Frequently Asked Questions
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MovieStamper is a site that lets you document everything that happens in a movie. Better yet, the way it is setup, it lets you see how movies are connected to each other.
MovieStamper breaks down its content, going from the big picture to smaller: Movie -> Timestamp -> Post (we also refer to "Posts" as "Comments" - they are interchangable terms). For each movie, you can have many timestamps (you can even have more than one of the same timestamp). Off of each timestamp, you can have many posts/comments.
Off of each of those, you can place tags which then allow you to link items together. Clicking on a tag brings you to a page that shows you all items in our database tagged with that term, and then you can click on each/any of those items to learn more about what else is out there and conntected to that tag.
An additional element is the screenshot, which is a capture of the movie at some point in time. Those can be added to any timestamp or post/comment. Then tags can be added to the screenshot.
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You probably are not logged in. Click on the link in the top right of the page that says "Login". Note that you will need to be registered in order to login.
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It is entirely possible that our database doesn't contain that movie - yet. If you are a registered user and logged in, then you can submit a new movie by simply clicking on the "Add New Movie" link in the top link bar and following the instructions on that page.
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The timestamp points to a specific point in time in a movie. Movies are made up of frames, each of which are still pictures. When you view those frames quickly in a row, our eyes and brains translate that as movement. The timestamp allows us to point to a standard point in a movie, down to the second.
The timestamp that we use is made up of hours, minutes, and seconds. They are arranged as so: HH:MM:SS. Movies are technically 24-30 frames per second, so it is possible that there are actually many frames within that timestamp - not to mention that there might be some slight discrepancies in the way various playback devices show the timestamp. As a result, it is a very close way to point to a spot in a movie - but not always exact if people are using differently media sources and playback devices/software.
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Navigate to any movie and then go to the very bottom of its page. There you will find a form allowing you to add a timestamp to the movie. Look at the movie you are watching and check the timestamp (each DVD player, either in hardware or in software, will show a timestamp), and then enter the hours, minutes, and seconds into the form, and whatever description you like. (note that the description field cannot be blank or else you will get an error) Additionally, if you want to add a screenshot, you can at this time.
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Posts and comments are the same thing in our system. They are responses to a timestamp. Perhaps from another user, or additional information on your own timestamp - either is okay. On every timestamp is a link to add a comment - click on that link and it will expose a form that you can use to submit your post/comment. Note that you can also add a screenshot at this time.
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In any form where you see it labeled with "Add Tag", then you can simply enter text into that form and press the "Add Tag" button. This might be on a movie itself (at the top left of a movie page), a timestamp (at the bottom of each timestamp), or on a post/comment for a timestamp (at the bottom of each post/comment). If you want to join a series of words, simply put them in quotes. Single quotes will be included in the tag, double quotes are used to join words. Capital letters will be removed.
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We are always working to improve the site. One of the ways that we are still striving to make better, is the search functionality. With the search and tags, you can find nearly anything on the site - but it does occasionally miss some items in the posts/comments and timestamps. Please note that we have included Google Search at the bottom right of every screen, so you should be able to use that and leverage the powerful resources of Google on our site, which might yield what you are looking for.
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If you simply disagree with it, or want to correct it, then you can leave a comment on it right on the site. If you feel that it is a matter that requires an admin to investigate and potentially rectify (edit/delete), then use the link in the top navigation bar and follow the instructions on that page.
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Watch the DVD on your computer and among the various players available for your OS, there are options to take screenshots. If you are on using DVD Player on OS X, just taking a screenshot via the usual method for the OS will not work (this is because of the way the OS does image buffering and positioning on screen) - one way around that is by opening up "Terminal" and typing "screencapture -i DISKLOCATION/FILENAME.png" where "DISKLOCATION" is where on disk that you want to save it, and "FILENAME" is whatever you want to name the screenshot. For example, we might use "screencapture -i ~/Desktop/Screenshots/TommyBoy.png" to save a screen capture of the movie Tommy Boy to our desktop in a folder called "Screenshots".
Windows, Linux, and OS X all have available to them a program called VLC (VideoLAN). It is free and allows you to take screenshots from within its interface.
Note that it does seem that different players determine their timestamps slightly differently - as a result, the timestamp that you see on our site may not be exactly the same as the one on your system (unless you are using the same player/OS and disc version). That said, they are still chronologically accurate in terms of their order, just off by some offset (potentially).
If we, or the user inputting the data into the site, notices the discrepancy, a note will be made in the comments of the movie.
