What's New in Movie Collector 5

Movie Collector version 5

Movie Collector 5 for Windows was released in May 2007 and introduced many new features, enhancements of existing features and better looks.

Since its release we have continued to improve it, through several minor upgrades. Just scroll down this page to get an impression of all additions and changes.

Upgrading to v5
If you already own an earlier version of Movie Collector (Standard or Pro), you can upgrade to the PRO version 5 for only US $19.95, a 50% discount. Just enter your license key in the box on the right and click Upgrade Now.

What's New in Movie Collector 5:

New Movie Collector MCE viewer for Media Center (new in 5.5)

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The new MCE Viewer is created and maintained by Brian Baskerville of mcezone.com.

• cool new look and feel in several different views (Large Covers, Thumbnails and Titles)
• search by Title, Genre or Rating right from the MCE viewer
• use the on screen keyboard to find movies starting with a specific letter
• order your movie list by Title, Year or a Custom order (defined in Movie Collector in Tools / Options / Media Center)
• Define a Filter for MCE data in Tools / Options / Media Center
• No exporting to MCE necessary, the MCE viewer always uses an up-to-date data set
• Already using My Movies for your MCE viewing? No problem, Movie Collector can import your existing My Movies data, so switching to Movie Collector's MCE viewer is painless and easy.

New Screen Layout setting for main screen (new in 5.5)

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Choose from six different layout configurations of tree, list and details panel:

• Horizontal Split
• Vertical Split
• Full Width Details
• Full Height Tree
• Full Height Details
• Classic Layout (the pre v5.5 layout)

Even more improvements to the multi-disc and TV series / episodes support (new in 5.5)

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• Movie items are now shown in the tree panel, so that they can be expanded to show their details
• Expand a movie item to see its Disc items.
• For TV series, expand a Disc items to see the episodes on that disc
• Select a Disc item in the tree panel to view its episodes in the List panel, including their Sequence Number, Title, First-Air Date, Plot, etc...

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• Improved CueCat handling in main screen
• Improved CueCat handling in Add Automatically screens
• CueCat can now also be used in the Edit Movie screen (automatically fills barcode field then)

Improved support for TV series and episodes (new in 5.4)

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• new Episode / Air Date field
• new Episode / Running Time field

Support for Centurion CD carousel devices (new in 5.4)

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• Use Storage fields in Edit Movie screen to link your movies to Centurion CD volumes
• Movie Collector handles Centurion CD disc inserts

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• Completely redesigned Filter screen
• Build advanced filters using brackets, AND, OR, NOT, equal, not equal, greater than, less than, contains, starts with, ends with, wildcards
• Save your filters and activate them directly using the Filter menu on the toolbar
• Faster Quick Search

Sorting (new in 5.3)

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• Save your sort order definitions and activate them directly using the Sort Order menu on the toolbar
• Simpler Sort Field selection screen, just use checkboxes to select the fields you want.
• Sort Titles are now automatically generated from the Title when using Add Automatically
• new "Generate Sort Title" button in Edit Movie screen
• use Tools / Options / Sort Titles to configure recognized articles (the, a, le, la, die, der, das, etc..)
• Three part person names (e.g. Barbara Taylor Bradford) are now split into First/Last Names correctly

Columns (new in 5.3)

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• Save your column definitions and activate them directly using the Columns menu on the toolbar
• Simpler Columns selection screen, just use checkboxes to select the fields you want.

Folder selection (new in 5.3)

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• Save you custom folder field combination and activate them directly from the Folder menu above the tree
• Simpler Folder field selection screen, just use checkboxes to select the fields you want.

Automatic Capitalization of Titles (new in 5.3)

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• New AutoCap button next to Title in Edit Movie screen
• Titles are now automatically capitalized when using Add Automatically
• Use Tools / Options / Capitalization to configure auto-cap settings and exceptions

Improved Loan Management (new in 5.2)

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• Print loan lists
• Use Flic scanner in Loan Management screen to Loan or Return movies
• Use the Quick Search box to search your Loan History by Title, ISBN or Loaner name
• New Email and Address fields in the Loaner item
• New date selectors in Loan Info screen

Improved network support (new in 5.2)

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• New lock file system automatically prevents concurrent editing
• When one user is already using a database in Writable mode, subsequent users will automatically open the database in Read-Only mode
• In Read-Only all editing features are hidden and disabled, allowing viewing and searching only
• Create Read-Only workstations by running a forced Read-Only installation (start the installer with the /readonly command line parameter)

Support for multi-disc DVD editions (new in 5.1)

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• Use the new "Episodes & Features" tab page to create Disc items for each disc in a multi-disc DVD set
• Enter Episode lists per disc
• Enter Standard Features and Extra Features per disc
• Improved carousel support: now enter Storage Device and Slot per disk
• Episodes, Features and Storage data shows up in Details View grouped per Disc

Support for TV Series (improved in 5.1)

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• List episode titles and plots of TV Series on new "Episodes & Features" tab page in Edit Movie screen
• Create Disc items for each disc in a season box
• Move episodes between discs by dragging them onto the tab of the destination disc
• Download episode titles from the Collectorz.com info source automatically
• Episode list shows up in Details View on main screen

Support for Box Sets (improved in 5.1)

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• For multi-movie Box Sets (e.g. Alien Quadrilogy, Star Wars Trilogy, the Stanley Kubrick collection, etc...) enter all Box Set details in the new Box Set screen, including the box's front and back cover image.
• Then link all contained movies to the Box Set item using the Box Set field in the Edit Movie screen
• Box Set properties show up as an extra bar at the top of the Details View

Add links to movie files (DivX, Xvid, WMV, etc...)

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• Use the improved Links tab page to add movie files by dragging and dropping
• Start your movie player by clicking the link in the Details panel in the main screen

Add Movies Automatically

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• Improved Advanced Mode: tabs at the top have been combined, making it easier to search by Title AND Barcode in one go

• Improved Wizard Mode
  • It now takes less steps to add a movie
  • Screen is now resizable, for better previewing of results
• Filter Collectorz.com search results:
  • show editions of a particular Region only (e.g. Region 1 only)
  • show editions that have a Cover only
  • or just hide all editions and download movie data only

• Search Amazon UK by barcode
• New "Check Connection" button

Details View Templates

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• New CSS Styles system
  • Template selection menu now allows various "styles" for each template (using a submenu)
  • Styles can be created using CSS style sheets and a simple .csi meta file
• Added several new styles for Full Details template
• New Movie Collector 5 template, in 3 different styles (blue, black and iTunes)

New toolbar icons

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• New design for add/edit/remove and loan buttons
• Many existing icons have been improved (smoother edges)

Edit Movie screen enhancements:

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• Improved layout of fields within tab pages
• Screen is now resizable (and remembers its size too)
• Column widths of Cast and Crew lists are now remembered
• New Movie fields on Edition tab page: Distributor and Extras (new in 5.1)
• Use the Collectorz.com barcode scanner to fill the Barcode field (new in 5.1)
• New Tags fields on Personal tab page
• Improved Links tab page
  • Add links to websites by dragging & dropping from your browser
  • Add links to local files by dragging & dropping
  • Added images show up in the Details View in the main screen
  • Easier editing of links and their descriptions

• The "..." buttons next to pick list fields have been replaced by a new [Add ...] command inside the drop down list
• New entry boxes for easier adding of values to check list fields (e.g. Genre, Studio, Extras, etc...)

Export to HTML (PRO edition only)

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• New Movie Collector v5 Blue and Black detail page templates
• Improved look of List and Thumbnails index pages
• Improved look of Next/Previous navigation at the top of exported pages
• New "Paged by First Letter of Title" option

New Help file (english version only for now)

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• Up to date reference of all new features
• Added task based help topics
• Full keyword index
• Context sensitive help (Help buttons) in most screens of the program