Finding movies

[rocketsmart]

I wasn’t sure where to post this so… here goes.

There’s no denying how cool PVRs are. But, they work best for recording things you already know you want to watch (series, sporting events, movies you’ve heard of) and not so well for movies you’ve never heard of. I run GBPVR and I have a Dish Network provided PVR and both restrict movie descriptions to a line and a half and future showtimes to a couple of days.

So, I built a solution. It’s called MoviesOnCable.com and I’ve got every showtime from the HBO, Showtime, and Starz families of stations. There are links to the movie channel’s websites and other movie info sites to learn more about a film. I’ve built in PVR connectivity so I can click from any movie on the site straight over to my GBPVR search screen and click record. Conversely, I’ve made a one-line mod to GBPVR to allow me to look up movies on the web site.

I just released a new code base, so the site now supports sharing movies with friends, printing wrappers, and a ton of other features. One of my favorite features is the ability to ignore movies. For example, the Chevy Chase turd “Man of the House” is coming on 107 times this month. If I were at the mercy of my cable box I’d have to ignore it that many times to try and find a movie that’s worth watching. MoviesOnCable.com lets me click “Ignore it” and I never see it again!

So, take a look and let me know if it works for you. If you have any suggestions I’m all ears.
Thanks,
Scott
scott@moviesoncable.com

To get GBPVR to link to MoviesOnCable.com edit gbpvr\web\Details.aspx and replace the line that contains “images/program_hdr_pi.gif” with the following.
<td align="right"><a href="http://moviesoncable.com/search.php?rownum=0&searchtitle=<%=showTitle.Text%>" target=MOC_new><img src="images/program_hdr_pi.gif" width="253" height="45" border="0"></a></td>

[groover km]

Hi Scott - couple of initial thoughts (hope you don't mind the feedback!)

First of all, what a great idea; I am a complete film junkie myself, and your site is pretty much what I've been hoping/ wishing for from inside gbpvr. I would love to be able to search not just by title - you are right, knowing it is coming on defeats the purpose - but by genre, age, director, etc. Also, I really *need* a way to manage all my movies; DVDs, recordings, scheduled recordings, advanced watch lists (tell me when a kubrick film is coming on), blockbuster online queue... yada yada yada. Your site looks like being another piece of the puzzle and I'll be interested to see where you take it.

Can I ask, why limit yourself to 'premium' channels? Could you add TCM, IFC, Sundance, AMC? I am always trawling these channels.

Don't know if you know, but your site doesn't render very well in Firefox; you may want to look at that.

Apart from that, good stuff!

[rocketsmart]

Groover-
Thanks for the feedback! That exactly what I'm looking for.
Most of your questions are not new to me and the answer boils down to one reason... time.

With the exception of AMC (I hate commercials) the rest are on my list to add. Sundance is there since it's a part of the Showtime family. I just got an email from Fox Movie Channel, sounds like they might play. But the other channels are just not enough bang for the buck. I convert Showtime and Starz from PDFs using a couple of monster Excel macros. And I get HBO off their web site in a text form. Once I crunch them into MySQL I still have to clean up year, length, ratings, and synopsis. Adding genre, cast, director, etc would be great but I'm just me so all of that has to wait for re-enforcements!

As for managing all recordings, I allow anything to be added and even provide a media field to note dvd vs tape. The downside is that the movies I list are mostly what's been on cable since April 2004. So, new movies and old ones that haven't been on cable may not be there. Again, if I had the resources.
Oh, and I do provide a link for PVR library so you can flip over to your GBPVR manage recordings screen... not a complete solution, but it's a start.
And finally, Firefox. Yeah, I know. I made the decision to target IE and hash out the rest later, when I... well, you know, get the resources!

So, thanks for the feedback. I truly appreciate it, I'm working in a vacuum and without occasional outside input I could end up in the wrong direction. If you want to help with data (or anything else), I could get to some of those features sooner ;^)

Thanks again,
Scott

[groover km]

Hope you don't think I was being discouraging; I actually went back to your site after my initial comment and had another look using IE - I'm impressed that you did that yourself, more power to you!

I know what you mean about AMC, but with comskip I actually 'forget' which channels have commercials anyway. Just a thought, but rather than pulling the info from loads of separate sites could you not use zap2it? I was playing with the zap2it.mdb earlier (you can get the tools from the wiki) and I was able to filter for movies; haven't got a clue what I'm doing, but it seems easier than what you describe. Just a thought.

I use a program called MediaMan for DVDs (http://www.imediaman.com) and that does something similar, querying amazon for images and details. Like I say, it's a standalone program (when what I really want is an integrated solution in gbpvr), but it might be worth having a look.

And finally, I'm sure you already know this but if you go to the W3C site, it will show you the items in your site that microsoft has broken for you

I think I'll be using your site more in the future!

[stefan]

So... when will you add the Swedish channels? ;-)

[rocketsmart]

Feeding the site all three sets of files takes me about 3 man hours a month. with gradual clean up throughout the month. There are a couple of reasons I chose to feed off the channels (finding details). I can get the whole month in one go, rather than one or two weeks at a time as some sources limit. It's free, all three refered me to their online data. And most of all, cleanliness. When there's more than one movie with the same title... things get dodgie. That's where most of my clean up time goes on a mothly basis (making sure it's Gladiator with Russell Crowe and not Cuba Gooding Jr). Maybe I'm too anal for my own good... but I've found issues with other sources.
Thanks again,
Scott

[rocketsmart]

Stefan-
You clean the data and I'll add the channels, sound like a deal? ;^)