PocketPedia3

[eezee]

It looks very nice to me. But one thing, which is very important to me, isn't possible, yet. I would love to mark a movie as seen right at the pocketpedia. Maybe with the small folder-icon where it says delete etc.

[Nora]

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll add it to our list for the future.

[LarryLogic]

I'm going to add my voice to this request. I was hoping to see it in the update that came out today but there was lots of other stuff keeping you busy so I understand. I use the mark as seen all the time and to be able to mark it using Pocketpedia instead of opening DVDpedia would be quite convenient. That I believe would also mean the last seen date would be added to the info screen like purchased at etc. info. All in good time I'm sure. Thanks for your good work with the Pocketpedia...I was so glad when you were able to offer it again.

[slm04747]

It would be great if I could use my iPad and PocketPedia to scan a bunch of UPC codes and then feed them to CDPedia/DVDPedia in a batch. I have hundreds of CDs to catalog and using the built in isight on my macbook is slow and cumbersome. Perhaps have an option for lookups of scanned codes: 1. No lookup(scan only), 2. Lookup in Library (duplicate check), 3. Online lookup.

Thanks

[Nora]

@slm04747: That's what version 3.0.3 of Pocketpedia lets you do. You can scan entries for searches in Doghouse or send them directly to your Pedia program on the Desktop to search other sites and add entries directly to your database. (If you're not connected to the same network as your Pedia program the UPCs will be stored for later.) You can read more info about this in the Pocketpedia help.

@LarryLogic: It's still on our list - thanks for the feedback!

[slm04747]

The help that you link to mentions DVDPedia for PocketPedia barcode scanning. Is the same thing true of CDPedia?

Thanks

[Nora]

Yes, just replace the program name in the URL to see the CDpedia help instead. (The functionality is the same in both programs though.)

[Ted]

@slm04747: That's what version 3.0.3 of Pocketpedia lets you do. You can scan entries for searches in Doghouse or send them directly to your Pedia program on the Desktop to search other sites and add entries directly to your database. (If you're not connected to the same network as your Pedia program the UPCs will be stored for later.) You can read more info about this in the Pocketpedia help

Fantastic -- tried it with CDPedia -- works perfectly! One more request though (unless there is a way to do it already): is there some way to preserve the just sent barcode on the desktop Pedias if the barcode search failed? I want to then manually search by title and then add the barcode into the new entry, so I can submit it to Doghouse for future use.

And I really want to congratulate you on the barcode scanning implementation -- once I got the hang of it, it works very well. Is it still an open source project?

[Conor]

Thank you for the feedback and the praise. We did work hard on the code, but I must admit that most of the heavy lifting on the iPhone is done by Zbar, another bit of open source code for scanning kindly contributed to the community by Jeff Brown. For the iPhone he has a complete implementation with the views and interface with the camera including backwards compatibility for cameras that can only do stills. My code is a lot rougher around the edges and only does the decoding. Thanks to providing the whole package with Zbar it's one line of code to get barcode scanning happening on iOS projects.

Retaining the UPC is on the to do list as well as improving that whole workflow if a search fails. On a higher priority was improving Doghouse to match many more UPCs. Currently working on that and this update and is almost done, still needs testing and a backend update of the current technology we are using. Should be rolling out in the following months so that future UPC searches will be a lot more successful, making the whole experience more seamless.

[Tallbluespruce]

Just got pocketpedia today on iPad. Thanks! Looks nice. I plan to use mostly to browse my movie database from the comfort of my couch! If you are making a list for future updates I was wondering about viewing options of titles in my library such as the different views available in the dvdpedia such as grid view,etc. I realize there are limitations as you are trying to cater to all mobile devices.

Thanks for your considerations

[dadux]

I would love to be able to play movies linked to DVDPedia from PocketPedia!

Thanks for all your work!
D

[Conor]

Thank you. We do want to do a view that is just covers. Not sure yet if it will be a grid or a cover flow type view. Also on the list is to investigate Apple's Airplay technology for possibilities of streaming the linked movies.

[Ted]

I would love to be able to play movies linked to DVDPedia from PocketPedia!

Thanks for all your work!
D

Not sure if you mean streaming movies to the iOS device, or using PocketPedia as a remote for DVDPedia to play movies on your Mac. If it is the second, I would strongly support it -- yes there are iOS remotes that will work with DVDPedia, but why switch to another program. And adding remote functionality to PocketPedia can't be all that incredibly hard.

With the demise of Front Row, having PocketPedia be your one stop Mac home theater remote would be a great thing indeed, making the arraignment very user friendly.

On the other hand streaming video Mac to iOS is a much thornier problem. iTunes does it with videos imported in iTunes (H.264 format), and programs like Air Video do it for a few other formats with live transcoding to H.264 or .mp4 on the Mac side, but I am not aware of a single program that will stream VIDEO_TS or .DVDmedia from Mac to iOS. I would guess that is the most common format that DVDpedia is used to link to on OS X. I wouldn't say that it is impossible to do, but judging by the amount of time and CPU required by Handbreak to transcode VIDEO_TS to H.264 it isn't practical, not with current generation of CPUs.

So far as AirPlay, for video it strictly goes from iOS or OS X to AppleTV so I don't think it can be of much help.

[Conor]

Thank Ted for fleshing out the details. Indeed the first solution is highly more workable then the second due to the complication of streaming just QuickTime movies let alone any other format. In the words of Steve Jobs, AirPlay and streaming is a bag of hurt.

[MkanoPedia]

It would be great to be able to sort Pocketpedia by genre. I use Pocketpedia when buying books/DVDs, and the stores often organize their inventory by genre. Can we nominate this for the enhancement list? Thanks.