Support for Metacritic and MovieLens

[Drdul]

I just purchased DVDpedia, not to catalog a DVD collection (I own very few), but to keep track of movies I want to see (about 400!). It is a huge improvement over Excel!

I use iMDB ratings as one guide, but I also use Metacritic (which aggregates published movie reviews) and MovieLens (which estimates a rating based on how I've rated other movies) ratings. Currently, I am using a couple of custom fields to record Metacritic and Movielens ratings, but there are two problems with that. One is that it takes a while to find and enter the information from both websites, and the other is that the information doesn't change when the ratings on either website do.

Would it be possible to add support for these two websites (and perhaps for other, similar ones) to DVDpedia, so that information would be automatically displayed for each movie? In the case of MovieLens, this would require that DVDpedia save a user's account info, in order to provide relevant rating information.

Thanks!

[kbarnes70]

t there are two problems with that. One is that it takes a while to find and enter the information from both websites, and the other is that the information doesn't change when the ratings on either website do.

Would it be possible to add support for these two websites (and perhaps for other, similar ones) to DVDpedia, so that information would be automatically displayed for each movie? In the case of MovieLens, this would require that DVDpedia save a user's account info, in order to provide relevant rating information.

Thanks!

The ratings field won't be automatically updated when the web site changes unless you change it manually though. I use the IMDB ratings and periodically I delete all the entries from this field (select all, edit, blank the field) and then do a 'Get Advanced Info' using IMDB as the source so that the entries reflect the latest status on the IMDB website. It takes a while to update hundreds of DVDs but you can just let it run and go get a coffee etc.

It would, of course, be sensational if the fields updated themselves to stay in line with the web site!

Regards,

Keith

[Drdul]

It would, of course, be sensational if the fields updated themselves to stay in line with the web site!

Hi Keith:

Thanks for clarifying that. I had assumed that DVDpedia automatically updated the ratings, so I will be sure to do the update as you described every few weeks. I agree that it would be a sensational feature if DVDpedia could do this automatically, and even more sensationally, do it for Metacritic, MovieLens and other such websites.

A question for the dev: is this a feature that could be added to DVDpedia?

Thanks!

[Conor]

Some users would not expect information to get overwritten, so the preferences needed for deciding what fields get updated and which ones don't would be complex and hence this feature is a bit tricky. But part of the reason we have the current edit/add window look is so that we can be flexible for adding features in the future, for example changing the color of a the text if the information was updated. But all these ideas are still on the drawing board. Luckily the programs flexibility means that each user can customize it to get what they expect from the program, like blanking the rating field and then updating it.

We will write to MovieLens as it looks like a promising site and see what the possibilities are for adding it as a search plug-in.

[Drdul]

Hi Conor:

Thanks very much for looking into adding MovieLens. Because the ratings it provides are customized to each user (based on their rating history), I find it an essential "second opinion" when considering a movie.

If you decide to implement the feature to automatically update ratings, one way might be to add a menu command (and toolbar button) which says "Update Ratings." That way, the updating is not automatic, so users could control when the updating occurs (as it would take a while for a few hundred movies). A "Revert" command/button would also be useful in case something goes wrong with the updating. I like your idea of displaying the changed numbers in a different colour, and assume that the different colours would disappear the next time DVDpedia is launched.

Thanks again for considering adding this feature.

Cheers!