What you could try is insert the discs into your DVD-ROM drive and see if DVDP recognises them. Then you'll know whether or not they're already in the database.

Quoting Danae Cassandra:

Quote:
It would eliminate the ability to create a disc level profile for that disc.

Yes, and doing it the other way around would eliminate the ability to create a season level profile. Which is just as bad (or, IMHO, much worse). Since you favor disc level profiles, it doesn't matter for you that it eliminates the possibility for season profiles. Others, like myself, favor season profiles. As such, I feel the same way about your disc level profiles as you feel about my season profiles: don't need 'em. It's all in the eye of the beholder, unfortunately.

Quoting dee1959jay:

Quote:
As I understand Danae Cassandra (correct me if I'm wrong, please!), her sets do not contain separate packages per season. If I'm correct, there is no alternative for those, and that's where the difference is.

The way it's packaged doesn't matter at all. The choice is still exactly the same: either you profile the seasons, using the disc ID of the first disc of every season ("treating each series like a single film", as the rules say), or you profile each disc.

Quoting Danae Cassandra:

Quote:
As I understand this - correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding! - the slip case has a UPC and the keep cases inside do not.  The set contains multiple seasons of the show, but the seasons do not have separate UPCs to use.

I have two sets like that, both are complete sets (Wanted Dead or Alive & The Adventures of Robin Hood, 3 and 4 seasons respectively, in a big keep case with envelopes for the discs).  I did disc level profiles - a bare-bones profile for each disc and am adding cast and crew slowly for each disc.  When I get all the discs done I'm going to copy the cast/crew data to the parent.

If my understanding is correct, then I personally see no reason to create the season level profile.  It would eliminate the ability to create a disc level profile for that disc.  I would simply create a parent with the UPC and child profile each disc.

See my Profile(s) for I Love Lucy: the Complete Series. This doesn't ssem to be difficult to deal with. Much of this will be a local issue, as so far, in my experience, they repackage the discs that have already been released, thus Cover Art will only be local. In the case of Lucy, there is a parent Profile and 40 odd children, NO sesaons, while tyhe individual discs are labeled as Season One: Disc 1, there is no Season Profile as the there is NO packaging of the seasons, simply 40 odd discs in the Parent case.

I haven't picked up Wanted or Robin Hood yet, so I don't know what their physical configuration is, Wanted having transferred to Mill Creek from New line is likely to have a new set of Disc ID #s, Robin Hood however I would expect that the discs would be the SAME discs from their Season releases, how they were packaged however i don't know yet. I am looking forward to getting both and anticipate absolutely no problems at all with entering data, I never have or figuring out if and how it should be Contributed.

Skip

That is indeed the fatal flaw, yes.

As far as the configuration of each of the seasons I have, each is a large plastic keep case that contains the discs inside individual envelopes.  Each has 11 discs. 

The disc IDs appear to be new, or at least they were not previously profiled by Disc ID.  Since both have been previously released (Robin Hood even by Mill Creek, and had the first season - traded it out after I got the complete set) and since the disc IDs didn't match up, I therefore assume new discs were pressed. 

Honestly, the idea of creating season level profiles never even occurred to me.  Looking at it, I see a box (UPC profile) filled with discs (disc ID profiles).  No different from Star Trek: Season 1. 

Even thinking about it, the season level profiles seem artificial.  Taking the Robin Hood set, for example, if one created it with season profiles, this is how it would look:

The Adventures of Robin Hood: The Complete Series (UPC)
- Season One (Disc ID #1)
--- Disc 1 (no profile)
--- Season 1: Disc 2 (Disc ID #2)
--- Season 1: Disc 3 (Disc ID #3)
- Season Two (Disc ID #4)
--- Disc 4 (no profile)
--- Season 2: Disc 5 (Disc ID #5)
--- Season 2: Disc 6 (Disc ID #6)
- Season Three (Disc ID #7)
--- Disc 7 (no profile)
--- Season 3: Disc 8 (Disc ID #8)
--- Season 3: Disc 9 (Disc ID #9)
- Season Four (Disc ID #10)
--- Disc 10 (no profile)
--- Season Four: Disc 11 (Disc ID #11)

That does not make coherent sense.  The way I see it, a complete series like this should have EITHER disc level profiles OR season level profiles - when both cannot be created (i.e. no separate UPC/EAN for the seasons).  So you would either have:

The Adventures of Robin Hood: The Complete Series (UPC)
- Season 1 (Disc ID #1)
- Season 2 (Disc ID #4)
- Season 3 (Disc ID #7)
- Season 4 (Disc ID #10)

OR

The Adventures of Robin Hood: The Complete Series (UPC)
- Disc 1 (Disc ID #1)
- Disc 2 (Disc ID #2)
- etc.

The mixed approach creates an incoherent profile.  And you're completely correct, the fact that the rules do not address which method takes precedence over the other is the fatal flaw in that section. 

Ideally, a way to create a child profile without a UPC/EAN or disc ID would be best for these sets, then a season level profile could be created for those that want it. 

-- Off topic a bit, I'm not sure I understand the value of the season level profile.  I get the value of the box level profile (whether the box be a complete set or a single season) and I get the value of the disc level profile.  But if someone can tell me the value of the season level (PM me if you like) I'd appreciate it. 

Quoting Woola:

Quote:
Andf years later I still don't understand those that would prefer one giant profile for an entire Season ior Series (US), as opposed to more manageable bites of information per disc,. Why in Gods name would I want 40 Discs worth of cast / crew data for I Love Lucy: The Complete series in ONE profile, I know there are those that like that approach but it is completely irrational to me and always has been

But because disc level profiles are optional all the info for a (say) 5 season box using Disc level profiles would, by the Rules, also have to be put in the parent - 5 seasons of data (just what you specifically indicate that you don't want).

By using Season level profiles and treating the parent '5 season set' as per boxset Rules you DO get more manageable '1 season's worth of data' per profile' because the parent won't have to have that data in, because parent profiles using boxset Rules don't have cast/crew etc in them.

As I've said, I fully agree that ideally we would then have disc level profiles under each Season level for those that prefer their chunks even smaller, such as yourself, BUT unfortunately the program can't, at present, do that unless each Season also has a separate EAN/UPC because we can't use the same Disc ID twice (once for the first disc of the season, once for the Disc level profile).

Voltaire:

And if you bother to look at my collection you will find that I do not use Profiles for Seasons, they are utterly worthless to me and not rational AT ALL. I treat my TV Parents just as I would ANY other boxset, the Parent is a naked profile, to fill it in tells me NOTHING. I have to wade through a mammoth volume data to find any Cast and Crew data, the features don't tell me which disc contains what features  and so forth...WORTHLESS. I don't use them, never have and never will, those that like huge parent profiles with meaningless data are free to do so...NOT ME EVER. That has always been and always will be my position, there has never been a single user which has ever posited an argument that has eben able to change that opinion. I have asked many times about Parent Profiles and a for someone to provide a rational reason for them and there has never been a one, not even the one that James posted, he only wants to see an actor listed ONE time in the Search...instead of each episode...that's NUTS!...certainly not something that I can make any sense out of...but then I am after REAL data not data that is made up by anyone other than the filmmakers. When you start dealing with data that is made up bu other than the filmmakers, you a gazillion different interpretations of how Cast/Crew should be entered that has NOTHING to do with the show, look at Mame for example, the headliners are LAST in the Cast list and for a REASON, but there are those that would interpret the data their own way and turn it upside down.I have always waiteds for someone to come up with a rational explanation relaticve to user value and Parent TV Profiles and have NEVER seen anything that makes any sort of sense, but maybe someday someone will come up with something that I haven't thought of on the matter...but i will not hold my breath.

I will not get all wrapped around the axle relative to Seasons and so forth. I think one of the reasons I NEVER have data entry problems is that I deal with what is dealt by the distributors and filmmakers, I don't have any pre-conceived  notions as to how something works, I deal strictly with each title as it comes, and Title X has no bearing on Title Y generically (hell we even know that Title X:SE may have no bearing onn Title X: CE), the specifics of the data will be consistent, the generalities may vary depending on how the product was dealt with in distribution.

Were it up to me, I would release Complete Series sets in a way which would make for consistent dta entry, but then my brain does not work in the endlessly annoying creative ways of hollywood marketing.Would I like to be able see Complete Series Profiled
Parent (complete Series)
    Child (Season)
        GrandChild (Disc)
Yes I would, but unfortunately that is not always possible, it may NOT even be the norm in Complete Series, I don't have very many...yet.  There are numerous ones that I am aware of tjhat have to be simply done as
Parent(complete Series)
    Child (Disc)
<sigh> and from an Online POV it gets worse, because apparently the Rule of Thumb is simply to repackage discs, meaning that more often than not, the Disc in the Complete Series were previously part of the Season sets. Which means that Online we will have the Season with their Children and a Complete Series profile which will have all of the Children listed in the boxset, but no individual Profiles for said Children that are tied directly to the Series Parent. But that is merely an annoyance, since the Online means nothing to me reference wise, I do not impose ME on the Online, that is for the REAL film data, the data needs to be consistently entered by all of us there BUT the reference source for me is MY data and that data is also ONLINE, except for my covers (which is of no concern).

THe concept of the Complete Series package as in I Love Lucy or Wanted Dead or Alive is not ideal from a packaging concept or a profile, BUT Disc level Profiles are preferable to a huge unmanageable mass of data.

Skip