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Wow! Above my pay grade, but I can appreciate the impressive achievement.  | Posted: Topic Replies: 25, Topic Views: 6161 |
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Quoting AlunH:
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Quoting dobrzpe:
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yea, but you are failing to realize: i bet people (MYSELF INCLUDED) would rather have info in the profile than NO INFO WHATSOEVER. i, too, have been using it since it was Invocative. i've submitted several profiles back in the day and they were rejected. so i said to myself, fine - i won't help out. now, for the last 18+ years, if it's not in the database, i have to go through the pain of putting in BASIC info and cover image myself. (no cast info, which REALLY sucks...)
i'd just be nice to have the info there, THEN if someone sees a mistake, and wants to fix it - GO FOR IT!
pulling from IMDB or even TMDB would be better than NOTHING.
But pulling IMDb info is illegal - that material is protected by copyright. Pulling their data (which is easily checked because of the mistakes) will get this site shut down.
I think it all depends on what you mean by "pulling". If I am reading from multiple sources, including IMDB, the list of cast and roles and I own the DVD and looking at the credits on the cover or from the screen and putting that information into DVD Profiler, IMHO that could not be construed as illegal. All the information is public knowledge. I agree that using an automated process, such as a computer to collect and extract from the proprietary presentation or database representation of the information might be construed as illegal. That's why Invelos rules do not allow contributing information gathered that way. To contribute, one is supposed to promise that all information has been verified by watching the movie credits directly or extracting directly from the DVD covers. Once this verification has been done, there is no way to tell what process the user employed to gather the information. | Posted: Topic Replies: 25, Topic Views: 6161 |
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| Whoa, forgot all about TMDb. I signed up for the API 11 years ago!!! I don't remember why I didn't incorporate it into Contribution Assistant. | Posted: Topic Replies: 39, Topic Views: 5358 |
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Quoting hydr0x:
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Quoting sneaks66:
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There should be a way to remove the "Wish List" from the "All" group of movies, as to me, the "All" are ones that I have and should not include ones that I don't have...
Patrick
That makes no sense. The very purpose of the "All" tab is to have a way to show ALL profiles in your database. It's the only way to search across all of them.
If it annoys you, just remove it from your display. Right click the category/tab list > Other > Edit Collection Categories > Hide built-in categories: "All"
There is no need for such drastic measures. As I explained, "Owned" is what he needs. Maybe he didn't realize. | Posted: Topic Replies: 4, Topic Views: 1745 |
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Quoting sneaks66:
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There should be a way to remove the "Wish List" from the "All" group of movies, as to me, the "All" are ones that I have and should not include ones that I don't have...
Patrick
That is the purpose of "Owned". Owned = All - WishList - Ordered - Custom Categories not included in owned (user choice) | Posted: Topic Replies: 4, Topic Views: 1745 |
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| Good that you removed the email address. But you might continue to wait for solutions to your issue, longer than if you go ahead and post in the Desktop Technical Support forum as I suggested. That's where experienced people usually look for ways to help out. | Posted: Topic Replies: 3, Topic Views: 1477 |
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| I highly recommend that you delete your post and repost in the Desktop Technical Support Forum. And do not expose your email. There are a lot of spammers watching this forum. | Posted: Topic Replies: 3, Topic Views: 1477 |
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Quoting AlunH:
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It wouldn't be free to pull information from IMDb. Quite the reverse, in fact, and I've long suspected that some of the silence here has been caused by users pulling info from the IMDb in the first place.
I submit a lot of full casts to the database. Sometimes I check the listings on the IMDb in case I've misread a credit. I have yet to find a single IMDb entry that doesn't contain a mistake.
You are correct. In fact there are plugins which allow automatic review of IMDB information. However, the Invelos rules make it clear that submitted data must be verified and validated by actually watching the movie and credits or extracting the information from the DVD packaging in specific ways.
That being said, assuming the result of a submission is absolutely accurate, and if the corresponding IMDB entry is also accurate, then how can one tell how the entries were generated? IMDB cannot "own" the raw data, only the its digital encapsulation and presentation. That's my opinion, so as long as the process of transferring the data from all sources comes from diligent study and interpretation of publicly presented information, it seems to me to be perfectly legal.
It will not be long before a clever AI coder could make a script that says "Build an Invelos profile for UPC xxxxx released in Denmark in 1947", and a few seconds later the profile will be saved in your download folder. The AI would have as its database, the entire internet, so that its code would resolve discrepancies and perform the equivalent of a common name definition, birth year assignment and correlation among aliases. | Posted: Topic Replies: 25, Topic Views: 6161 |
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I just ran DVDPca for a random disc I picked out of my collection. It is the DVD disc A4E7E60D384E5317 from a multi disc collection that includes the BD also.
Here is a screen shot of the captured information. I use DVDFab these days, not AnyDVD.
Captain America DVD | Posted: Topic Replies: 25, Topic Views: 6161 |
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If there are any adventuresome programmers out there, I have an idea: I have noticed over the years, a gradual improvement in software that scans images for text. A clever programmer could write a nice app to allow quick text extraction of profile information from sections of the scanned covers.
There are also some new web page parsing packages out there, that allow for fast retrieval and aggregation of internet data ("screen scraping"). I would be happy to share tips and tricks I have used to deduce locality and country of origin and normalization of language specific characters in order to correlate information from multiple searches.
Send me a PM if you have any questions. | Posted: Topic Replies: 25, Topic Views: 6161 |
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In case people wonder about getting information off the disc programmatically, I can tell you that for the most part "it is not there." I have (had? - not sure if it still works) a plugin called DVDPCa ("Contribution Assistant").
Its original purpose was to automatically pull profile information off a DVD and build an Invelos profile. I even had dreams of scanning the credit images and convert to text.
Needless it to say, I was not able to reach that lofty goal, even after many hundreds of hours of in-depth study of the DVD internal format and coding.
But I was able to:
- Get DiscID for DVDs (I don't remember if I got it for BDs)
- Find a very small amount of cast / crew info, when it was there
- Sometimes could get title and a some genre info
- Audio and video tracks
- Region info
- Subtitles info
- Some special features info
- Some guesses about extra video bonus features
Complications arose due to lack of standards for what data is available, and enforcing its availability. And sometimes there are even errors compared with what is on the DVD cover.
I borrowed code from the old open source versions of DVDInfo and BDInfo, and added a lot of my own code and research. And then there is the problem of encryption, so AnyDVD or something like it, must be installed for me to get to the internal data.
Feel free to mess with the plugin. See if it even still works, or whether it provides any value to you. If it crashes, I will fix it to the point where at least it runs - but I'm not sure I can do much more than I did originally in terms of getting profile info. | Posted: Topic Replies: 25, Topic Views: 6161 |
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| Oops, already posted by rdodolak. | Posted: Topic Replies: 5, Topic Views: 2223 |
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The "4K" DVDs are not only high resolution. They also adhere to the "HD" standards, which improves and stabilizes colors, brightness and provides superior audio. I agree that upscaled materials don't always effectively exploit the new standards, but material that was designed for it, or that was remasterd from material that had the resolution, video depth and audio quality to allow conversion to 4K HD, definitely is markedly superior to regular DVDs and BDs.
If you have the correct equipment, you will see and hear the difference. People who don't have the proper equipment are not motivated to buy BD / 4K because they cannot experience the difference. | Posted: Topic Replies: 241, Topic Views: 56571 |
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| So grateful for your efforts. | Posted: Topic Replies: 3, Topic Views: 3100 |
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I agree with Gunnar's comments. Nice work!
(says deleted ...) | Posted: Topic Replies: 4, Topic Views: 3461 |
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| Was using TurboCLT today. Man what a masterpiece that is. | Posted: Topic Replies: 12, Topic Views: 14041 |
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| Thanks. I copied the link, pasted, fixed the typo and it worked. | Posted: Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 20316 |
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| I can't reach the site. | Posted: Topic Replies: 69, Topic Views: 20316 |
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| Wow, I love it when the communications architecture we crafted together supports diagnosis and recovery. Apparently, at least so far, we anticipated the things you would need to know. | Posted: Topic Replies: 50, Topic Views: 34114 |
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This is what is in my localities.xod for the Netherlands locality ratings.
Netherllands localities.xod entry
Notice I am missing entries for ages 14 and 18.
How / when is this file updated from Invelos? | Posted: Topic Replies: 11, Topic Views: 8538 |
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I proposed this many years ago, but it would be relatively easy for the community to share profiles in a structured way. Ken, again, in his ingenious vision has given us "profile files". You can encapsulate a profile into digital format and when "double clicked," they load into DVD Profiler automatically. If someone hosted a web site and appropriate tools, users could share profile files, indexed by profile ID and even version, if we wanted to allow controlled updates. An enterprising user could make a few bucks by charging a fee to host your profile files and xml exports for private use, and could also provide access to a shared set of vetted profile files with some kind of sync process for downloading to local.
This would in no way be a conflict with or competitive to DVD Profiler - just fee based backup and sharing service. Ken must have envisioned it, because he enabled it. | Posted: Topic Replies: 92, Topic Views: 24424 |
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Quoting scotthm:
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Quoting mediadogg:
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I do not know why they do not, with all the generosity and patience that Invelos has shown us over the years, simply open up the software, database and website to the world.
Is is possible that somehow the source code has been lost or compromised?
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Of course anything is possible. If by compromised you include legally constrained, even more likely. Given that either Ken, his family or some authorized business entity is allowed to or required to maintain the web site, the database and contributions process, then I suspect there is something very powerful preventing them from doing more, because it is obvious that someone has cared enough to enable what is happening now.
There are many examples of creative community-minded people leaving money in a foundation or trust fund to continue something after their passing, that was important to them in life. I think that scenario is also possible.
Bottom line is that we are clearly being left in the dark on purpose, but we are also being supported, at significant cost, also on purpose. And for the latter, I am grateful. | Posted: Topic Replies: 92, Topic Views: 24424 |
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Quoting Ian79:
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Next (stupid) question.
Let's take a hypothetical case. Ken wants to sell DVD Profiler.
What's the program now worth? It's a declining market.
Is there someone on this forum that could or would buy it? With or without partners. And also willing to maintain it.
Sent that very question to Ken's email years ago. No reply. | Posted: Topic Replies: 92, Topic Views: 24424 |
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Thanks, I appreciate your kind words.
Just like that, we have it. The real value of DVD Profiler. Its Community. | Posted: Topic Replies: 92, Topic Views: 24424 |
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Another thought. Two similarly innovative programs that we all use are "PKZIP" and "VLC Player".
They were once crazily popular tools that everybody loved and the developers busily kept pumping out new features. They both eventually went open source and the world-wide community of programmers began doing even more amazing things with them. Eventually PKZIP became integrated into operating systems such as Windows and VLC Player became even more popular. They both brought nice rewards to the original developers though different means, so I don't think they suffered by going open source.
I do not know why they do not, with all the generosity and patience that Invelos has shown us over the years, simply open up the software, database and website to the world. I think a massive new wave of innovation would result, if people did not have to start from scratch, and had the ability to explore different approaches with the original still serving as the measure of success for user satisfaction. History has shown that Invleos would likey also benefit from future corporate licensing deals. | Posted: Topic Replies: 92, Topic Views: 24424 |