J. Michael Straczynski about Collectorz.com

J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) about Collectorz.com

Let me be clear: the wonderful folks at collectorz.com, and their remarkable software, saved my life. Well, okay, my sanity. My sanity AND my career. And since my career IS my life... there we go. See, I own nearly TWO THOUSAND DVDs. This doesn't even count the different iterations of the same movie (just how many times can one be expected to buy and re-buy every new edition of Terminator 2 and Night of the Living Dead? The answer, in my case, is every time). I'd visit the local DVD store, pick up a DVD and wonder... do I have this? Do I have another VERSION of this? Do I already have this on Blu-Ray? I'd buy DVDs multiple times because I couldn't remember if I'd bought it previously (go ahead, tell me you haven't done the same thing).

Worse still, working in TV and film as I do, I'd often need my DVDs for research purposes, and sometimes I'd know whether or not that DVD I needed existed in my files, and sometimes I wouldn't. If I was doing a piece involving an actor's or director's long career, which movies did he, she or it appear in/direct/write?

For YEARS, simply YEARS, I did what you do: I'd try to remember to write down my latest acquisitions (which worked about half the time), then try to set aside time to enter it into a doc file on my computer (cut down another 50%) and then print up a small version to carry with me to the store.

No more.

Now, when I come in the door, I pull the DVDs out of my shopping bag, pass the scanner over them, and in seconds the whole thing is done. DONE. I have every piece of information I need about the film: plot, cast, crew, date, it's all right THERE. And I can sync up the information with my iPod and carry it with me along with the greatest hits of the Turtles (which, I believe, is just the one song). If I need to research ANYthing now, it's all right there in front of me.

Every TV show I've purchased, every CD I own, every comic book I own, every book I own... they've ALL been logged and scanned with the collectorz.com software and scanner. And if you think it's too onerous or difficult a task to catalog your whole existing library, get this: The day the box arrived, I opened it, stuck batteries into the scanner, went to the DVD library and started just pulling boxes down in groups of four or five, scanning them, and putting them back on the shelves again.

It took me just THREE HOURS (with breaks for snacks and playing with the cat) to scan, log and organize TWO THOUSAND DVDs. And once that's done, keeping it updated is simplicity itself. Takes less than a minute every time I come back with a new clutch of DVDs. Or books. Or comics, or novels, or... well, you get the picture.

If you're a film/tv professional, if you're a fan, if you enjoy books or movies or comics or music (and if you don't enjoy any of those what the heck are you doing with your spare time?), then collectorz is a life-saver.

Honest.

Would this face lie?

J. Michael Straczynski