Coolector is a free movie encyclopaedia program that ships with a database of 41,000 movies and 86,000 people. Think of it as a downloadable mini imdb.com and you’ll be somewhere close. Except that the interface and search on this product is severely crippled. At first glance having all that movie data at your fingertips creates a sort of head rush of excitement.
But then you find that actually searching for something is a little more arcane than it should be. For some weird reason, things like your movie ratings and whether you own it already are more important search criteria than categories, date of production and stuff like that. Or it seems that way. In fact the best thing about the interface is the integration with PicLens which makes the image handling really nice for things like DVD covers.
Hey it’s unfair to pick on freeware OK, so I’ll stop now, but the shame is this could be a really nice product if they threw away the broken interface and went for something clearer, faster and more useful. As it is, I can’t give it more than a tepid verdict I’m afraid, even though it could be a great way of tracking movie wishlists and your library. Shame.
Coollector was designed to be at the same time powerful and easy to use. Even the non-geeky users will immediately harness the power of the program. Coollector is both an encyclopedia of movies and a database of existing videos. You track not only the videos you own, but also all the movies you’ve seen, good or bad. Contrary to other movie collection managers, you don’t start with some dull empty database. The whole encyclopedia is included with the program… you download… you have it all ! You can rate the movies and persons. You easily maintain a wish list. You keep track of the videos you own, as well as those you’ve loaned. There’s price information, and tools to help you find the best bargains.
Hi, I’m the author of Coollector.
Before all, thank you very much for testing and writing about my program.
But in all honesty, I don’t understand why you say that the interface is crippled. Of course you can search movies by genre or by year of production !
You say that “searching for something is arcane”. Well, you can search a movie by its title (string search) or by a combination of criteria (criterion search). Current criteria are “genre”, “date”, “rating”, “owned”, “loaned”, “wished”, and “ordered”.
I’m rather proud of my interface, and you’re the first one to tell me that it’s crippled. My first impression is that you missed something, but neverminf, I’m opened to criticism. Please tell me what I should change and how I can make Coollector better.
Best regards.
I have Coolector. I've had it for just over 2 months and I love it! I hadn't had any problems with the User Interface at all. By the time that you put 10 or so movies in there that you own, you will probably be a "pro" at this program.
Nothing is perfect. I had a little problem with the printout sheet. The javascript links led to a home computer, or almost to a home computer (red x's). Maybe he's straightened out that by now. This is a great program. 5 our of 5 stars
OK… sorry about that. The print or view function is an .rss (newsfeed) that can be view by the plugin Cooliris (by the same software developer)
It would have worked before, but I didn't want to install the plugin.
If you don't really know the movie name like "5 fingers," putting in a search for "fingers" will give "5 fingers" but putting a movie in the search box like "fingers of mud" will give error sounds on the last word. If you have that movie, you will have to add it "from scratch." or follow the help link and suggest it in the forum. (with IMDB number)
There are some exceptions here. Have a great night!
I love it, but it just stops working sometimes. It won't start. I had 1,000 movies listed that I owned and had to end up reinstalling the program and losing my database. It just happened after updating 100 owned movies again. What gives? Windows Vista?
the coolector software, is bad,too bad.in brazil,named bosta,coco,lixo,merda,etc.etc….
it looks ok but huge problem is and why i am not using it, because you do not have custom filed that could be visible in main window. So I have collection of 1000 6divx-on-dvd movie and they have name as Movies Vol.1,vol.2, vol.741…and i search what to watch, how i can find on which dvd is mu movie…i hope u understood :)
I would like to understand how to find and download a mouvie or to have informations regarding a specific actor