Manage films with DVD management software

Okay, when I saw Bradley’s review of the Library sorter it made me think of my own growing library, not of books but of DVDs. I think at the last count I was up to around 450 DVDs and Blu-Ray disks and for the most part I can remember what I have but that will not always be the case. I looked on the internet and found two hopefuls, which are reviewed below.

DVD Profiler can create graphs to show the number of DVDs in each film genre

AllMyMovies (http://www.bolidesoft.com/allmymovies.html) looked great. It offered the ease of either entering or scanning barcodes and then automatically entering the details of my DVD. They offer a 30 day free trial so I downloaded, installed and eagerly got my first disk. I entered the bar code and it told me it didn’t recognise this. Since this is an American offering I had to type the title by hand. While this wasn’t initially a major problem, they didn’t always recognise the title or offered me the wrong synopsis for my film. The other problem was it couldn’t find the picture of the disk so leaving big while blank spaces instead of pretty pictures on my virtual shelves. If you are based in the US or Canada then I recommend this as I feel with the barcode it may be improved, but for international users, it’s not as useful.

DVD Profiler's ability to gather information and images was impressive

DVD Profiler (http://www.invelos.com/) was my next choice. I was disappointed it was also a US product but thought I’d still try it. It lived up to my expectations and more. It let me enter the barcode and then found the disk – only failing on the Ultimate Carry on Collection as a whole. It was able to find it with title recognition – even adding each title under one umbrella title. It realises the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray without being told, in addition to finding the image of the front and back of the box which would help with finding it on my shelves. While I haven’t entered my entire collection yet I am going to continue with this product as I love the features. At just the click of a button it will let you add DVDs, sort them, randomly pick a DVD if you can’t decide what to watch. It will also let you be the ultimate geek with a variety of graphs and charts. Usage, release dates, genres, RRP, purchase price, actors etc. It has a lending feature so if you do loan your DVD’s to friends you can keep track with this software too. It is not just your current collection either, it can also be for DVD’s you’ve ordered your wishlist too. If you don’t have a barcode you can just enter the name and it does find them very easily. Overall I love this software. If you are just starting your collection or like me have a more meaty selection to sort out then I’d recommend this. It comes with a 30 day free trial and is only £19 to buy as a one off fee with unlimited upgrades.

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