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Ok. Stupid of me. It's there. Hehehe... I must have disabled the Disk Content pane... Arghhh!!!!
So, from someone who used to think Advanced Disk Catalog is the best, Smart CD Catalog is cool! I just wish that it can scan inside compressed files (zip, rar, etc) because I think when people backup to CD/DVD, some of the files may probably be compressed. Then we can search better.

Well, I loved it at first... Fast scanning, nice interface, good search engine, cataloging by type or location, or whatever you fancy (change the types to your own needs). Cool.

But then, after a few days I realized the missing thing. I can't browse any of the discs records in the catalog! I can search in them... but sometimes I just can't recall the file name. That's how I used ADC. Search. If I can't, I'll browse through several likely CD records (based on year or month... I labelled all the discs using my own numbering system). So what's the use of cataloging the files in the CD is you can't browse through the records? How to search if you can't remember the name? The date file is created is not the same as the date the disc was created...

Oh, how I missed Advanced Disk Catalog. Someone should buy the rights from ElcomSoft and make a version for Vista and newer... Or maybe ElcomSoft should give it out as opensource...

Ooh, I missed it :-) Always interesting in this kind of software. But I am already bought Camel Disc Catalog and seems it more powerful that SmartCD. So may be it is not big loss for me.

#84, Donna, I tried a very short test based on one scanned DVD placed in one category, and one manually entered placed in another. I did a Report based on disk list, with All selected, and it generated a report OK. Check what options you have set for the report. You might take up the issue with their tech support.

Can anybody help me? I have put in tons of DVD Info and now it won't allow me to do a report. I want to print out what I have put in. These are items that I typed in myself. Did not scan. The items I scanned I was able to do a report, so I don't understand why it won't allow me to print out the items I typed in.

Please, if anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it.

There are numerous things to consider when selecting cataloging programs. Features, ease of use, import and export abilities, webcam barcode reading (barcode readers generally emulate keyboard input and work with anything), active product development, etc. If you have large collections, it may be difficult to switch to a different product later. While some programs handle a variety of collections (music, videos, photos, books, games, software, etc.), others are more specialized. You may want different cataloging programs for different purposes. Collectorz is another commercial company which I ran across because one of their products is coming up on Bits du Jour. They have specialized products for different types of collections. I think they're pricey, but the specialization may be worthwhile to some.

Good program but autoscan feature doesn't work silently.

This is good. I had already bought and paid for this a few months ago. If you have tons of CDs like I do (mixed data mainly in my case), you will find this very handy. Nice clean interface, and works like a charm. Definitely recommended.

Ashraf, please ignore all the negative people on this site. I look forward to your reviews and you didn't deserve the negatives, just a comment about it, but then they didn't bother to read your updated review. Keep up the good work!

Would have been a GREAT pgm if I could print out the lists of CD/DVD's it created. Kinda useless without a print function.

Installed on two XP computers can't wait to get organized... in the past I have tried to make searchable stuff in excel.
Looks like good stuff so far Thanks GAOTD you always seem to find good stuff to test!

Installed and I still have to do the system reboot. I hate that after having to do for Win update yesterday and another today for Comodo Firewall, since this is a 24/7 system and takes time away from productivity to reboot!

Anyway, I will have a good look -- sounds great, but I will also try Visual CD since it touts Zip file reading as well. Not sure this one does, blurb doesn't say anything about that.

Thanks GAOTD for another usable product! Also thank you, Abaiko!

Pirate coppying keeps being put forth on this forum so I would like to mention that where I live I am the only person I know that uses a paid for legal copy of the OS. Most use XP and pay about five dollars for them. They all thought I was nuts for paying for any program. Almost any program you can think of that can be put on a CD is available here for abut five bucks to ten bucks.

Up to date movies and music vidios are even less. Many movies are on CD here bvefore they are in the theators.

All these pirate programs and other digital items are openly sold in stores and on the street. It is not possible to have a computer here that does not have some pirate items on it.

Pirates do work well enough for most people. I do use a legal cipy of XP and it is worth having bacause it does work much better.

#1-People who download illegal content are going to do that with or without this program. No single program is going to change a person's mind about pirated software downloads.

Diana,

I am sure you made your post before reading comment #36 and this =)

It installed and started up on both my XP System and Vista the file search works pretty well,you do have to know pretty much where the file is that you want to store for it to work well.

To everyone continually bashing me for my comment about this program and piracy, please read up on my explanation I posted on the review on my website.

An excerpt:
I am not saying this program is intended to help piracy - no far from it. I worded that comment badly and it is giving the wrong impression to everyone - which is why I reworded it in my review to say it has the “potential to be abused”. The fact is this program can really help someone organize a collection of illegally downloaded material just as much as it can help someone organize their legally attained material. So its I guess it comes down to who is using it.

I hope I clarified my point.

Look for the freeware called "Cathy". You'll be glad you did because it is a fantastic CD/DVD cataloger.

This Smart CD Catalog is supposed to be free....then why after I unzipped it and activated it and ran the setup when it came in it said 30 trial...nothing showed about registered to GAOTD...I don't want it for only 30 days....

Ashraf !!! Grrrrrrrrrrr(:X)
I'm sure that u've made ur post even before trying this nice piece of s/w.This is one of the

BEST EVER giveaway programs!!
Well....4 the people dissatisfied/confused-
1.If u r not a regular collector of pieces of s/ws(read digital data:));this is not 4 u,
2.If u r a collector of s/ws and like to store in CD/DVDs and keep well-organized records - itz

not 4 u too.....(A MUST TRY BUDDY!!!),
3.People who fall under the category # 2. but love to keep everything unorganized - IT IS NOT 4 'EM

TOO..

What abt Diana?
Well...I've tons of CDs/DVDs....most of these shiney disks are..offff..(sorry 2

say)"UNLABELLED".Horror of horrors - I have no comprehensive record.As a result of

this,always I pick one Disk after another, insert them into DVD Drive and.......(u know the actual

result!!

YAP!It is my "I'm feeling lucky button"...
4 thumbs up Team GAoTD!! (:-D)

First, thanks all. Definitely will try InCat.

I'm glad I'll be able to make a suggestion that has not been made yet. The one I have been using for a years Has a lot going for it.

*Pros:
Shareware full version never limited - $10 voluntary when you keep using it.
Slickly goes inside rar and zip files (and maybe others).
Fast. But a DVD with 12,000 files will definitely slow it down. :)
Unlimited, pretty much. If one database gets too big, just start another.
You can run it from a MEMORY KEY and catalog your disks using any number of computers. Every once-in-a-while copy it to a computer and burn it to a CD or DVD for backup.

*Cons:
Does not do thumbnails of pictures.
Does not do CDDB.
Personal experience is that there is no support from the author - in Japan. Not even, sadly, acknowledgment.
No user manual. No user forums. Because of that, operation is somewhat confusing at times. Some things I know I could be doing a lot better, but it is like trying to re-invent the wheel - should not be necessary.

The proggy is DiskDB.
http://www2.neweb.ne.jp/wd/morimoto/en/diskdb/
Definitely worth your interest.

Good luck.

Thank you Ashraf (#1) for your review. We have a new BladedTroth!
I think the negative votes on your summary were because you unnecessarily picked upon the potential illegal use of the software.
If I used my computer to download kiddy porn or to solicit young girls, that doesn't mean Microsoft/AIM products etc should be dinged. The software does not somehow encourage illegal activity.

#63 & #64:
Make sure you read the instructions in the readme.txt file and run Activate.exe before running the setup. Without activation you'll just have the trial version of this software.

MMMmm Weird!,

The Thumbs up/down does'nt seem to tally with the comments marked Yes/No today.

Don't say people are actually taking the time to fiddle the thumbs up/down by multi-voting?
Thankfully, I judge the software on the comments and how they are marked as well.

I can't really say I have a use for this as I have my own database of software/CD's and Games and who borrows them.

I'd guess someone starting something like this would find todays offering useful though.
Of course there's a multitude of other free software that does this but so is this for today.

Maybe I'm not doing something right or something like firewall settings are preventing this, but I can't seem to manage to access the CDDB, even though iTunes has no problem doing so using the same setup. I'm using Vista.

Simple to use, relatively fast. Be prepared to do quite a bit of typing if you have an extensive cd collection. The database is quite limited.

To try the program had it scan 74 CD's to start with. 24 of them required me to fill in all the info about the disc and each track.

As I have over 400 cd's to scan, I think I'll uninstall this one.

#1 CDs and DVDs are also used for data, you know. Maybe you don't know because you don't work with data.

Piracy? Why would it be piracy for me to catalog my CDs loaded with all my office and zip files backed-up since 10 years ago? I won't need to insert one by one all my 200+ CDs and DVDs to find a file among the millions... Just search the catalog and go pick up the correct CD.

I used Advanced Disk Catalog but it's discontinued and almost obsolete. This Smart CD Catalog is what I'm looking for... although I do hope they can create an ADC importer because some old CDs are scratched.. I can access some files but won't be able to re-catalog them.

Thanks GAOTD... haven't seen anything useful for me for quite a while... finally, something for me too :).

I really need something like this as I have thousands of zipped files on CD and DVD. Per #14's comment I'll not download this. I need something that can do a search for a zipped file.

Thanks anyway GAOTD, think this is a great tool for those who can use it.

is anyone else having the problem of "trial version buy now" message at the start up? i cant seem 2 get rid of it

I get frustrated with this sort of 'Giveaway' because it's only a trial version and you have to upgrade and pay for the professional version in 30 days. A big banner by Giveaway would be nice for this sort of 'giveaway' :(

Thank you. I'm just downloading it now, I'll be back with my verdict.
I am so disorganized I will try everything that helps.

Does this support barcode scanners, such as a repurposed CueCat, to let you identify a DVD or CD by its UPC code? Scan the UPC and it looks up the code in an online database to tell you the title?

This is a great program, just installed on XP Pro SP3, the program runs well and is easy to use. This program is very useful to me. I have many CDs and DVDs with photos and software on them and this makes it easy to find what I am looking for. Thank you GAOTD

#49 I kinda think you're replying to me, right?

I've seen that and i tried quite a few of em. but like i said, they're designed for music or movie collectors, or rather universal usage of files management( btw, data crow is superb coming to that term).Finally i noticed that it's the PRO version here, so i made a few search and found a lite version of this, which is called smart cd catalog lite. it's lightweighted program can list all files on your discs and made a small datebase out of them , and acutally works pretty fast. the only thing is that it only shows filenames so far, but i'm fine with it cause i organized the files before burn them into dvd.(Ironic the lite version works perfectly while the pro failed to even start)

thanks #46, visual cd is indeed a masterpiece. It's powerful yet free. awesome.

Hopefully this helps ppl have the same problem as i did.

Using XP SP3. Installation failed. Error message unable to register ccrpftv6.ocx with regsvr32. When I clicked Ignore, another item appeared as unable to register.

This is a very practical program for the type of thing that I do. I collect freeware. Lots of it. I also have a huge music collection and karaoke collection. All of this I have kept on my hard drive - admittedly a HUGE hard drive. It would probably be better for me to move all this data to DVD-ROMs and catalog them for future reference. So I will be downloading and using this program. Thanks to those who contributed Visual CD and Disk Xplorer, both of which I have added to my web site.

Isn't this why we have folders and subfolders?

Silly

I find it adequate to use the DOS command prompt to catalog disks.

1. Click the command prompt thingy
2. Enter cd\ to get to the root directory (C:\>)
3. Enter d: to get to the CD directory. Prompt should then be D:\>
4. Enter dir to show the CD directory.
5. Enter dir > c:\temp\cd1.txt to make a text file of the directory.

Cataloging programs are nice, but then you're usually stuck with proprietary databases that may not work in the future with changes in Windows or whatever. I like to keep all reference stuff in formats that are likely to last, such as txt, html, or pdf.

At first glance, it installs properly on Vista SP1 32-bit, but didn't seem to work as easily as on XP Pro SP2. I don't have time to investigate.

Catalogs a CD or DVD very quickly and easily.

Another FREE (always) alternative: http://www.getlibra.com/

#45 KCCause,

Fubar listed quite a few in #24 and I also put his list in my review on my website, none of those work for you?

#39 vipersonic,

It installed and works fine for me on my Home Premium 32-bit machine. No problems at all. What antivirus are you using? It might be the culprit causing problems.

"Whereisit" and "10strike search my discs" are better (thumbnails) but this is a little faster
Most of the alternatives mentioned are mainly for movie collections and don't read the discs contents, and therefore useless for comparison

Visual CD is the best! It includes several other utilities that come in handy - Duplicate File Finder, Thumbnail Maker, NFO Reader.

This seems to be rather appealing, but somehow i find i can't start the program under vista basic 32bit. it keeps telling me on start, there's an error and i should try restarting the program. I did, but nothing changed.

So i'm asking for a favor to name a few alternatives? I tried a few ppl mentioned above, but most of those are specific to movies and music. I only want a free little tool to create a database about some dvd discs, which stores tons of photos.

Thank you.

@#10- I also have a funny proverb- "Upon seeing the shadow of a pigeon, one must resist the urge to look up"- Confuncius

;-)

what is the point of this... it makes it sound like you can back up the disk.... but you can just "see the files" how the hell is that helpfull????? no thanks today gaotd....

@caulbox- with insidecat litem make a separate directory, copy the ini file from the first datafile directory into it, then make another shortcut and change the 'start in' to point it there, and you can put another hundred there. I did that until I could afford the pro version.

even now I have my catalogs split up under a main subdirectory so I can catalog my digital photos dvds in one, program dvds another, data cd's etc., then start IC in the main folder to be able to search the whole tree of files.