Personal Video Database

Do you own many DVDs? Do you loan them to friends and then forget? Maybe you have VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray versions of the same movie. You need help, and not for chronic videophilia. Something to help you manage your movie collection is in order, like Personal Video Database (PVD) from Nostradamus. It's optimized for cataloging and maintaining a large movie collection. This free program's grouping and searching features make it easy to find movies, and it accepts plug-ins that can retrieve detailed information online. It even has a loan tracking feature that can help you keep track of who's got what. But of course you don't need actual DVDs to use PVD; it can just as easily catalog movies stored on your hard drive or tape or simply serve as a reference database of your favorite movies.

When you install PVD, you can deselect import plug-ins for a wide range of languages and some other options. The interface opens with the familiar left-hand navigation sidebar and main display. Creating a detailed list of your movies is surprisingly easy, thanks to a wizard that lets you import cover art, cast information, and more from the Internet Movie Database and other Web sites. We like the ease with which PVD synchs with an outside server, too, which lets you import and export compatible database files. PVD's search capabilities may be the scene-stealer, though. Among these are Advanced and Web search capabilities, including film-specific searching from the interface; scanning folders for changed paths; searching for movies removed from your hard drive; and a reindexing feature to keep searches up to date. We also like the options on the Filters tab, which make for quick views of specific categories, such as which movies have posters or which are on hard drives or removable drives. The Loans manager is a nifty extra; it lets you add regular borrowers and keep track of how long they keep borrowed items and other loggings.

Movie lovers and collectors will find plenty to like about Personal Video Database, especially its unique lending-library capabilities. As movie collections move from DVDs to HDDs, PVD will help you keep track of it all.