CollectionCheck

I wrote this little tool for my own use because I have a long list of titles in my DVD collection and a short memory. So when I'm browsing various sites I often ask myself "Do I own this title?". Since I often look for older titles, the fact that I recognize a title means little. I may have owned it on VHS back in the day, or on Laserdisc. I may have watched it in the cinema or on TV. I may have just read about it in Famous Monsters or some similar magazine, or perhaps I just saw the trailer somewhere. Or perhaps I already own it, and have just forgotten about it. I have been known to double-dip on titles without realizing it.

So, it would be nice to have a really quick way of checking. Sure, I could search for a title in DVD Profiler. But that would mean switching applications, typing in the title and seeing if something matches. Doesn't sound to difficult, but if your looking at a lot of titles it becomes a drag. So I wanted something even simpler. And that turned into CollectionCheck.

The basic idea is that the program watches the clipboard, and if something is copied to the clipboard, the program will search for it, either as a title or as an id (UPC/EAN). The title search is done as an exact word search, so if you check for "Kong" you will find "King Kong" but not "Konga", if you search for "King Kong" you will find "Making of King Kong" but not "King of Kong Island".

Here is an example of what the searches may look like:

You'll notice that the search results look different depending on if you search for a title or an id. The reason, of course, is that if you get a hit on the id, you know for sure that the title is in your collection. The result in the title search will show collection number, title, production year and collection name.

Just like for my program ProfilerQuery you need to first export your collection to an XML file. You may refer to the documentation for ProfilerQuery for a tip on how to make that as easy as possible. Note, though, that if you want the program to search more than just your Owned collection, you should export all profiles. ("Shipped" is one of my custom collections)

By default the program stays on top, so you see the result without having to switch to it. You can turn that off by unchecking Tools / On top in the menu. You can stop the program temporarily from watching the clipboard by unchecking Tools / Watch clipboard in the menu. You can minimize CollectionCheck if you want, and it will pop back up after a search.

Double clicking a line in the title search result will take you to that profile in DVD Profiler, if Profiler is running and not minimized.

Download version 1.2.0 here.