There are three ways of entering a new video into your database: “Enter video (no checks)”, “Enter video (with checks)”, and “Add from folder”. We’ll go over the first two together as they are very similar.

Enter video (with/without checks)
Your choice between these two really depends on how much data you care to enter when you put a new video in your database. If you choose the “with checks” option, AMV Tracker will not allow you to submit a video to the database unless a number of fields are populated (trying to do so will elicit a warning screen that will prevent the submission until the requisite fields are filled in). The required fields are:

• Editor username(s)
• Video title
• Release date
• Anime
• Song artist
• Song title
• Song genre
• Video length
• Genre tags
• General tags
• FX tags

This is the best option to use if you want an especially robust dataset for the DB Statistics functions, as well as for making later searches in your database more specific and easier to narrow down. If you don’t care as much about having all the data there is to have on each AMV, you can choose the “no checks” option, which only requires that you fill in the “Editor username(s)” field and the “Video title” field. All other fields are optional.

Whichever you choose, you’ll be presented with a screen that looks like this:

Most of these fields should be pretty self-explanatory (and if it’s not immediately obvious what is being asked for each one, hover your mouse over the field labels to get a pop-up explanation), but there are several that I want to explain in more detail here:

(1) Additional usernames (pseudonyms): Occasionally, an editor goes by multiple usernames, or went by a different name in the past. In such circumstances, you might want to put such other usernames here (separated by comma + space); doing so will allow you to search by any of this editor’s usernames and pull up all of his/her videos, regardless of what you enter as the editor’s current username.

(2) Star Rating: The Star Rating referenced here was originally intended to be the video’s Star Rating as listed on AnimeMusicVideos.org. Unfortunately, this rating is only visible to .org Donators, and the vast majority of AMVs released since the mid-2010s are not actually on the .org; as a result, most people probably will not use this. Videos featured on amvnews.ru also have star ratings attached to them, so this field can be populated with that number if you prefer. Otherwise, you can enter ‘0’ here, or just skip it entirely.

(3) Song genre: The song genre indicates what kind of music is being used in the video (i.e. rock, pop, reggae, techno, etc.). You’ll notice a dropdown and a text entry box. When you start a new database, the dropdown will be blank, however as you enter more videos this dropdown will populate with any song genres you’ve already entered, so you can just choose those instead of typing them in. If a song genre does not appear in the dropdown, type it in to the text box to the right and it will show up the next time you enter a video. PLEASE NOTE: When you click “Submit”, whatever text is in the text box (not the dropdown) is what will be submitted to the database (the text box automatically updates with whatever you choose in the dropdown when you make a selection).

(4) Tags: Tags are, in many ways, the heart of AMV Tracker. They can be used to break an AMV down into its most basic parts, and there are three separate types of tags to be considered. Click each button in turn to pull up a list of the associated tags, and check as many as you feel apply. If you want an explanation on what each tag means, hover your mouse over the tag to get a detailed description.

• Genre tags: There are 14 “genre tags”, which categorize the video based on its content, i.e. “drama”, “action”, “romance”, etc. Please note that there is also an “FX” tag here — although not strictly a “genre” as generally understood, use of this tag denotes that the video makes use of effects in some capacity.

• General tags: There are 60 “general tags”; these get more into the nitty gritty of what editing techniques are actually being used within the AMV, as well as denoting specific feelings or content found within.

• FX tags: There are 41 “FX (effects) tags” which are used to identify specific effects used in a video. For videos which don’t use any effects, “No effects” is an option here (selecting this one will gray out all other FX tags). Select as many as you noticed when you watched the AMV.

Consistent and disciplined use of the tags here will, over time, help you to build a picture of what things you especially like and don’t like to see in AMVs.

(5) Local file: If you keep AMVs stored on your hard drive, you can click this button to locate the video file in question so that, when searching for this video in the future, you can use AMV Tracker to open the video in your default video player.

(6) Sub-database dropdown: Sub-databases are explained here, but take note of this dropdown when you’re submitting your video. It will default to your main database, but if you ever want to enter a video directly into a different sub-database, you’ll need to select it here before pressing the “Submit” button.

Add from folder
There is another method of entering videos into your database — clicking the “Add from folder” button will bring up a screen allowing you to choose a folder on your hard drive that contains AMVs. Upon selecting the folder, you’ll be presented with a screen that looks like this, listing out all the video files in that folder:

Clicking on any of these videos will do one of the following:
(a) If AMV Tracker does not find anything in your main database that may be a match based on the filename, it will pull up a video entry screen (without checks) with the Local File field populated, and from there you can fill in the rest of the video information;

(b) If AMV Tracker determines that, based on the video filename, this video may already be in your database, it will pull up a screen that looks like this:

As you can see, since I clicked on “aesling – Elysium.mp4”, AMV Tracker sees that I already have a video by the editor aesling in my database. It also sees that I have a video by an editor named Elysium in my database — since AMV Tracker makes no assumptions about how you format your AMV filenames, it presents both of these as being possible matches. In this case, neither is a match so I would click the “No matches” button at the bottom to pull up a video entry screen as in option (a) above. If one of them was a match, clicking it would pull up the video entry and update the “Local file” path to the video file. From there you can make any other changes you like to the video entry and then submit those changes to the database.

NOTE: This method of adding videos will work best if you have your video file names formatted in such a way that both the editor name and video title are clearly separated.