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OK, lots of Movie Collector fans here!

I wish I could say for certain Ken, I've tried so many of these programs I'm a little hazy. I downloaded it right now and gave it another whirl and it does seem to be a very accomplished application. Perhaps I found it a bit slow and elaborate while fetching data the first time I tried it (I know I did, coz I started by trying every app listed in that thread) but after disabling a couple of online sources right now, the update procedure is quick and polished. You're obviously in capable hands.  I'll be running it side-by-side for a few days before I decide which way to go. Am updating my original post shortly.

The price difference aside, here's a couple of points (and some questions) to be considered while comparing the two apps:

Can I show a few significant details in the 'Images' view? One row per movie, starting with the thumbnail column and followed by other columns of my choosing? The pure images view along with the title is attractive but not as helpful. I may want to see the directors or ratings for several movies side-by side.

The multi-node layout of PVD can be a huge plus if you like to categorize movies that way. I'm guessing this isn't possible with MC.

MC is not far from the search as you type feature but there is a certain (albeit tiny) convenience + coolness factor about it esp. when you consider typos. I like the MC search too though, it's better than the other apps I tried. It also lets you search all fields simultaneously, which PVD doesn't let you do.

PVD has inline editing (in grid mode), just double click on any visible text field and it turns into an edit box.

Barcodes for DVDs (am not sure where PVD stands on this issue, I don't want to assume there's a plugin available) & TWAIN are obvious plus points in MC's favour. As is the fact that (I'm guessing) it's not developed by a sole developer.

PVD on the other hand has an SDK which is always a good thing. Once again, I'm not sure where MC stands on this issue.

Perhaps you guys can tell me a few genuinely useful things that MC can do that PVD can't.

In any case, this is one software category where there are lots of great apps to choose from. Here's to the movies!

[Ant Movie Catalog]

I've tried over 15 different movie database/organizer programs in the last four days in my quest for finding the best suited for my needs. I was surprised by the sheer number of programs available in this category.

I've narrowed down my choice to five six, no doubt there are other good programs in this category, some of which have been mentioned in this thread.

Four Five of the programs I've picked deserve a mention coz they're worth trying out once at the very least and may suit you best, depending on your requirements.
The fifth sixth, which I think is the winner, I've covered in a little more detail.


Special mentions in no particular order:

Ant Movie Catalog (Freeware)
http://www.antp.be/software/moviecatalog
Open architecture, very flexible, support for scripts - tons of import scripts available.


Catvids (shareware $ 39.95 - fully functional trial available)
http://www.fnprg.com/catvids/
An overall well designed program with a strong set of features & a well designed & configurable interface. Really fast IMDB updates!


Movie Label 2008 (shareware $ 49.95 - fully functional trial available)
http://www.codeaero.com/movie-label/
Has the most features of any program in this category.
Definite overkill for those who don't want a very complex set of features + interface. Very likely overkill even for those who do want tons of features
Office 2007 interface - the love it or hate it factor applies.
 

Eric's Movie Database [EMDB] (freeware) - [Nighted's review]
www.emdb.tk
The best looking program of the bunch - a few insignificant bugs but I never lost my data to it even after extensive use (adding 100+ movies).
Only supports IMDB for online importing, very quick.
Only imports thumbnail sized covers.
Lacking certain functionality that almost every other program in this category has.
A very good choice if you want to quickly catalog your movies without too much fuss into an attractive looking app.
Sole developer + No open architecture reg. plugins, read:  if the development stops & the IMDB functionality breaks, you're screwed and will be forced to move your data to another organizer (which is possible thanks to .csv export functionality, but a pain all the same)

Movie Collector (shareware - Standard $24.95, Pro $39.95 - fully functional trial available)
http://www.collectorz.com/movie/
A full featured, polished app and a popular favorite (read the next few posts in this thread for more info)


My Pick!
Personal Video Database (freeware)
http://www.videodb.info/index.html

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What's to like:

 - Sole developer but open architecture - Has an SDK and plugin functionality, which means you won't be stranded even if the main  app's developement stops.

 - Fast IMDB import, includes every major field IF the user wants

 - Three views, grid, normal (flat list at the side with detailed info on the right), and tree. The tree view lets you configure its nodes and sub-nodes, for example you could have a main node for year of release and a sub-node under that for country and a sub-node under that for genre and yet another sub-node for the first alphabet of the title. There doesn't seem to be any limit to the number of sub-nodes and there are 20 fields to pick from so you can see just how powerful a categorization you can have.

 - The database includes a section for people, you can retrieve info for selected cast/crew from online sites, most other programs do not support this.

 - Preview and import (approx dvd case sized) posters and covers from several sites.

 - Imports from Excel - you can map the fields and the import order in the plug-in preferences, so the app can import data from pretty much any app that supports .csv export.

 - Threaded app - you can work on something even while it's busy online, retrieving data.

 - Support for adding custom genres - even whole new custom fields.

 - Links to physical files, lets you play the movie from within the program as long as it's on HDD or the correct media is inserted. Intelligently disables the play option if the link is inactive.

 - Customizable interface, every significant field can be shown or hidden. Fields like cast that can get rather large and occupy a lot of space can be configured to collapse inline. Layout colors can be customized.

 - Statistics (bar graph views) based on several categories

 - Amazing Ajax search  : This is possibly one of the programs best features, there's a search box in the main window, and you can search not just titles but _anything_ - directors, cast, year, description, personal comments, rating, you name it and it's there! Just use the dropdown menu to select the field you want to search and start typing and it immediately narrows down the movies listed to match the criteria. This feature is simply fabulous and no other program comes close. If that's not enough, there's also an Advance Search which lets you specifying more than one field to further narrow down the results. 
 
- The program is being actively developed and the author interacts in the support forums.

5 stars - a total winner! I'd recommend it even to people who haven't bothered archiving their movie collections yet.

You could just install a (free) virtual printer and side-step the issue.

Something like this...

Salamander will only really shine out from the rest when you're dealing with a very large amount of files and the other file managers start choking. It's a handy tool to have around but it's not my everyday file manager either.

there you gohttp://samars.kit-masters...de/down/index.php?dlid=18

Is that a woman's cleavage shown under their "upcoming downloads" section? Or do I just need help?

I'm with Sri on the X² suggestion. However, I don't think their portable version is free.
Check out baxbex.com - they have some Exploder addons, I've used bxnewfolder for years.
 

I remember setting up my mother's XP machine from scratch and applying Windows Updates, the last thing I intended to do before backing up the whole image. XP just wouldn't start after the WinUpdates reboot. 

Sometimes it may be imperative to reboot immediately so no external app messes things up but even then a soft-shutdown [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks=0] is the least they can do. I doubt if Windows Update ever does a hard shutdown in any case, not that I put anything beyond MS.

I've tried several movie databases in the last couple of days. EMDB has its quirks/bugs and it lacks the power of most of these but I keep coming back to it coz of its simplicity. It's also the fastest one to add movies in. I just wish he incorporates a full text search that includes movie descriptions in a future version.

I haven't come across any tech blog that matches the combination of frequency of updates and detailed coverage of Cybernetnews. I don't even want to imagine how much effort goes into maintaining that kind of a pace. I'm always amused when Ryan posts here coz I just can't imagine how he finds the time. 

I'd add Digital Inspiration to the list coz he does cover unique/interesting stuff and is fast with breaking news. Lifehacker (Downloads feed ONLY, since my sanity is of value to me) does have the occasional really good post if you're willing to sit through a few blah ones.

Edit: Pogue from NY Times is an excellent read even when he's covering not-so-interesting stuff.

SnagIt's autoscroll didn't get it at first but setting a scroll delay (1 sec) did the job. Perhaps that'll do the trick with other programs too.

Stay away from Partition Tragic. Use Acronis Disk Director instead.

I really wouldn't recommend trusting any Acronis product for managing partitions. I had a big catastrophe today when I tried to use the Acronis HDD boot function (the one that offers to show a True Image screen on boot so you can run recovery right off the HDD).

It tried to create a partition, failed and abruptly exited. When I logged on to Windows all the partitions seemed to be in place but Windows prompted me to reboot coz "changes had been made". After reboot compmgmt showed me that a small partition (unlettered/ unused space) had indeed been created. A peep via partition magic showed the whole disk merged into one "bad" partition! I tried to allocate the unused space back via compmgmt and boom! it exits with an error and the free space has been merged with two of my logical data drives, making them both unusable. I know people don't think very much of PMagic but it was the only app that recognised that things had been badly fxxxed up.

I managed to get everything back, thanks to most of it being mirrored daily on another HDD and a gem of a utility called 'Find and Mount', free for home use. It lived up to its name and found both lost partitions and the chunk of unallocated space. It let me mount both partitions to their respective drive letters and I'm moving data to my other HDD as I type this. The free version lets you read data off the mounted drives at 512 KB/s, it'll take me half a day yet to get everything out of there but I'm not complaining, this thing saved my ass.

Partition Find and Mount - highly recommended! Acronis for partitioning, NOT!

One thing I'd like to add is, whatever tool you're using for partitioning, if it's not screwing up, stick to it! Managing partitions via multiple apps really seems like a bad idea.

It looks very generic, Curt. Have you tried ReNamer? They all pretty much do the same thing but it's the only one I find a pleasure to use.

And its DOPus in the lead! With Xplorer2, Total Commander and (OHMYGOD!) Windows Explorer vying for second! 

Thanks again mwang. The shell editor I use probably doesn't work coz DOpus seems to be using proprietary code rather than borrowing the same code WinExplorer uses for file management by simply being a middle man. It probably explains why things like scrolling are considerably smoother within DO. The tool I use doesn't seem to change anything permanently in the registry, if I shut it I get standard Windows behaviour. The raw commands you pointed me to are too hard core for my purpose, I'd rather stick to drag&drop. Still, it's nice to know that something could be done.

Sorry Lanux, I now feel like the guy who's shaking hands with a president he voted against. 

don't worry about it, nosh.. i too have heavily customised my settings to even begin to move to another file-manager. and each time, i tried a new one, i'd start comparing with Salamander.. that is a normal reaction, i think..

 


mwang, thanks but I don't think that was what I was looking for.

Can I tame this

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to look something like this

[attachimg=#]

within DOpus?

Funny thing, I voted after I posted and instinctively chose X2 coz as of now that's what I'm using over 95% of the time. It immediately struck me that I should have voted for 'multiple managers'.
Sorry Lanux, I now feel like the guy who's shaking hands with a president he voted against. 

I've always had Salamander around but it's not something I want to use on a day to day basis. I really doubt it has the power (flexibility wise) of X2 and I do want a tree view at most times. Things like scrap panes, highly configurable color coding (based on name, file property, any meta tag, even text contained within a file (though I guess that would be a major strain on resources) or a combination of any of the above...
It's generally very light on resources (the exe is perhaps the tiniest in this category and I've never has resource issues with it despite using it extensively), easily configurable layout - I make new layouts on the fly for different tasks and it doesn't feel like a burden, neat things like 'extracting subfolders' or flattening files, selectively showing/hiding/selecting files/folders based on simple/advanced criteria, multiple tabs in addition to panes, for those rare occasions one wants more than two folders open simultaneously... it has a LOT of features I find genuinely useful and it matches my philosophy in trying mainly to be a file manager and staying focused about its main purpose. I have custom tools for things like encryption. compression, FTP, file comparison, advanced renaming - I don't want a file manager that's going to try and take away these carefully picked out specialists. X2 offers most of these things on a very basic level which suits me just fine, I may need to quickly compare folders or rename a bunch of files with a numeric counter but when it comes to advanced jobs I like to have something that's devoted to that task. Would any other file manager, for instance, compare as well as Beyond Compare or rename as easily and intuitively as ReNamer or encrypt/decrypt as blazingly fast as Cryptext or as securely as PGP? If the answer to any/all the above is yes, then please explain would I want all this functionality constantly loaded in something that's running all the time? Unnecessary overhead. It's hard not to want X2 for use on an everyday basis when your philosophy matches mine.

I completely agree with Grorgy when he says it has problems that are blamed on other apps, rather than being 'handled'. That's my biggest regret regarding this app, it's almost perfect and from what one hears there's not too much being done to take it to its full potential. It doesn't come across as polished or sturdy as DOpus, for example. Its rendering large folders with thumbnails, is choppy at best. X2 is so powerful already, I think a great way for the developer to go would be just to look at the existing code and root out these little flaws & inefficiencies rather than worry about things like enhancing a relatively weak mass rename function. I'm certain most X2 fans would welcome this direction and it would go a long way in increasing his sales too, most people (including myself) are perfectionists when it comes to the software they run. You instinctively want to dump something that acts quirky - I've considered doing that several times, always going back - it's like a beautiful woman with a few obvious flaws, you can't help but go back.

Here's a question for DOpus users - is there any way to manage/customize the right-click context menu within DO? - to, for instance, put items like cut/copy/paste into an 'Edit' submenu? I use a 3rd party app to manage my context menu and with DOpus (which doesn't seem to support that app) the context menu occupies the full height of my screen. If I could find a way to shorten the menu I'd seriously consider DOpus coz I'm pretty certain it does all the little tricks X2 does & then some.

I've been lurking around DC on and off and couldn't help but post my $0.02 (edit: a lot more, in hindsight) on this topic.

I'm relatively new to file managers, sure I had NC running in the DOS days and I've had Servant Salamander on my PC since the Win9x era but I was using plain ol' Explorer (and getting by fairly well) for most of my day to day chores, very rarely using Salamander when Explorer's bad sense regarding copy/move operations got in the way. So while I'm by no means an expert, my opinion is also unbiased coz I don't didn't have any affinity towards a specific file manager.

I narrowed down the ones to try to XYPlorer, Xplorer2, TC & DOpus.
 

 - XYPlorer (despite Zaine and some others saying good things about it, it doesn't have dual panes - a complete no-no for me). Tabs are fine for web browsers where what's going on in one pane is mostly unrelated to what goes in others, but IMHO a file manager needs pane-potential.    

 - Xplorer2:
Quickly fell in love with this one, it was familiar coz of the Explorer-like interface and oh-so-functional. X2 is digital kung fu! I have literally been obsessing about it and the neat little tricks you can do with it for the last few days. A tremendously flexible app, sure it's a bit hackerish - you have a separate config utility that you can only run with X2 off(!) and some things have to be edited directly into the registry but I'm not begrudging any of that. 

The down side is that it has its little quirks, harmless but annoying little bugs that should be fixed yesterday and I honestly don't know what its future is going to be coz in a recent radio interview the author talked about being bored with programming and dejected that there was a huge learning curve since MS decided to shuffle all the cards with their gorgeous pig, Vista. Can't say I blame him, coz despite their user community contributions he's mainly a one man show in a very tough game.

Anyhoo, I've been hooked onto X2 despite its niggling lack of polish and hadn't really had the time (or much of an inclination) to really delve deep with either DO or TC despite these apps getting most of the applause. But today I got a great opportunity. I have a couple of folders with over a GB of images each, all the pix are in a single folder, no subfolders. Tiny files going into the thousands. I decided to make a few subfolders and dump 100MB of files into each. X2 managed to do this but after a lot of choking - and I was running in list view (no thumbnails, no preview) - so I saw the perfect opportunity to fire up some the neglected power players and see what they were really all about (I remember somebody associating the word 'industrial' with TC in one of the posts here, now that sounded very promising for some digital heavy-lifting!)

The task: open the main source folder in one pane, an empty subfolder in another, both views 'details'. Sort files on date. Select and move 100 MB of pix into the empty folder. Move all these pix back (coz it wouldn't be fair if the source folder contained less data for the next run) & it also lengthened this rather simple task.

Directory Opus: Decidedly impressive! This here is a major CPU guzzler (it peaked the processor at over 80% on my P4, 3.0 GHZ) but then what the hell is processing power for if not for situations like this? It seemed to be making excellent use of every bit of resource it sucked up - the scrolling was _smooth_, it blew me away by loading thumbnails without any fuss in a folder that had 10,000 plus files. The only time it seemed to slow down somewhat was on copying the 100MB back to the source. Strangely enough, even after the operation it held on to a lot of CPU until I minimized it when it freed up almost everything immediately.

Total Commander: After all the hoopla about this baby I felt terribly let down by the results. I know it's got a bazillion plugins and can do "everything" but if you're lagging behind the competition on fundamentals like selecting and moving files, you cannot call yourself the no.1 player. While selecting the files (Shift-PgDn) the refresh was choppy - the move operation could not be classified as 'fast' - it took about 50% CPU though I wish it'd taken more and made some good use of it a la DOpus.


Just for kicks, I wanted to see how my trusty (but much-neglected)n Servant Salamander would fare against these heavies. Ladies and Gents, this here turned out to be the real power-player! The only one whose raw power deserves the term 'industrial'! SS opened and displayed the folder like it contained 10 files, not 10000. The sort was instant, the file selection and status bar indicator was beyond smooth and best of all, the move operation blew-every-other-result-away!, it even left DOpus looking decidedly clunky.

And that, is the point of this crazy long post.. no matter what your primo file manager is, try Servant Salamander! - I ran these tests with v2.0 which has been followed up with a newer one (which has a few more bells and whisles and starts slower, don't know about the rest - draw your own conclusions about which version is the fastest.) It's probably not something you'd use everyday but when there's some serious heavy-lifting to be done, it'll come to the rescue, and how!

I'll probably spend some more time with DOpus before I decide between it and X2 as my everyday file manager, it'll most likely be X2 (did I mention I ADORE it? )

As for the lizard, I'm holding on tight. He's not going anywhere!

OK, here goes. I have used several forums in the past and have never had the people running/maintaining them imply or ask directly for any form of monetary contribution. I'm sure they're out there but I just haven't seen any (and I've participated in quite a few.)
So instead of me telling you ways in which you can get some of my $$$, how about you tell me why I should pay you anything for simply participating in a forum. The one thing I'm getting from this place is a good discussion with people with a common interest. It's not a paid support site where one pays to get opinions. This place is thriving with ideas but I'd like to think that I too have contributed in my own way towards this give and take. The whole "you're just a visitor if you haven't shelled out some dough" bit puts a damper on things for me. I'm not one who'll shell out cash simply out of peer pressure or embarrassment just coz I'd like to be "chartered honorary member" or whatever. It'll only happen if I feel it's truly justified and in this case I don't. I'll be looking out for other good software discussion forums now, not sure if many match the level or participation experienced by this place but I'm guessing there are a few. Hopefully ones where the admins don't imply I owe the place anything more than active participation.

[Add/Remove Programs]

Forgive me, I should have been more clear in my first post. I didn't mean Scroll&Capture "a" window - because even the free FastStone version that I am using can Scroll&Capture almost any other window, just not this window - but XP's Add/Remove Programs' window (only).

I think you were quite clear & that's what I responded to.

In SnagIt - select the 'Region' profile.
In the Profile Settings Input menu -->  Scrolling --> custom scroll.
The capture is a two step process, first you drag the mouse and select the client area & then you click the scroll bar's down arrow. Worked on XP's own Add Remove programs applet.

[scroll & capture the XP Add/Remove Programs' window?]

Do you have / know of     a Screen Capture program that will:
scroll & capture the XP Add/Remove Programs' window?   

SnagIt

My Add/Remove list shows 243 apps installed - add to that around a hundred miscellaneous utilities without any install dumped in the Tools folder and I'm dangerously close to (if not over) the 350 mark. 
Everything co-exists for the most part & there's no system slowdown.

@App: That screenshot is the scariest thing I've seen in a long time.

My desktop & start menu...
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There is stuff that starts up with the system but I have a thing about having these in the HKCU or HKLM startup locations. If I didn't move things out of the start menu 'programs' folder & categorize them the list would probably be high enough to reach the apartment above me.

Any obvious reason why it's preferred over Sandboxie?

Edit: From a PC Mag review of Altris SVS 2:

Going out on a limb, I installed some sample spyware using the SVS global capture mode to test whether I could clean up by rolling back changes. It didn't entirely work. Altiris representatives confirm that SVS isn't designed as a security product; for secure and complete rollback to an earlier state, they recommend Altiris Protect. And speaking of security—do not virtualize antivirus and other security products. Also, SVS doesn't run in Safe Mode, so don't virtualize any tools you might need in that mode. 

Just out of curiosity, what happens to the shortcuts when the srive letters all change?

They go to shortcut heaven (or hell, if they're Norton/Symantec shortcuts).

They become invalid unless the partition manager is smart enough & modifies them...

I've used trial versions of Spyware Doctor & Counterspy a few months back. They're both good apps but I recall Spyware Doctor having the best detection rate & Counterspy bogging my system down a bit.

I checked out their site, they seem to have a 'contact us' link instead of the usual 'Purchase' so I guess you'll have to do just that. A Google search for downloadable demos or outright purchase brought up some third party sites which indicates that SAPI voices are available for purchase. Your safest bet it to buy directly from Loquendo after contacting them.