14 DAY TRIAL // Organizing your movie collection can sometimes be a rather difficult thing to achieve but fortunately, there are tools available to help you with this task. For Linux, one of them is called ?MeD's Movie Manager? which is a simple to use, yet customizable, movie collection organizer. It's a Java application which makes it platform-independent, meaning it can be run on any operating system that supports and has Java installed. It gets the movies info from IMDB.com and the episodes info from TV.com and stores them into a MySQL or HSQL database.
When you run MeD's MM for the first time, you will need to create a new database, either HSQL or MySQL. From what I've noticed, this is unfortunately a required step as it won't allow you to add any movies until a database has been created. After this step, everything becomes easy. To add a new movie, simply use the Add button or the Alt+A key combination. As you will notice, a new window will open with many info fields but don't worry as you won't have to fill all of them manually as this program gets the movie information from the Internet. Entering a search term in the Title field and hitting enter will activate the search on IMDB.com and the results will be returned in a small window. Now, just select the movie you were searching for in the results window and press Select. As you can see, all the movie info files have been auto-filled and an image has been added to the cover section in the upper right. Finally, press Save and you're done: your first movie has been added to the database.
In order to get episodes information from TV.com website, you will first have to add the movie name as usual and then, from the movie list, right click the movie name and select Add episode(s). The same window will appear, with the movie info fields and cover section but instead of Get IMDB.com info button, you will have Get TV.com info button. In order to successfully add a new episode (or more) to the movie, you will need to leave the title filed as it was found on IMDB.com and only press the Get info button. The search results will be presented in the small window, first the movie name, then the seasons (if available) and finally, the episodes. A nice feature MeD's MM offers is the ability to add not only one episode at a time, but all of them at once. This will save you a lot of time if your movie has hundreds of episodes.
The main window has a clear interface, the movie list in the right with the filter filed in the bottom left and the movie information section in the right. The filter filed allows you to perform a search in the movie list, either by searching for a single term, or by performing an advanced search with AND / OR operators. For instance, searching for the term ?Silence?, will return all the movies with ?Silence? in the title, while searching for ?Silence AND Lambs? will return all the movies with ?Silence and Lambs? in the title. To search for movies that contain either ?Silence?, or ?Lambs? in their names, use OR instead of AND. You can also use the two of them in combination but remember to write them in capital letters.
In the preferences window, you will notice the skin support. This is a good thing as there are a few skins that change the whole aspect of the program, in a good way and also has proxy support. Also, in the preferences windows, under the ?Movie List? section, you will be able to customize your movie list, specifically the size of it, whether to show icons or covers and so on. MeD's MM offers the ability to save the covers locally in order to make loading faster. When I've selected this option, the movie covers in the list were gone, instead, some default icons appeared, even though the option ?Show covers in the movielist? was selected long time ago.
MeD's Movie Manager enables you to backup your current movie database by using the Export function in the File menu. Unfortunately, from what I've noticed, the Export function will save an htm or xhtml file, while the Import function requires a txt or xml file. Strange, isn?t it? And another strange thing is the Report Generator function which enables you to preview your movies list in three different layouts and save it in many file formats, including xml. Could this be the way to import the movies list at a later time? Could be. For what it's worth, I've tried exporting the movie list from the old database and importing it back in a new one but unfortunately, I didn't have much luck with it. Luckily though, the Report Generator function supports printing, which could be a useful feature to someone, at some point.
If you are an advanced SQL user, you will find it very easy to add an ?Additional Info Filed? as this operation only requires writing a MS Access/HSQL compatible SQL query script. I'm sure everyone will be able to do this.
The Good
MeD's Movie Manager is a simple to use, yet customizable movie collection manager. It's able to fetch the movie and episode information from IMDB.com and TV.com. It has an easy interface which can be customized by using themes and skins. The movie list can be exported in several file formats, under different layouts.
The Bad
Even though there is an Export and Import function, I've had a lot of trouble importing a movie list exported earlier, even though I've used the same computer. Also, there are a few other weird occurrences while using the program, such as covers disappearing from the movie list if the ?save covers locally? option is selected and so on. Moreover, there isn't any way, for the moment, to tell what season an episode is part of.
The Truth
Even though MeD's Movie Manager has a lot of functions that come handy while organizing your movie collection, it also has some bad parts that make you change your mind and start using another software. I guess, if your system is only capable of running Java and there is no way of running another movie managing software, MeD's MM will do just fine.
Check out some screenshots below:
