I had trouble deciding where to put this topic, but since the most knowledgeable folks about on and offline DVD database management software appear to hang out here, this seemed like the best spot.

I'm in the market for a PDA and it occurs to me that one could be quite handy in managing your DVD collection. I'd appreciate any opinions/feedback/recommendations anyone might have regarding ease of use of particular PDA's in managing their collections.

I'm thinking that a PDA Smart Phone would be the most useful for this endeavor. It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that a Smart Phone PDA (like a Treo 600, for example) offers the easiest connection to Web Browsing. Web Browsing would be useful to link to your online DVD collection database (Guzzlefish, Aficionado, Profiler, etc.). It would be great to be able to easily summon up your collection while browsing in a store to confirm the edition you have (does mine have DTS or not?) or just to make sure you haven't already bought the disc(!). Do all of the online DVD databases play nicely with Palm and Pocket PC OS's?

It would also be nice to be able to bring up online retailers' web sites to compare prices to those in the retail store in front of you when trying to resist impulse buy decisions. It would also be cool to be able to pull up movie reviews on the spot when trying to decide on a "blind buy".

Is anyone currently doing this, and if so, what PDA and DVD database are you using and what is your ease of use satisfaction level?

I don't own a PDA, but I know DVDaf.com offers some kind of PDA interface.

DVDaf does indeed provide a way to list your DVDs.... personally, I use ListPro to manage my DVD "wishlist". It's great for referring to when browsing in stores... I can check which titles I want and how much I'm willing to pay for them. ListPro has both a PPC and desktop PC component. Using ActiveSync, changes that are made on both desktop Pc and PPC are reconciled.

There have been previous threads about this but searching on PDA won't so much help.
The DVDaf interface is pretty cool but I use MobleDB to keep track of my discs.

I use Mobile DB as well to track my DVDs, but you can also use a program called plucker to save the PDA friendly version of DVDAF and have it on your PDA that way. It looks really nice and has all the cover art.

Thanks for the tips. I had not heard of Mobile DB or Plucker, but will check them out. I went with dvdaf to start cataloging my collection since they have taken active steps toards PDA support. It appears DVD Profiler is working on PDA support via a DVD Pocket Profiler feature, but it is not out yet. It *may* be included with the next version of DVD Profiler, which people are expecting soon. So, that's something to keep your eye on also.

Anyone know of anything like Plucker that works on Mac OS 9x? I use DVDaf and love it, but can't get it on my PDA because AvantGo no longer works with my Palm desktop software (Tungsten E/Palm OS 5.x/Palm Desktop 4.1. I don't think AvantGo supports OSX either).

I got over losing AvantGo when I upgraded my PDA last year, but it's disappointing not to be able to take advantage of DVDaf's PDA capabilities. I'd try Plucker but OSX runs soooooo slowly on my Ti-Book and I have problems if I try hot-syncing my PDA in both OSX and 9x.

I have Mobile DB, but is there a fast way of importing the info? It's just too much work to add our entire collection (700+) one at a time. I'd really like to find some kind of web capturing software so I could get DVDaf on my PDA with coverart (plus our entire collection's already there). Perhaps I'll have to resort to stealing my husband's old Windows laptop and using it just for that.

HanDBase works for me.

If you can get your collection displayed in HTML, cut and paste into Excel (which should be able to reformat into 'cells') and then import this into MobileDB. Any means of getting your data in csv (I have found "tab" separated to be the best) format will allow you to import it into MobileDB.

Thanks very much for the response, I'll try that.