IMDb

One of AVCataloger's most powerful features is the ability to get data from the Internet making data entry simple for you, and pulling down the most complete and informative data.  Just as with the CDDB area for collecting music information, the IMDb area is for extracting data out of the Internet Movie Database, hence IMDb.

An Internet connection is required, and proxy information, if required, configured in Internet Explorer as IMDb will use proxy settings as used in Internet Explorer.  Once connected to the Internet, searching and extracting data from IMDb is straight-forward.  The top portion of the IMDb area is the search parameters to query the IMDb database.  Put in a name or phrase to search, select the date range (Years) to narrow the search return, and then the type of search and restrictions, i.e. Movies only, TV only, or both.  Once the search criteria is entered, click the Search button (or press Enter) and the search will occur.  Depending on your connection speed and Internet traffic, the search may take up to 60 seconds.

Figure 1. IMDb Search System

After a search is made, if there is only one entry matching your criteria, it will be entered in the fields for modification or saving.  If more than one match occurs a dialog will be presented, sorted alphabetically for selection of the title desired.  Double-click the title or click OK to retrieve the data from the Internet.  Once the data is retrieved, the corresponding fields will be loaded, however, the data is not saved to your Video database until the Save button is clicked on the IMDb toolbar.

If an image of the title is available per the search criteria, it will be displayed in the bottom portion and saved, if the checkbox to save the picture is checked.  The picture can be scaled to fit in the viewer window or if unchecked, the picture will be displayed as actual size.  When information is downloaded from IMDb, two tabs will be added to the bottom of the IMDb entry area signifying web pages are available for viewing.  The middle tab (General) will show the general title information pertaining to the search criteria.  The Details tab, if clicked, will show the more detailed view of the title searched showing complete information available on the title of interest.

Next to each of the fields that can be saved to the Video database is a checkbox.  If checked, this data, if available, will be saved to the Video database.  If the checkbox is NOT checked, the corresponding data will not be saved and is available for viewing only.  Items can be modified as desired such as changing drop down selections in Rank, Category, etc., then saved as the information displayed when the Save button is clicked.  

On the right top portion of the IMDb area is a section for adding custom information to the saved record when the Save button is clicked.  First choose the target field (column) the data will be saved, then the data can be selected or entered in the left entry box.  If the checkbox for this custom data is checked, the data, if available (not empty) will be saved to the record.

AVCataloger when saving, will warn if there is a duplicate title found.  Three options will be presented.  1) The option to add the current title to the collection, regardless of duplicates found, 2) the option to delete duplicate found and replace with the new information (previous images saved to the duplicate title will be removed as well) or 3) abort the save operation.

In the Video area, items saved from the IMDb area will be marked with an icon as shown here.    Clicking this icon will open the integrated web browser and take you to the details page of the IMDb Internet site, if connected to the Internet.

For more information about IMDb, search techniques, and information retrieved, visit the IMDb web site.

**Added in 3.2

A new button was added to the toolbar named "Options" with two submenu settings:

1. Enable Filters:  Now the default search setting is to just search on the title and not filter the data with the advanced filter items.  This will yield a higher return on the results.  If you would like to search using the advanced filters, click the Enable Filters option.

2. Enable Browser Tabs:  After performing a search AVCataloger will show advanced information by showing the IMDb source web pages in separate tabs (bottom) for your viewing pleasure.  IMDb uses extensive advertising on their web pages which are now plagued with popup ads.  To avoid the annoyance of the popup ads, disable the showing of the browser information by unchecking this option from the Options menu.

If you have a problem retrieving information from the IMDB web site, please see the following KB article.