Peter Stagg Dot Com

My latest software toy is Drive-in from the Flip4Mac guys. The same guys who brought you, well, Flip4Mac and ScreenFlow. While ScreenFlow gets the big thumbs up from me and I could not do without Flip, Drive-in is a bit disappointing.

I love the concept and the execution. The idea is you create copies of your DVDs on your Mac as virtual DVDs that Drive-in can mount and then it or the Mac’s DVD player plays them (& Front Row etc.). This all works great and the virtual DVDs are so good you can even rip them using Mac the Ripper - but don’t tell anyone I said that.

What should be the killer part of this app is disappointing for someone like me who is not included in the universality of the USA. Let me explain. Drive-in has a feature similar to iTunes Get Album Artwork / Trak Info. If you give it the barcode number from the back of the DVD; to be more precise a UPC (Universal Product Code - say that with a yank accent) or a EAN (European Article Number - note the geographical preciseness), it will fetch the DVD’s cover art, description, production details etc. from [fan fare] Amazon (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany or Japan). Guess what - in Australia we don’t use UPC (not so Universal - its not a World Series guys if you don’t have any other countries playing) or EAN and you can’t reverse look-up either of them on Amazon.

In the end I resorted to a couple of online databases for EAN and UPC product codes and managed a reverse look-up to find the EAN code and then get the info from Amazon. Now I don’t expect the guys from Flip to recognize the Australian Product Number (APN) standard (no amazon.com.au anyway) but had I been able to look up the DVD’s info via something more reversible such as the ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) as well as the UPC or EAN I would not feel so all alone at the Drive-in.