Informal Poll: DVD section - keep it, merge it, or trash it

This was posted in another thread by Ronnie, but I think it deserves its own thread:

Ronnie:
I have a few problems with how listal is separating things
if you look at IMDB they have ONE movie item, and then from there all kinds of dvd variation are linked to the actual movie, on listal this is not how it works.
I suppose this was not addressed at the designing stages and it is probably to late to fix.

if I watch a trailer on apple's website that is brand new and I want to watch the movie I add it to my movies section, and mark it as want to watch, later on when the movie is released and I went to see it I come back and mark it as watched.... then 3 months later I buy the movie on dvd, instead of just marking it as owned or wanted I have to search for it again, this is where my complaint above comes from, I am now presented with maybe 3-4 different version for the same movie, special edition, directors cut, widescreen, fullscreen... I dont really care what my dvd will be listed as, just list is as OWNED... why cant I do this from the MOVIES section? why do I have to re-search for a movie I already have in my list?

for one movie there be at least 5 interactions I have to to the site..

1. find movie on movies - mark as want to watch
2. mark movie as watched
3. find dvd - mark as wanted
4. mark as owned
and between 1 and 4 I will probably rate it and tag it.. which I will have to do twice if I decide to buy it..

so instead of redesigning the whole database and the website, at least add a link to search for dvd from the movies section with the movie name pre-coded into the search


to which I added,
Prelude76:

Ronnie, I agree 100% with your comment about making movies/dvd section the same. Reason being DVD only represents a medium. What about all classics we have on VHS? What about the new formats, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD?

Also, people are posting reviews for a movie in DVD section, or movie section. By blending the two sections, we can have nearly twice as many quality reviews (and ratings as well) to rely on.

The whole DVD part is confusing as well. DVD what? movie? games come on DVD. What about TV shows that are out in DVD?

I suggested earlier that we merge the two sections. I'd love to see a movie entry have three parts:

Status - watched, want to watch, and bring back 'not
interested' so we can rate movies we hate ;)

Collection - owned, wanted

Format - DVD, VHS, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, DiVX (yes, it would be awesome to have DiVX listed, despite concerns from anti-piracy folks)

Next tricky part is which image to display, and I think if we set up 'Movie Poster default' and 'DVD Cover default', it would work nice, as each user can set this in their profile settings which to display by default, Movie Poster or DVD Cover.

The DVD section is quite crippled anyways right now, as Actors and Directors get linked only to MOVIE section, not DVD section. so i say eliminate DVD section altogether.

So the question is, can we have YES or NO to the above suggestions, and any comments you may have about ditching the DVD section and merging it with MOVIES?

Please give feedback, positive or negative, on this idea.

I don't really like the dvd section, as you say there are plenty of other formats and digital is just taking off as well, we have :

vhs
dvd
umd (psp)
bluray
hd-dvd
digital legal (amazon unboxed, itunes)
digital illegal (iso, xvid etc...)

If i was creating this site again I would go with this (as you have suggested) : 'I own this on :' and have select box showing which format you own it on.

Then again it's nice to have information on individual formats as there could be information specific to that format e.g. (3 disc special edition contains 'xxxxxxxx')

It also nice to display the exact dvd cover you own and I know collectors want to list the specific version the own.

It also nice to display the exact dvd cover you own and I know collectors want to list the specific version the own.

I didn't consider this point. Well, until the 'Movies' section gets revamped to the point where it could support multiple formats, all with their own covers, I guess its best to leave DVD section alone for collectors.

What about adding 'Owned' and 'Wanted' to the Movies section, similar to how DVDs and Books are done now, so people can use only Movies for their collection if they want to, but also add links to 'related items', such as DVDs (all regions, all editions).

In fact, the 'related items' could be user editable section, where we can even add 'Empire Strikes Back' and 'Return of Jedi' movie links to the 'Star Wars' movie entry, or any other movie that has a sequel, prequel, remake, or part of a series. wow. in fact, that would kill two birds with one stone; take care of all the movie to DVD cross linking, as well as make exploring similar related films easily.

Please merge the dvd section into the movie section...

I was kinda thinking the same thing.....there are so many dvd titles, Fullscreen, Widescreen, Fullscreen extended edition, Widescreen extended edition.....

I would kinda like it more if you just said "Owned" on the movie section....

Well, in light of others suggestions they want R3 and R4 regions added for their DVD collections, why not just leave DVD alone (and add all regions) but I still think cross-linking items would be VERY nice. Just let anyone edit it and add links to related DVDs and Movies.

example:

Matrix Movie page
- Link to related DVDs - Full Screen, Widescreen, Special Edition, R2 edition, R3, etc...
- Link to related Movies - Matrix Revolutions, Matrix Reloaded, Animatrix
- Link to external websites: Matrix @ Wikipedia, Matrix @ IMDB, Matrix @ BoxOffice Mojo, Matrix @ RottenTomatoes, etc..

wouldn't that be AWESOME, guys?

I would like to keep the DVD section as it's useful to know exactly what I own and have it's specific cover. Linking between the sections would be VERY nice though, and so would the external links too. I'm sure that it could be user generated too for the links if that would be easier on Tom. ;)

I don't particularly care about covers, regions or formats, but if they became options here, I would make the effort to specify mine.

That's how I feel.....same with books for me. There are just soooooo many different published versions of classics and such.

I agree with the suggestions to simplify and tidy up, especially regarding the different versions available of same titles. The differences could be noted in our tags, along with if it's owned on DVD, Laser, digital download, etc.

Keep but allow links between different editions. Same with music and suchlike - The most popular album (OK Computer) has 7 different editions on here. They all probably exist, but they need linking in some way so I don't get recommended the versions that I don't own.

Incidentally, it does need renaming, but would be against linking to heavily with Films/TV simply because not everything on DVD/VHS etc comes under either category. Take sports videos as a typical example.

1. integrate the dvd section into the movie section
2. opportunity to own or want to own a movie
3. for owned movie you could choose among different mediums or formats (DVD, VHS, divx etc.)
4. they will be displayed within the item view and the list view (perhaps a new column with corresponding icons)
5. each medium get's it's own "other list"
(6. opportunity to choose your very own primary image/cover)

advantage: no need for manually entered links between movies and dvds
advantage: support of other formats
advantage: free space for th "other" tab
advantage: ratings, comments, images, castlist etc. are united

Hmm. 6 was an idea I had not thought of. Very nice.

I do not know when or to what extent the suggestions will be implemented, there are other higher priority jobs to be done first.

1. integrate the dvd section into the movie section
...
advantage: no need for manually entered links between movies and dvds

I don't see how these 2 things go together, unless you just mean removing the dvd section.


Another major problem with merging the 2 sections is if you own multiple dvds for 1 movies or multiple seasons for 1 tv show.

I don't see how these 2 things go together, unless you just mean removing the dvd section.

yep, that's what i mean.

I find it more usable to remove the DVD section... it's just one out of a whole bunch of media: VHS, CD, vinyl, paper, electronic (book), audio cassette etc.

[quote]Well, each season of each TV show could be considered as seperate entries, no? Because each will have different releases or regions, and they're all on different DVDs.[/quote]

But then you get DVDs which just have select episodes of TV shows (such as the Simpsons Classics series), Sports DVDs, Non-TV/Film documentaries, Comedy DVDs, Music DVDs. All kinds of things that DON'T fit into the categories of "Film" or "TV Season". What about my boxsets that have multiple seasons? How do I flag those in my collection? Why should I have to rate (as an example) The Final Samarai with one rating for both film and DVD. It's not a terrible film (although not great), but the extras on the DVD package I've got mean that I think less of the overall purchase.

What would be nice is to be able to see associated purchasable versions of a film on the film's page and flag on there that you own it, or something similar, which does mean for those on here who don't seem to buy anything other than films on DVD they don't need to worry about the DVD section any longer. Unless any change still allows me to catalogue all my DVDs properly in one place like I can with my CDs and Vinyl, I'm not likely to be remotely happy with it though.

(Note that for DVD above you can read any other visual medium such as VCD, blue-ray, HD-DVD, VHS and so on!)

great points, Phil. at first, I was all for scraping the DVD section, the points that Tom, yourself and some others brought up make sense, which is why DVD section should be left alone for being able to keep TRUE dvd collections organized.

But I still think we really need a cross-linking between movies and DVDs and even books. Tom doesnt need to do any coding, just give each item on listal an area called "Internal Links" and "External Links", and make those user-editable.

example, say the movie 'The Shining' by Kubrick, you could have the following:

Internal Links:
- DVD of shining, region 1
- DVD of shining, widescreen
- Special director's cut of shining
- link to other movie, 'The Shining', which came after (the made-for-tv version)
- link to paperback book 'The Shining' by stephen king
- link to hardcover book 'The Shining'
etc...

and External Links could have links to any site, say RottenTomatoes, BoxOfficeMojo, Wikipedia, etc.. heck, even fan sites would be cool to have linked.

reason to make 'internal' and 'external' is to give more emphasis on which sites keep up on listal, and which sites will make you leave listal, as well as all 'internal' links can have a mini-image of primary image of the item linked, so it would look very sexy. :) External links could just have certain web-icons for wikipedia and other popular sites.

now seriously, wouldnt' that be AWESOME? and it would keep DVD section intact, and make everyone happy. Imagine the possibility, seeing all related movies, sequels, prequel, books, and every dvd version (heck, even games-movie cross linking) for say, spider-man or superman.

and interface could be dead easy. click a link that says 'Add Listal Reference' or something to that effect (I suck at actual wording) and then it takes you to a search page, where you can search for movies,dvds,books,tv shows,games. Then results would be displayed based on your search term used, and then you simply click one or more checkboxes for which items to cross-promote, and all related links get added to each one of the items selected. done, simple as pie. maybe make it a moderator/elevated privilege action to avoid possibility of dumbasses linking 'Fight Club' to 'Shrek' and so on. lol

heck, to keep listal users on listal, you can even scrap the 'external link' suggestion, just allow internal cross-refering links.

Added benefit to everyone, plus gets people to explore perhaps books, tv shows or games based on a movie they love, and builds awareness and grows all the sections. right now, each area is so restrictive. you get users that pretty much only stick to movies, or only books, or only music. this would get users to start exploring the other sections.

I'd personally allow for limited external linking. Things like IMDB, MusicBrainz, Amazon and official website. Maybe Wikipedia page or similar too. I'd keep it to a reasonably select list of possibilities though purely to avoid going overkill and keep any links useful.

Keep

As a few have said above DVD's and Movies are not always the same thing. DVD's can also include TV and Music for example.

Movies and TV seem to be treated inconsistently - I can list a favourite movie without having to list it in DVD's if I don't own it, yet I cannot do this for TV - I would like to list Seinfeld as a favourite TV program but the only option to list it is to pretend that I own one of the series releases on DVD! There should be a separate list for TV shows that is not related to DVD ownership (or indeed any other format) - this site really needs to differentiate between favourites/items watched and ownership of those items - particularly as those items can be owned in multiple formats. I don't suppose there is an equivalent of the Internet Movie Database for TV programs?!

I kind of like the idea of merging the sections, it would simplify the system...on the other hand, with a seperate DVD section you can specify what version of the DVD you have, such as collectors edition, director's cut, 20th aniversary, box set, etc. So I guess I'm split on the issue.