Being a big movie fan I own quite a few films, and since acquiring DVD last June with my current PC, I’ve become a DVD addict and own, at the moment, some 47 DVD titles. Around 25 titles or so, I was interested in finding an application to store/sort/and otherwise, have an easy storage method for my movies. So I started scouring the Internet and such for an application of this sort.

In my searches I came across a few Excel templates for storing movies and such, but nothing else of real use, and especially not for stand-alone applications. The Excel sheets were ok, but I hated to install Excel for that sole reason and being someone who has very little knowledge in the program it wouldn’t be a great service to me. Then, one day, while reading the postings in the DVD newsgroups I came across a posting for a collecting program. So I checked the site out and there was my possible answer - LaserTrace. A stand-alone application it had tabs for multimedia files, text descriptions of the film plot, info boxes for running time, year of release, actors, director, how much you paid, features on the disc, and so forth. More so it was made originally for Laserdiscs (hence the name LaserTrace) but could also store whether the film was VCD or VHS as well as Laserdisc and DVD.

I grabbed the demo version, which is a fully functional, time free demo. It does not expire or limit any options. The only limit is that it may only hold 30 titles. The full version holds up to 12,000 titles (and can easily be modified by the programmer to hold more if you should ever need it). Using this application I quickly added in my DVDs and had a fun time sorting them out by the various methods: # of titles per genre, # of titles by rating… by the ratings I gave titles in 3 categories: Sound, Picture, and Overall among many more.

Soon I was nearing my 30-title limit so I inquired Christophe about the pricing method. See, you may pay cash for LaserTrace, but it’ll run about $30-35 American dollars. What Christophe really asks is that you send him a DVD title to pay for it. It may sound kind of expensive and all at first but it isn’t. You can find most titles online for $15 or so… so by buying and sending a title to him you effectively pay a total of about $20 for LaserTrace, instead of $30-$35 in ‘cash’. I inquired with Christophe to see what titles he was looking for and then price-checked all of them and found the cheapest to buy and send. He’ll even take used titled that you may have and want to get rid of, or can buy used at a flea market making it even cheaper!

LaserTrace uses a simple layout, that though is a wee-bit cluttered and looks a bit overwhelming at first is soon second nature by the time you finish your 1st entry. Simply click the ADD button below the title list window and a entry screen comes up where you can enter things such as movie title, year, screen aspect ratio, sound mix, running time, rating, 2 categories for categorizing the movie (I.e. Romantic/Comedy), 5 actors/actresses, director, music composer, distributor, up to 4 multimedia files (pic's of the box art, mp3/wave sound clips, movie clips, etc), text description of the movie, price paid, where bought, when bought, when last viewed, how many times viewed, ratings for picture quality, sound quality and overall quality (i.e. how good is the film, a bomb or a classic?) and even a few more fields. Plus check of whether it’s a Dolby Digital mix, director’s cut, pan & scan (full screen) format, ruined disc, etc as well as any extra features when dealing with LDs and DVDs such as commentary, picture galleries, isolated music score, deleted scenes, etc. Designate whether it’s CAV or CLV for LDs, single or dual layer and how many sides for DVDs and other such specialized options.

Once it’s all input use the “sort titles” tab to sort your movies by actor/actresses, a certain rating or 3, features, sound mix, rating, etc. For example, how many of your movies are action titles? Sort by genre and get a listing of how many titles are in each genre you listed in their directories. What’s your highest rated movie? Sort by “overall rating” and find out which/how many titles are in each category of rating. “Gadget” tab lets you click on “price” and see the total cost of your collection (Mine’s over $5,000) and other features (which frankly I’ve yet to really use).

As if that wasn’t enough, you can export the collection to html, text, and a text format that can be imported into Excel and other spreadsheet applications (I opened it in Excel 2000 and found some fields were off-kilter with the results (I.E. AB column listed THX titles, but it was AC column that had title marks of THX). With HTML you can do frames or non-frames… and with each detailed or simple listings. This makes it easy to either post to your website or send to a friend. Using the free viewer on LaserTrace’s website your buddies can download your LDT file and browse your collection as you do.

Christophe is also a great guy and listens to his customer’s opinions and suggestions without a hitch. Since owning my copy I’ve suggested a few tips (i.e. Anime category) and he’s quickly implemented them as well as other categories, the dual category feature and others. If you own a fair movie collection you should definitely view this program… it’s definitely worth it! LaserTrace can be found at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/8878