September 9, 2009
While we work hard to test DVDCorral, unfortunately, we don’t find all the bugs in our own testing. Thankfully we have a great community here at DVDCorral and you help us tremendously. Recently, a user mentioned that there was a problem with the Custom Labels. This is a feature which allows you to mark a DVD as being stored in slot #27 of your DVD Changer or as belonging to the James Bond series. However you’d like to organize and categorize your DVDs, you can!
We have corrected the problem that was mentioned and everything should be working normally. We apologize to all of those who had trouble using the custom fields, but hopefully they’ll work better now. Access them by clicking “Settings” once you’ve logged into the site. Click the checkboxes near the bottom for the custom fields you’d like to enable, enter your personal label for that field, and you’re good to go!
At DVDCorral it is our goal to be your favorite DVD Collection website. Sometimes we have problems, or maybe you just find features you’d like to see. Feel free to leave a comment on any relevant blog post, or just e-mail us at webmaster@dvdcorral.com. Only you can provide the suggestions that make DVD Corral just perfect for your collection, so go ahead, let us know what YOU would like to see.
Thanks for helping make DVDCorral the best place to catalog and watch DVDs online!
May 12, 2009
We’re very excited about this feature — DVDCorral can now integrate with your Netflix account. That means you can now Add movies to your Netflix queue while you browse the site. It also means you can use Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” to watch any movie in the Netflix “Watch Instantly” catalog. As you click-through to see titles on the viewmovies page, you can now see if they are available from Netflix.
To add support for this to your existing account, just go to the Settings page. At the bottom of the page there is a link to integrate your account with your Netflix account. It’s a simple, 3-click process that will have your accounts integrated in no time.
Don’t have a Netflix account? No problem, clicking on the link and signing up for one helps support DVDCorral. They have plans as cheap as $4.99 / month and they offer a free 2-week trial period. Most (but not all) plans, come with unlimited online viewing — so now you can browse DVDCorral and watch movies instantly (based on Netflix “Watch Instantly” availability).
Currently, you can Add movies to your queue and Play movies that are on the “Watch Instantly” list. In the future, we plan on adding many additions to this great new feature of DVDCorral. If you have any suggestions on how we can make your DVDCorral + Netflix integration work even better, don’t hesitate to comment on this post or e-mail webmaster@dvdcorral.com. We always listen to your suggestions!
Now, what to watch… what to watch…
May 6, 2009
Cuecat Barcode Scanner
There are two very fast ways to scan DVDs into your catalog. For users who are importing their collection directly from another online database (such as DVDSpot) or a software program, you can use our import function. The method this article will concentrate on is for users making a new database of their movies. In order to do this quickly, DVDCorral supports an ultra-fast barcode scanning option.
Obviously, you’ll want to start with a barcode scanner. We recommend the Cuecat because they’re cheap, easy to find, and work fairly effectively. You can usually find them on ebay for under $10 from trustworthy sellers. You’re welcome to use any barcode scanner you may have access to. The main perk of the Cuecat is that they’re rather inexpensive. Click on this link to Buy a CueCat today from our recommended sellers.
NOTE: You may see some sites talk about “neutering” your Cuecat. If you’re going to use it with DVDCorral.com it doesn’t matter. Cuecats use a special encryption for their barcodes, but we’re able to decrypt it with software. Any Cuecat you buy that works, is a Cuecat that will work with DVDCorral.com.
Sign up for a free account and then go to “Add” where you’ll be prompted to enter your UPC. Now just start scanning. You’ll notice our ultra-fast scanner doesn’t require clicking, typing, or anything else. Just scan your movies one after another until you have populated your collection.
That’s it. Once you’re done scanning your collection, you can start customizing your catalog. Check out some of the other articles on what features and functionality you’ll find here to help organize and share your new DVD Catalog!
You asked. We answered. DVDCorral now supports 4 new custom fields. The first two are completely arbitrary — you name them what you want and use them for what you want. This is DVDs your way baby! The 3rd field is a genre field. We’ve heard a lot of requests for this, so we’ve added it. We have made it separate from the first two fields because we may do something in the future like use the DVDs genre unless you’ve specified a custom genre. Then you’d have the option of overriding in the case where you’ve specified a genre.
Finally, we added a number field. At first glance, this might seem a little odd, but we think it will be very useful for some users. The first three fields are always treated as text, which means if you sort them 100 comes before 11. Number field to the rescue! In the case that you need to assign each of your DVDs a unique number, you can now use this field and sort them as numbers. Why? Well, for example, if you have a 500-disc DVD player, you might want to track which slot number each DVD was stored in. Now, no more plunking through pages of notebook paper, just pick the DVD you want to watch from DVDCorral and whala! Now you know what slot # it’s in.
To enable these new fields, simply go to the “Settings” page once you’re logged in. At the very bottom of the page you can choose which custom fields you’d like to enable and what you would like to label them (yes, you can even re-label the custom genre or number fields). To enable them in your “Detail” view, just select the appropriate option directly above the custom field settings in the display list.
That should have you up and running with custom fields. As always, if you’ve got questions, comments, or suggestions we’d love to hear them!
Thanks!
So, what is DVDCorral? Well, in short, it’s an Online DVD Catalog system for organizing your DVD collection. Some call it a Personal DVD Library, My DVD Collection, or DVD/Blu-ray Organizer. Whatever you call it, we’re here to help you catalog and organize your DVD collection.
You may want to check out the FAQ and AboutUs pages for more details, but here’s a short list of our features. Of course you can catalog your DVDs, but now what? Well, you can track who may have borrowed a particular DVD so you can be sure to get it back. Or, perhaps you need a way to pick a movie off the shelf when you’re sitting at home. Sort your list by Genre, filter only ‘G’ movies for the kiddies to watch, or list them according to your personal rating and pick one of your favorite movies tonight.
In addition to all the ways you can organize your movies, you also have some cool options for watching movies. DVDCorral is now integrated with Amazon Digital Downloads, so now you can watch movies instantly instead of waiting for them to ship. Digital Downloads are a great way to watch a flick you may have found in someone else’s collection or while browsing movies on our site. For any movie, just click on it to see if we have a Digital rental or purchase available. Rentals typically range from $0.99 to $3.99 for a 24-hour viwing period and purchases can range from $6.99 (or less) to about $14.99. Check some of our other articles to see how to watch from your TV using Tivo, Xbox, or a PC.
If that’s not enough, how about creating a wishlist for a birthday or Christmas. As you browse our site, just add movies to your collection and then mark them as “Wish”. You can then give friends a link to your “wishlist” so they know what DVDs to buy you. Even without using the wishlist, DVDCorral is a great way to make sure you don’t keep buying the same DVD!
April 20, 2009
Digital downloads are now working in various places across DVDCorral. This is exciting for us because it’s the first expansion past organizing a catalog of physical DVDs. Now when you’re viewing friends movies, or just browsing titles you can instantly watch any that are available for digital download.
You may have noticed that you can Buy or Rent downloadable movies. Rental prices tend to be between $1.99 and $3.99 and can be watched for the next 24 hours after your purchase (multiple times if you so choose). Purchases are kept indefiniately on the Amazon servers, so you can even download them if you delete the file or wipe your hard drive. That was my personal favorite; I hate it when I “buy” music, only to find that I no longer own it since my drive crashed. When you click “Buy” or “Rent” it will take you to the preview, so you’ll still have the option to purchase after you watch the trailer or preview.
You can also view titles as we find them under stats and we’ll probably be adding a section to browse movies soon. Let us know if you have suggestions to make the digital content more accessible or easier to use. I’m finding it a quick way to watch a movie I didn’t get around to buying yet — hopefully you’ll find it at least as useful!
April 11, 2009
Vote for DVDCorral as Site of the Month
We’re very excited to annouce that with our new layout, DVDCorral has been nominated for Site of the Month at oDesk.com. Our users here are awesome, and we appreciate all of the messages we receive from users who offer suggestions, file bugs, or write just to tell us how much they love DVDCorral.com. We have no doubt that we can win this contest with such an exceptional group of users. Now, we need you to get out and vote! Please take the time to click the link in this post to let everyone else know how you feel about DVDCorral. Thanks for being such a great bunch of users and thanks in advance for supporting us in the Site of the Month Contest!
April 3, 2009
DVDCorral proudly announces our new blog! Two distinct sections will be used to keep users updated on website news and DVD news. Now you’ll always be kept in the loop with all the happenings around the site.
Speaking of additions to DVDCorral, several new additions are on their way in the upcoming weeks. Our developers and designers have been “igniting the midnight petroleum” [1] in an effort to bring a new design and several new features to our users. We’ll be using this blog to detail specifics in the upcoming days.
NOTE: Currently, we have not integrated the user systems of this blog with the DVD catalog system. For the time being, you’ll need to create a separate blog account to post comments.
