little bit more my fingers
Franz