What's new in Movie Collector? 2019

The year “twenty-twenty” is coming up, so here’s Movie Collector v20 for macOS!

In this release we added support for the macOS Dark/Light Mode, a new HDR field and enhanced the CLZ Cloud syncing system with many new fields and back cover images.

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As you probably know, macOS Catalina (version 10.15) was released earlier this week.
In Catalina, Apple has made two major changes, that will affect all software that you run on your Mac:

• All programs you use need to be 64-bit. No more support for 32-bit applications!
• All programs you download outside the App Store need to be notarized (=approved) by Apple.

Of course, our Movie Collector software has been a 64-bit application since version 18.1 (April 2018). And this week, we got it approved and notarized by Apple too!

So today, we released Movie Collector 19.3, 64-bit and notarized, so fully Catalina compatible!

Fixed:

• Drag/Drop image would put image in Downloads folder when using “just link to dropped file”

With all the big comic and game related releases going on, it has been a few months since the last Movie Collector update. But we didn’t forget you! In the background, we have been “secretly” working on a big update, which is available now as version 19.4!

Here’s what’s new:

• New “HDR” field (HDR10 / HDR10+ / Dolby Vision)
• Many more field now sync with the CLZ Cloud / Movie Connect:
  
  Subtitles, Audiotracks, Screen ratios, Layers, HDR, Color, Edition Release Date, Extras AND the Back Cover image!

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We’re on a roll! Here’s yet another BIG update of your Movie Collector for Windows software, bringing two more huge improvements, again made possible by our new content licensing agreement with IMDB:

1. Add Movies straight from IMDb, using the IMDb Number or URL
2. Now get “official” IMDb Cast and Crew lists for ALL movies in our Core

1. Add Movies by IMDb Number or URL

In this version, there is new “IMDb” tab in the Add Movies screen, for finding and adding movies straight from their IMDb Nr or URL.

Can’t find a movie in our Core? But it is on IMDb?
Then just find the movie on IMDb and copy either the IMDb Nr or the entire UMDb URL. Then go to the new IMDb tab and paste the Nr or URL into the search box, and click Search.

The movie entry will then be retrieved from IMDb automatically AND added to our Core, so that you can then immediately Add it to your database!

(Don’t worry, if it turns out the movie WAS already in our Core, it will automatically just return the existing entry, it will never cause duplicate entries in our Core.)

IMPORTANT: this new Add by IMDb feature always requires an active Service Plan!

Search by IMDb Nr:

Or just paste in the complete IMDB URL of the movie:

2. Official IMDb Cast and Crew list for all movies

Starting with this version, the Movie Collector software now downloads the “official” cast and crew from IMDb, that is the top 25 actors and the full list of Producers, Directors, Writers, Photography and Musicians.

Also, the cast list now comes with IMDb links for ALL cast members!

TIP 1: set the Max Actors / Crew members to 25

1. Go to menu “Tools > Options”.
2. Click on “Data and Images” and select “Download settings for data and images”
3. Change both the amount of Actors and Crew members to 25

TIP 2: Set Update from Core settings for Cast and Crew to “REPLACE”

If you wish to update your existing movie entries with the maximum amount of cast/crew entries:

1. First, go to the same screen as above and under “Update from CLZ Core”, next to “Cast” and “Crew” set the dropdown to “REPLACE” and click OK to save your changes.
2. Back in your main screen: select the movies you want to update, right click, then choose Update from Core.

( After updating, make sure to set setting back to “Update empty fields only”. )

We’re on a roll! Here’s yet another BIG update of your Movie Collector for Mac software, with 3 important additions!

1. Add Movies straight from IMDb, using the IMDb Number or URL
2. Now get “official” IMDb Cast and Crew lists for ALL movies in our Core
3. Also, new support for 12 digital movie formats, complete with icons and logos

1. Add Movies by IMDb Number or URL

More goodies made possible by our agreement with IMDb! Introduced today, a new “IMDb” tab in the Add Movies screen for finding and adding movies straight from their IMDb Nr or URL.

Can’t find a movie in our Core? But it is on IMDb?
Then just find the movie on IMDb and copy either the IMDb Nr or the entire UMDb URL. Then go to the new IMDb tab and paste the Nr or URL into the search box, and click Search.

The movie entry will then be retrieved from IMDb automatically AND added to our Core, so that you can then immediately Add it to your database!

(Don’t worry, if it turns out the movie WAS already in our Core, it will automatically just return the existing entry, it will never cause duplicate entries in our Core.)

IMPORTANT: this new Add by IMDb feature always requires an active Service Plan!

Search by IMDb Nr:

Or just paste in the complete IMDB URL of the movie:

2. Official IMDb Cast and Crew list for all movies

Starting with this version, the Movie Collector software now downloads the “official” cast and crew from IMDb, that is the top 25 actors and the full list of Producers, Directors, Writers, Photography and Musicians.

Also, the cast list now comes with IMDb links for ALL cast members!

TIP 1: set the Max Actors / Crew members to 25

1. Go to menu “Movie Collector > Preferences”.
2. Click on “Data and Images” and select “Download settings for data and images”
3. Change both the amount of Actors and Crew members to 25

TIP 2: Set Update from Core settings for Cast and Crew to “REPLACE”

If you wish to update your existing movie entries with the maximum amount of cast/crew entries:

1. First, go to the same screen as above and under “Update from CLZ Core”, next to “Cast” and “Crew” set the dropdown to “REPLACE”.
2. Then select the movies you want to update, right click, then choose Update from Core.

( After updating, make sure to set setting back to “Update empty fields only”. )

3. New options and icons for digital movie formats

With digital movie formats becoming more popular, we have decided to add the most popular ones to the Format list, all with nice new icons and logos.

Now available as new Format choices:

• Amazon Prime Video
• Apple iTunes
• Google Play
• Vudu
• Roku
• Microsoft Movies & TV
• Playstation Video
• Netflix
• Youtube
• Hulu
• Disney+
• Movies Anywhere

Based on user feedback we found out users were looking for and expecting a tool to find duplicate entries in their database. Some way to find out if you’ve accidentally added multiple versions of the same movie, but perhaps with a different format or barcode.

After quite a few requests and discussions with users about this, to find out how they got duplicates and what they would expect from such a Duplicate Finder tool, it’s here today: Find Duplicate entries in your database!

New: Find Duplicate Movies

Click menu Tools > Maintenance > Find Duplicates to begin.

Then select which field to find duplicates on. You can find duplicates based on:

• Title
• Title & Release Year
• Barcode
• Index
• Exact Duplicate

Click “Find Duplicates” and see what it comes up with. Use the blue “Keep” button to keep a group of duplicates, or use the red “Remove” button to remove a duplicate!

If you click “Remove all duplicates automatically” the program will remove all duplicate entries and will only keep 1 single entry (the oldest one) in your database.

Tip: use the columns button, top right, to set up the columns you’d like to see!

New options and icons for digital movie formats

With digital movie formats becoming more popular, we have decided to add the most popular ones as default choices in the Format list, all with nice new list icons and logos for the details panel.

Now available as new Format choices:

• Amazon Prime Video
• Apple iTunes
• Google Play
• Vudu
• Roku
• Microsoft Movies & TV
• Playstation Video
• Netflix
• Youtube
• Hulu
• Disney+

New Format picker drop-down in Add Movies from Core

The new format choices have now also been added to the Format picker in the Add Movies from Core screen. Just click the blue Format button and pick from the format choices, nicely separated in “Physical” and “Digital” sections:

Renamed Blu-ray and 4K UHD formats

To conform with the more commonly used naming, we have renamed two formats:

• “Blu-ray Disc” to just “Blu-ray”
• “Ultra HD Blu-ray” to just “4K UHD”

Also, the 4K UHD format now has a new icon!

More tweaks to the Add button in Add Movies from Core

We already worked on this area in the previous update, but we were still not completely satisfied. So more tweaks to the Add button in the Add Movies from Core screen today:

• All Collection Status values are now available, including “For Sale” and “On Order”!
• The little popup menu now indicates the selected value with a checkmark.
• The Add button itself now says “Add to Collection” or “Add to Wishlist”.

The Movie Collector v19 release was just 6 weeks ago, but I have another big update for you now. Depending on how much of an IMDb junkie you are, today’s v19.1 update may even be a bigger deal than v19 itself 🙂

What’s new in Movie Collector v19.1

As you probably know, we have signed a more comprehensive (and also much more expensive) content licensing agreement with IMDb, which gives us access to more and fresher IMDb data.

Today we’ve released the first new features made possible by this new agreement!

New: IMDb Votes field

This new field indicates the number of votes on which the IMDb Rating is based. It is a good indication of 1. how popular the movie is and 2. how trustworthy the rating is.

• The IMDb Votes field is automatically filled in when you Add a Movie from Core. (Note: similar to IMDb Ratings and Links, getting IMDb Votes from Core requires an active Service Plan)
• It is also shown in the yellow IMDb box in your movie details panel, right below the logo and rating (for the Flex, QuickSilver and Carbon templates).
• Tip: add the IMDb Votes as a column in your list, so that easily see for all your movies or even sort on it to order your list by the movie’s popularity.

New: Update your IMDb Ratings and Votes in one go

The new IMDb content license gives us daily updates of the IMDb Ratings and Votes, so let’s make use of that daily fresh data now!

• Select some (or all) movies in your list, then right click and choose Update IMDb Ratings / Votes from the menu.
• This will connect to our Core and retrieve fresh IMDb Ratings and Votes for all selected movies.
• Don’t worry, this won’t take long. We have implemented a super efficient system that can update ratings/votes in chunks of 100 movies in one go.
• When done, it will report the number of movies it has updated the Ratings and Votes for.
• Note: using the “Update IMDb Ratings/Votes” feature requires an active Service Plan.

Other changes

• Renamed format “Blu-ray Disc” to “Blu-ray”
• Renamed format “Ultra HD Blu-ray” to “4K UHD”
• Updated the format icon for 4K UHD

With the big feature updates behind us (multi-collections, image syncing, Flex template, IMDb Votes, etc…), it is time for some smaller tweaks that were requested by our loyal users:

• More compact toolbar layout,to save screen space
• No more annoying Add to Collection / Wish List popup in Add Movies screen
• New “Transparent” styles for the Flex template, to show off your backdrops

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The Movie Collector v19 release was just 2 months ago, but I have another big update for you now. Depending on how much of an IMDb junkie you are, today’s v19.1 update may even be a bigger deal than v19 itself 🙂

What’s new in Movie Collector v19.1

As you probably know, we have signed a more comprehensive (and also much more expensive) content licensing agreement with IMDb, which gives us access to more and fresher IMDb data.

Today we’ve released the first new features made possible by this new agreement!

New: IMDb Votes field

This new field indicates the number of votes on which the IMDb Rating is based. It is a good indication of 1. how popular the movie is and 2. how trustworthy the rating is.

• The IMDb Votes field is automatically filled in when you Add a Movie from Core. (Note: similar to IMDb Ratings and Links, getting IMDb Votes from Core requires an active Service Plan)
• It is also shown in the yellow IMDb box in your movie details panel, right below the logo and rating (for the Flex, QuickSilver and Carbon templates).
• Tip: add the IMDb Votes as a column in your list, so that easily see for all your movies or even sort on it to order your list by the movie’s popularity.

New: Update your IMDb Ratings and Votes in one go

The new IMDb content license gives us daily updates of the IMDb Ratings and Votes, so let’s make use of that daily fresh data now!

• Select some (or all) movies in your list, then right click and choose Update IMDb Ratings/Votes from the menu.
• This will connect to our Core and retrieve fresh IMDb Ratings and Votes for all selected movies.
• Don’t worry, this won’t take long. We have implemented a super efficient system that can update ratings/votes in chunks of 100 movies in one go.
• When done, it will report the number of movies it has updated the Ratings and Votes for.
• Note: using the “Update IMDb Ratings/Votes” feature requires an active Service Plan.

Other changes

• Several tweaks to improve the trial mode experience:
  • Bigger “+ Add Movies” button on the default toolbar
  • Improved “My CLZ Account” messaging when logging in with a CLZ Account.
  • New hints to Sync with CLZ Cloud after adding some movies.
  • Removed the ugly blue “hint box” that appeared when starting with an empty database.
• FIXED: Occasional freeze/hang problems after a period of program inactivity.

Movie Collector version 19 has arrived! Here’s what’s new:

• Manage multiple “collections” within one database file
• Automatic Cloud-syncing of your own “custom” images
• Add Box Sets as a single database entry
• A new super-adaptive “Flex” template for the Details Panel
• IMDb features are back!

Read on for the full details:

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