I think I need a translation. 

Quoting lmoelleb:

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home cooked binary formats

That reminded me of:

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1 out of 10 people can understand the binary system. The other half never will.

My mistake - it probably was introduced earlier, I just didn't notice. What I am referring to is options/sharing/Share my collection on the network. I had the idea that it was added to support iPhone communication, but I now understand it was introduced previously to support client/server setup.

Anyway - I turned it on, hooked it through a TCP monitor expecting to see REST or SOAP flying by. Unless I missed something, that didn't look like any of the modern standard protocols to me. It even had HTML content type set in the headers when it was downloading images.

While I could of course reverse engineer this protocol, it's not really the kind of stuff I enjoy doing anymore (10-15 years ago I would probably have gone for it). With SOAP being pretty old, and REST being so simple I am just used to have access to data.

I am aware of the XML export, and I am aware of the plugin system (you can find my Instant Export plugin taking most of the pain away in the downloads/plugins section). However there are a couple of weaknesses with this approach:

1) The export is (even when automated) a one way road. You can get data out, but not in.
2) The plugin system is fine for tasks that belongs inside DVD Profiler, but it is problematic if the data exchange has to be driven from an outside task.

For now I have thrown an HTTP server into a plugin so I can serve up a simple REST/XML interface in DVD Profiler - it's read only now, and I do not really have the time to extend it a lot. I'll just add the functionality I need to get the data moved to my WP7 device.

It would still be nice some day to have a service running that grants access to the data outside of the main program. I have no specific needs at this point in time, but I think it would be fun to see some of the ideas that others could come up with.  With the proper set of tools available, I'm sure we would soon have multiple additional options to display our online collections.

Just something to think about for the future.

Quoting Mithi:

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The problem I see (and maybe Ken also): With the database accessible there wouldn't be any need for buying the program for a lot of people, thus it could kill his business-model.

cya, Mithi

A few options:
1) A service running locally providing access to your locally stored collection. Without a local collection, there is nothing to run, so no change in the business model.
2) Host the service from the cloud - but still only granting access to your own collection, so you have to pay to go over 50 profiles (or make it part of an aditional yearly subscription service) - again, no change in the business model - even the yearly subscription feature have been mentioned before.

That said, coming up with new business models to complement your current is not necessarely a bad thing.

It would be cool to have an access to the sharing server of course.

Here is my need, and it would open a little more your business:

I have a collection so, i can access it now from iphone/ipad, great, but i'd like to see my whole collection on my apple tv2, thanks to itune

Another big problem I have against DVD profiler is the fact it doesn't work on mac

=> So would be nice to have, even a light, program on mac (sold on mac store for example), that can connect to the sharing server of a dvd profiler running on windows (of course, would be even better to have a generic server that manages the database, that could run on any OS, as a result DVD profiler would be the official client running on windows)

you could code this new light soft on mac on native coding code of mac or with a cross platform language like Qt (in order to maintain only one client)

Would be for you a new soft you could sell on mac store (mac store is running from a couple of days)

and in that way, as the soft could be run everywhere, the need to reverse engineering would be quite low, and would protect you from guys analysing the protocol too closely......

I would be interested in buying such a software

More ideas:

MS Message Queue is a very simple protocol that could simplify communications between the client and server and make them more robust. Main issue is whether MQ is available on Mac, linux, etc. IP protocols are more universal, but writing robust code is tricky.

Quoting Mithi:

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Quoting mediadogg:

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How about SQL Server?
- First step would be to define an "official" database schema that represents the DVDP data model (maybe start with the XML schema that some people already have)

For that I would look to phpDVDProfiler, they already work with mySQL so they already have a way to get the XML into SQL statements.

Also, if you're interested check out my "DVD Profiler to Access" source code in C# (see signature). Loads of SQL statements there.