Coollector 2.0: freeware for movie lovers

[Cool Hector]

I'm very happy to announce the release of Coollector 2.0.

Coollector is a Windows program, completely free and very easy to use.

If you're at all interested in movies, you should give it a try.

It's the exceptional combination of 4 features:

+ Personalized Movie Encyclopedia
+ Database of Existing Videos
+ Collection Organizer
+ Best Price Finder

The swiss knife of movie lovers

My website:  www.coollector.com

[mouser]

Congratulations on the release -- and welcome to the site 

[Cool Hector]

Thank you very much for your kind welcome !

I feel like I'll like it here 

[iphigenie]

Quick question: i see it can track movies you own, want to buy etc.

Can you also track movies you have rented/seen without polluting your collection (i.e. it is easy to make the difference between owned, wanted and "just" seen)?

So few book/film cataloguing tools support anything like this, if yours does I'll be downloading it tonight and will rave about it for weeks

[Cool Hector]

Can you also track movies you have rented/seen without polluting your collection (i.e. it is easy to make the difference between owned, wanted and "just" seen)?

-iphigenie (January 16, 2008, 03:28 AM)

Absolutely !

You can rate ALL the movies you've seen (from excellent down to awful). A movie you haven't rated is supposed to be a movie you haven't seen.

The movies you own simply have their title underlined, while the movies you've loaned have an icon to show it.

With Coollector, you not only track your possessions. With Coollector, the personalized movie encyclopedia reflects your whole cinematographical culture and taste !

That's the big difference compared to other collection managers. Because, you try hard not to buy bad movies, of course. But to know which movies you don't like is also an important information !

[Rhutobello]

I have downloaded the program.

I was a bit unsure at first since Site advisor still flag you as red, but they flagged your program as green.

I have played with it, and I must give you kudos, it is very informative and simple to use.

It gives tons of info, and you have all at your fingertip.

If you want an easy way to store your movie and don't need to put in so much personal information about it, then this is for you

Since it is free, and with the limitation mentioned, I can't give it other then 5 of 5....even if the major thought behind it is to sell us DVD's

[Cool Hector]

I was a bit unsure at first since Site advisor still flag you as red, but they flagged your program as green.

-Rhutobello (January 16, 2008, 02:09 PM)

It's because I link back to download sites that gave me an award. I started to clean up my award page from dubious sites, until I realized that softpedia was considered as dangerous too. That was so ridiculous that I just gave up 

I have played with it, and I must give you kudos, it is very informative and simple to use.

It gives tons of info, and you have all at your fingertip.

If you want an easy way to store your movie and don't need to put in so much personal information about it, then this is for you

Since it is free, and with the limitation mentioned, I can't give it other then 5 of 5

-Rhutobello (January 16, 2008, 02:09 PM)

Thank you very much 

....even if the major thought behind it is to sell us DVD's

-Rhutobello (January 16, 2008, 02:09 PM)

I could have charged 40$, like my competitors, but I though I had a wonderful concept where users wouldn't have to pay anything, ever. Only making a living from the persons who find the price search useful, and allowing all the others to use the program all the same.

If you want to know, I'm still far from making a living from it. It doesn't even cover my server expenses 

Yep, the concept is nice, but it demands much more users than the shareware model. So come on everybody ! And bring your friends 

[Rhutobello]

I could have charged 40$, like my competitors, but I though I had a wonderful concept where users wouldn't have to pay anything, ever.

-Cool Hector (January 16, 2008, 04:25 PM)

Nope 
I own your "name brothers" (Collector) Movie program and if one are a serious collector, one will with such a program achieve a much more personal feeling and have a lot of other options to ones disposal.

Your program is an advance catalogue with option to personalize in some simple way.

When that is said, I like it very much, because of it's easy cross reference, because it show what films an actor has play in. It is almost an Imdb light 

I can see that all offers goes in $.

I wonder if you should make an area option in your program (USA - Europa) (maybe because of language German - France)
and then make deals with vendors in those areas and make those links available when the user choose their place.

Amazon has many options for free p&p in their own areas, so if one shall import from USA the whole time..the p&p might be an issue to drop your offer and you loose a sale.

I myself have a video store for rental, so I will not use it for buying, but as a "professional" I can persuade  the simplicity in order to find information about the different actors, composers,directors and so on!
So guys...download it.....there is a lot more carp then this on your hard disk 

[Cool Hector]

Nope 
I own your "name brothers" (Collector) Movie program and if one are a serious collector, one will with such a program achieve a much more personal feeling and have a lot of other options to ones disposal.

-Rhutobello (January 17, 2008, 03:24 AM)

Please tell me more about this.

We agree that my program is the only one with the Encyclopedia feature.

But what are those "other options" that a "serious collector" would miss with my program ? My program handles loans, and a plethora of technical details about the videos that you own (image type, sound, languages, subtitles, etc...).

What else is needed for a "serious collector" to be happy ?

[Cool Hector]

I can see that all offers goes in $.

I wonder if you should make an area option in your program (USA - Europa) (maybe because of language German - France)
and then make deals with vendors in those areas and make those links available when the user choose their place.

Amazon has many options for free p&p in their own areas, so if one shall import from USA the whole time..the p&p might be an issue to drop your offer and you loose a sale.

-Rhutobello (January 17, 2008, 03:24 AM)

The whole concept is not yet in place, so here is how it'll be when it's finished:

the program will be available in several languages. There will be a different version of the encyclopedia for each language. If you use the french encyclopedia, movies are shown with their french title, plot is in French, etc... Of course you can switch language, and all your personal data is still superimposed on the encyclopedia.

Suppose you use Coollector with French language. Then the price search displays only prices from stores with a french website (mostly France and Benelux), and currency will be Euro.

Now suppose you use Coollector with English language. In this case, you'll have the choice between 4 price localities:

1) american stores (with US dollar currency)
2) canadian stores (with canadian dollar currency)
2) australian stores (with australian dollar currency)
2) UK stores (with pound currency)

(of course you can swith between localities)

[Rhutobello]

Here is what I think is the best "Personal movie collector program"
http://www.collectorz.com/movie/

But please don't take any offence from my statement, because you ore doing 2 different thing.

The other program give you the possibility to build your own database with those movies you want to own or collect.
It collect its info easy from a lot of sources and have tons of ways you can make it personal for you....but it cost...both money to buy and time to build.

Your program deliver a finish solution, with an easy way to display connection between movies and people....most of the time works will be done by you as updates....but there is also the possibility to add such information yourself.

Both program is good and can in fact live side by side, and if you aren't serious about your collection...your is the best one

[Cool Hector]

But please don't take any offence from my statement

-Rhutobello (January 17, 2008, 06:51 AM)

No offense taken at all ! I'm really eager to know what my users need.

because you ore doing 2 different thing.

-Rhutobello (January 17, 2008, 06:51 AM)

Probably I'm presomptuous, but I thought that my program was doing nearly the same thing, plus more (personalized encyclopedia, price information) and more easily.

I admit that my program doesn't handle series right now, but that will be added in February.
Also, inputing a video from its barcode is currently missing, but this will be added too.

The other program give you the possibility to build your own database with those movies you want to own or collect.
It collect its info easy from a lot of sources and have tons of ways you can make it personal for you....

-Rhutobello (January 17, 2008, 06:51 AM)

Honestly, I don't understand... What does it do that my program doesn't ? I'm not convinced you completely explored the possibilities of my program... Did you click on a video to see its technical details ? Did you see that you could modify the technical details if you own a special video ? Did you find the criterion search ? Did you use the criterion search to display only the movies you own, etc... ?

[CWuestefeld]

Hector, you've obviously invested a ton of work into this. So I wouldn't be ashamed of trying to recover that investment by making money off the affiliate links. It seems like a pretty reasonable deal to me.

I haven't actually tried to use the program. It looks good on your web page, but I'd need a few things before I would switch to it. I suspect that on a forum like this where most of the participants are computer savvy and much more than casual users (many are developers ourselves) that most of us actually have some kind of movie catalog already.

• Import - I'm not going to re-enter all the movies. Barcode helps, but only those of us with CueCats. I personally am using Ant right now (http://www.antp.be/s...ftware/moviecatalog/) which is pretty advanced for exporting; I'd need a way to move my collection from there into your system.
• Reporting - I want a way to produce two reports: complete catalog and "things I haven't watched yet". These should be sortable in various ways, like by genre, formatted not in a list by card-like, perhaps 6 per page, showing box shot, brief description, actors, rating. DVDProfiler and Collectorz are very advanced in this feature.
• Completeness - Your approach of starting with a full catalog certainly has advantages, but it's got liabilities as well. With programs like Ant and Collectorz, I can always be sure to find my data, because IMDB and other sites are the source. I have a fair amount of foreign and wacky films, some normally unavailable in the US, so I'm worried that you won't be able to cover my whole collection.

[Cool Hector]

Hi CWuestefeld !

About importing: my program doesn't have any importing option at all, and I don't really have plans to add one. We'll see... This may indeed be a problem for you if your collection is large. But please try the program anyway to see if you like the concept.

About reporting: my program has some basic reporting. Nothing fancy, as you can only export as a text file or in iPod notes format. But you can print things like "the movies you own", "the movies you loaned", "the excellent comedies from the eighties that you'd like to have", etc... Improving the report feature is really an easy task, and I only wait to know for sure what users really want.

About "things I haven't watched yet": that's not possible for the moment, but it will be when I'll have added the tag annotation system I have in mind.

About completeness: my goal is to build an exhaustive database, even for foreign movies. I guesstimate that it will take 3 to 6 month to come close to completeness. And if it occurs anyway that you find a movie missing, you'll just have to send me a mail and I'll add it.

[nosh]

About completeness: my goal is to build an exhaustive database, even for foreign movies. I guesstimate that it will take 3 to 6 month to come close to completeness. And if it occurs anyway that you find a movie missing, you'll just have to send me a mail and I'll add it.

I like the concept of an already existing database, especially for actors. My guess is most people would consider IMDB import a make or break feature in this category. The only way to keep up with the tons of new releases every month is to let IMDB take care of it.

[Cool Hector]

Hi Nosh !

I don't know how much legal it is to take data from the IMDb 
It's copyrighted material, and they licence it for a (big) fee.
They frequently change their page layout to break vampire scripts...

Anyway, in my case, IMDb is not an option because it doesn't do well for many languages other than English.

Nonetheless, I plan to provide direct links to IMDb, All Movie Guide, TCMDb, etc... for when you'll want some more details about a movie, or to discuss it on a forum, etc... I'll also add links to trailers, reviews, etc...

[Rhutobello]

I think you shall concentrate about what this program do very well....a brilliant catalogue...that is easy to understand and use.

This way you "hit" the majority of people.....those who are "Collectors" will have much more options, will demand more and more from you....and you loose out what you are good at....because you will make something that is neither.

Concentrate on the masses...make it so "automatic" as possible....this way you will hit moms and pas..and even Grandpas (me ) Just accept that none can make the best product ever....because we are all different....we all have different goals or opinions....with your program...go for the masses....there is where you will make the best deal....because they are those who buy most
Good luck! 

[Cool Hector]

Thank you for your wisdom, Rhutobello.

I clearly aim at the masses: the fact that it's free, and easy to use.

But when you write a collection manager, it's a point of honor that the most avid collectors like it. I'm a collector myself, and I conceived Coollector as the program of my dreams. Coollector has (or will have) very few to envy to the other movie managers.

Remember my words 

[iphigenie]

I think the use of affiliate deals is a great way to finance a tool like that