Best Software (Free or Cost) to Catalog Divx Movies on a Mac

October 29, 2009 11:42 AM

I am looking to catalog my DVD library (mostly of DivX movies). I own an IMac. Is Delicious Monster the way to go? I want to be able to simply enter the title of the movie and have it come up with the real box art and keep it in A-Z or numerical order. No more no less. I emailed customer service and they never responded so I am consulting the Metafilter Oracle on this one. If there is anything cheaper or free, I am open to that, as well. Until then....a loonnnnnnng Excel spreadsheet. Thanks for your time and have a good Halloween weekend, folks.
posted by snap_dragon to technology (12 comments total)

I also tried looking for free alternatives that would give me what Delicious Monster provided, but didn't find any.
I purchased it, entered all my movies, and then promptly forgot about it.
This is more a reflection upon myself than DM as a product.
To answer your question:

1) Yes, you merely type in the title of the movie and DM will provide you with a list of possibilities, cover art included. I believe they pull cover art from amazon, but don't quote me. You choose which one is correct, save it and DM will put that movie on your 'shelf'.

2) And yes, it will list your films by title, in alphabetical order.

You can also choose the size of the 'box' and the type of shelf it's sitting upon.
It's a great product, but I just found myself never using it after I purchased it and entered all my movies.

Hope this helps!
posted by willmize at 11:59 AM on October 29

I always go to LifeHacker for software recommendations. They are usually free solutions.

Here are their top 5 for your needs.
posted by AtomicBee at 12:04 PM on October 29

I'd love to know the answer to this question for Windows machines. The top Windows one in that lifehacker link, Libra, doesn't seem to exist anymore. Ideally one that would a) let me scan barcodes with a webcam (or iPhone!) and download the DVD information, and 2) let me keep track of movies I've lent to friends.
posted by Roommate at 1:03 PM on October 29

Willmize, you make a good point about "forgetting about it". Truth be told, my Excel sheet works fine. I would like a visual reference as well but the more I think of it, the more I can see myself doing double work...entering in Excel and DM -- and then I will have to pay DM for upgrades I'm sure. Mainly because I'm being anal. This is one of those cases where I wish I had a PC for the sake of LIBRA (which was in the link that AtomicBee was kind enough to share. Thanks to you both for some sound pointers. Maybe I will just save the money and start keeping a crazy-looking looseleaf notebook with random scribblings!!
posted by snap_dragon at 1:05 PM on October 29

One of the things I absolutely love about Delicious Monster is that it can identify books/dvds etc by their UPC code which makes the job of cataloging a big collection just fly by. Don't have a UPC scanner? Make one out of a CueCat, which are easily found in the dusty bins of tech junk stores.
posted by jamaro at 2:08 PM on October 29

You can use the iSight camera to scan UPC codes as well - no need for extra hardware.
posted by jcrbuzz at 2:14 PM on October 29 [1 favorite has favorites]

I love XBMC's catalogue feature - though it's aimed at having all the files available instead of on disk - you play directly in the interface. You could make fake movie files (just name a text file moviename.avi) and it would catalog them all for you, also pulling thumbnails. It's free, so it wouldn't cost but a bit of time to give it a shot, but it may not be quite what you're looking for.
posted by defcom1 at 2:49 PM on October 29

Have a look at DVDPedia. I haven't used it myself, but I use the related CDPedia (made by the same people) for my CD collection, and I'm very happy with it. I tried Delicious Monster, too, but I liked CDPedia better.
posted by klausness at 3:19 PM on October 29

I use DVDPedia and I like it a lot. It pulls the box art and other info from Amazon or a long list of other sites. You can organize the entries in a number of ways and can set up sub-libraries to keep track of everything. It even keeps track of when you lend out your stuff to your friends and will send them automatic due date notices. I never use that because it's too nerdy, but the program is pretty decent overall.
posted by hilaritas at 3:26 PM on October 29

Thanks, Klausness...DVDPedia may win me over. Hard to tell...It is indeed much cheaper than DM and seems to cover what I need it to do.
posted by snap_dragon at 6:57 AM on October 30

If you might consider a web-based solution, there's Take11. You can catalog up to 100 for free. More than that is $15/year (or $25/2 years).

Like most of the software mentioned, they get their info from Amazon, but also from Netflix. And I love how it will give you info like your favorite actor (at least, appearing in the highest number of your movies), or director. It also allows tagging.
posted by timepiece at 8:12 AM on October 31

A friend pointed me to a FREE Mac one called DVD HUNTER....I think I might give that one a try first.
posted by snap_dragon at 7:26 AM on November 2