Online Video Rental Management System Information Technology Essay

Online Video Rental Management System Information Technology Essay For web-based video rental management system, the asp.net is use to develop this project as a front-end system and vb.net 2008 as a back-end system. This system is linking with MySQL 2005 as database resource. Comparing between Online Video Rental Management System with another existing system in the current market is needed to identify the weakness and strength of the systems and the specialization of this project. This chapter will begin with definition of Online Video Rental Management System which proved by several journals or articles and follow by description of advantages and disadvantages of Online Video Rental Management System, workflow architecture for Online Video Rental Management System, and lastly is comparison this project with similar system in current market that included VidRent Online DVD Rental Software, Video Rental Software, DRS Pro Start, W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ Rental System, and Online Video Rental Management System. Definition of Online Video Rental Management System Table 2.1: Definition of Online Video Rental Management System(no italic) Author Definition (Bertino.E, Trombetta.A, Montesi.D, 2002) Each particular system is build from what types of the data it handles and the functionalities that performs. An indexing and querying of video data can be supported by the system which is database for billing purposes or video store system which just store the video data that lacking the typical features of database. (Bertino.E, Trombetta.A, Montesi.D, 2002) A particular system is introduced in the architecture because quality of service is an important requirement for whole management system. Architecture result consists of several systems that integrated all their functionalities while preserve autonomy, extensibility and data integrity where necessary (R.Walker, P. Foster, and S. Banthorpe, 1997). An powerful interactive video systems must not only store the videos, but it also provide full functionalities included queries support, insertions and deletions for managing the videos as well as for users subscription and billing according to some policy and it must ensure adequate quality of service. Author Definition (Basile. P, Tinelli. E, Degemmis. M, Noia, T. D., Semeraro. G, Sciascio, E. D, 2007). Through online catalogues, videos are recommended to customer normally are described in both of useful features which are textual features and non-textual features. Online catalogues are the motivation that often behind the research of the developer on the recommendation features. (Dr. Oliver Hinz, Dipl.-Kfm. Jochen Eckert, 2010). Search videos and videos recommendation tools play a crucial role in e-commerce. There are only beneficial for consumers if successful to search for appropriate products supported by system which help them to identify products that fit to their preferences. So, customers can use actively for their search and recommendation systems that independently recommend products on the basis of certain algorithms and data. (Dr. Oliver Hinz, Dipl.-Kfm. Jochen Eckert, 2010). There had two different consequences of the search and recommendation systems for the rental and sales included decreasing search costs can increase the sales based on additional consumption and there can also be a shift in demand from blockbusters to niche products and vice versa, so that substitution effects can be observed. Author Definition (Yanjiang. Y Beng Chin. O, 2005). Current rental records containing two purposes to identifying information serve primarily that are users who holding overdue rental items can be trade by the service provider but only in case the user does not return the items in time. Second is the service provider can enforce rental limit such that a user cannot simultaneously keep more than a limited rental items. To be effective, an anonymous rental system has to afford these two functions as in a regular rental service. (J. J. Jozefowicz, J. M. Kelley, S. M. Brewer, 2008) A serious lack of success films exist in the video rental market from analysing even the obvious popularity of this form of entertainment and the fact that the majority of film studios domestic revenues are generated by home video viewing. (Zhan Wang, Harrison Stein, Chin Yeung Siu, Ruiqi Rachel Wang, 2005) Customers can easily rent the movies through online or at rental stores to enjoy watching the movies whenever at a much cheaper cost rather than watching movies in theatres. Movies rental is more flexibility to support the customers and enabling them to enjoy the movies in comfort of their own homes. State Simplify: By increasing media technology in movies recorder, especially movies which are stored in DVD rather than VCD are become most popular in rental business nowadays. There are about quadruple of storage in DVD larger than VCD with lower price. Customers more prefer watching movies in home in cheaper price rather than go cinema. In additional, the location of the company that support in this project is no cinema. So, movies rental is a very popular business in Cameron Highlands and it is play an important role in entertainment for resident. This project had allocated to two applications that are front-end application and back-end application. The front-end application which is interface that designs to interact with the users through online customer services. Several functions such as movies previews, videos rating, voting, and some recommendation are provide to help in sales increases by hearing from the customer. Information that collects from the customers at the front-end application needs to processes from back-end application that control by administrator but not customers such as transaction record, customer information, order management, payment detail and movies stock. By fulfilling the company requirement, a customization system is need to design based on company need and condition. In this case, system design is more focus on the customer services rather than administration functions. So, this project is needs to add more additional functions to improve the customer services and fulfil their need at the same time benefit to the company in two ways. Targeting to expand the company, a flexible system is mainly consideration by the company to adding a communication space to collect the information from customer and understand what the customer needs. Customers are freely allows to remove, add, or cancel reservation of the videos within certain period. By cooperation several functionalities, an integration management system is create and it is fully customise to the company and help the company improve the business daily transaction. Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Video Rental Management System Online video rental management system is design with several advantages that benefit to organizational, customers and business processes. According to PlanMagic(2010), advantages included legendary ease of use, advanced functionality, low cost of ownership, customer approved and competitor Approved. Same as proved from PlanMagic, 2010, this project had advance functionalities to achieve competitive advantages that are more focus on customer services by adding the automation email sending, attraction interface, and given movies recommendation to let customer unlimited browse and watch movies preview through online and leave some commends on the movies after they watched. Movies recommendation specially provides to customer who are in hesitate of choosing movies. Lower prices of the movies rental are suitable for local students and residents because the owner is obtain the low cost of the movies resources by suppliers. From such advantages, its user-friendly format can be easily controlled by anyone and at the same time, it able requires and maintains to only one person with reducing overheads to a great extent. This video rental system can be understood and installed within a few minutes. In this project, it can benefit to the owner by reducing the human resource and fully utilize system performance to easily keep track the rentals and sales history, storing customer information, auto calculate late payment and generate payment that customer need to pay. All these features are totally customizable and make for unique Online Video Rental Management System to meet the expectation of the Stop and Stick Company. Online reservation is one of the advantages from this project to let the customer making order anytime and anywhere. They no need arrive to the shop to checking whether the movies in stock or not. By applying this project, owner can get the business easily through customer online reservation and increase the orders from suppliers to expand their business quickly. According to Web Experts, 2008, Our online reservations system for videos, DVDs, equipment, or whatever else you want to rent handles everything included east stocking and management. By applying online video rental management system, customers are freely to browse the website, view the movies preview, given recommendation, or making reservation of the movies in whole day 24 hours whether the shop is close or not. Reservation list will be auto arrange in order and handle by owner for second day. Besides of advantages, this project had some disadvantage that cannot be avoided. Compare to the current online video rental system, local DVD movie rental from this project have to treat with late fees, due dates and traffic but through online videos rental system, there are no need to worry about it by ship the videos to the customer after make order from online. Due to the small business company, the company had not suitable yet to running the business by delivery the DVDs to customer through online reservation. By consideration of limited resources of movies and human resources, it is difficult for company to append this service with higher cost. Customer needs to arrives the shop and rent the movies which are reserved. Due dates and late fees are needed charges from customer to maintains and manage the limited stock of movies. In additional, by the reason of the good company location which is stay at middle of the city, so that students must pass by the shop after school for everyday. It is bringing a larger market for the students who are rent the movies or return with easily and convenience. So, it is hard to provide the online payment feature from this small company, customer cannot enjoy any payment through online. Transaction process is done by cash exchanges between the owner and customer at the shop after reservation on the portal. Besides that, one of the disadvantages of this project is the problem of DVDs damage or broken after return by customer and gets negation by customer. The lost of physical cost lost is one of the disadvantages of this project which cannot be avoided and only can control it by manageable the videos under the rule and procedure before rent to the customer. Workflow Architecture for Online Video Rental Management System Figure 2.2: Workflow Architecture from source (Riderck, 2009, March 28).(no date, no italic) (Riderck, 2009) In this section, the overall structure of the online video rental management system is referring by Ridercks video rental system which is similar with this project. Same as Riderck workflow, all customer need to register as a member before utilize the web-based video rental management system at the shop to obtain the id number and membership card by owner. Customer information will be store into the database for rental use. According to the Riderck workflow, it is an offline video rental system and transaction will be keep track after customer rent the movies in the shop. Payment will be calculate by admin part that is inside the video rental system and generate the receipt to customer. By compare with this project, using web-based video rental management system is bringing tremendous benefit to the customer and company for manage the company and effect in increasing sales. After registered as a member, customer can freely leave their comment, rating, voting and making reservation on what the movies they need through online. Besides that, latest release movies and promotion had automatic received by customer at the first time by email sending. Movies which are coming up to date had reminded by email sending from company to prevent movies fine. Reservation or direct orders by customers are process sequence by admin part who are first come first serve. Payment automatically calculates by system that included late payment and total of videos rent let the company easily and speed up the transaction processes. Simple report will be generate for every month to clearly define the total of sales, total movies that are rent and help in decision making by ordering the movies from supplier based on the popular rate of movies. A concept of workflow architecture at the below is draw by developer for this project to let readers more understand about the system process of Online Video Rental Management System as a big picture. Figure 2.3: Workflow Architecture of Online Video Rental Management System Comparing Online Video Rental Management System 2.4.1 Comparison between Online Video Rental Management System with existing current system Table 2.4: Comparing Online Video Rental Management Systems with existing system- Administrator Part (Back-end Application)(no itallic, pls retructure table become smaller) Feature/Functionality VidRent Online DVD Rental Software Video Rental Software (quote) DRS PRO START 5.1 (quote) W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ rental system (article) Online Video Rental Management System Administrator Function: (Back-end Application) User login à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Profile management à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Inventory management à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Transaction record à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Time and date management à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Auto late calculation payment à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Report à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Transaction calculation à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Billing à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Email automation sending à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Damaged/Missing Item à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Table 2.5: Comparing Online Video Rental Management Systems with existing system Customer Services Part (Front-end Application) Feature/Functionality VidRent Online DVD Rental Software Video Rental Software (quote) DRS PRO START 5.1 (quote) W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ rental system (article) Online Video Rental Management System Customer Services: (Front-end Application) Powerful search engine à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movies Categories à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ limited à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movies previews à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Prompt out related movies preview à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Auto count numbers of visitor à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movie rating, voting and recommendation à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ System auto give suggestion à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movies reservation/order à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ 2.4.2 VidRent Online DVD Rental Software VidRent is web-based or online video rental software that promotes to the customer in rental business area. According to Spectrum Research, Inc., 2010, VidRent system was first releasing by Gold Entertainment Group, Inc., and they had almost 5000 distributors and customers for a year before they fall into the recent video rental company price wars and ceased operations. From rapidly development of video rental, VidRent is no longer available because the prices became cheaper and it is cause by competitive advantages. Same as this project, VidRent is consisted of two parts; there are administrator part and customer services part. Through this system, customers can login to the website and making reservation of the videos after registered as a member. Besides that, VidRent provided several movies in difference categories that can let the customer making choices on the movies which types they are preferable. Movies voting, rating and recommendation given by customer on the movies are important to increase the interest of customers on movies rental in certain types. Search function is one of important part that provided to customer to find the movies easily by typing the title name of the movies. It is lack of functionalities on the payment section in this VidRent system. According to the features that state from the VidRent system, there are no provided transaction calculations and billing to customer after the movies are reserved or prepared on the cart. This system is no provided payment function and customer need process their payment by arrives to the shop. Payment record is not build in VidRent system and it may needs to link with another accounting system or POS system to control the business. From observation of the VidRent system, all information and pictures of the videos allocated on the interface that is too simple and the pictures are combination together make the interface looked complicated. Figure 2.6: Administrator Support (VidRent Online DVD Rental Software) Figure 2.7: Customer Support (VidRent Online DVD Rental Software) 2.4.3 Video Rental Software Commodity Rental Video rental software is a very efficiency system in the accounting area and transaction processing system. By adding accounting and point of sales system into video rental system, all-in-one system is powerful to let the user more easily to manage their transaction with auto calculation of the total payment and monthly account calculation. By using this function, cost saving and system simplification help the company run their business smoothly. From above statements, this is strengthens of this video rental software and it encouraged use in medium size of organizational. Same as VidRent system, video rental software has divided into two parts which are administration part and customer services support. This system is strongly concentrated on the administrator part especially the payment area. Accounting function and point of sales function in the system will benefit to the user in calculating monthly sales and transaction will become more quickly and sufficiency. From customer support section, the drabness layout and functionalities of the customer supports website is one of the weaknesses in this system. The most important of the search engine was ignored builds in video rental software, so customer cannot quickly search the movies which they need. It needs to take a longer time to search the movies by click the one page to another page until the end. In additional, there are no categorize of movies that place in order on the main page, user may be confused and it is become more complicated when the new movies are adding or update in the future. Besides that, this website is totally no interaction with the customers because customer recommendation, voting and movies ranking is no provided to the customer. This system is strongly focused on administrator part that use in business transaction process but it is poor in customers support. Figure 2.8: Administrator Support (Video Rental Software Commodity Rental) Figure 2.9: Customer Support (Video Rental Software Commodity Rental) 2.4.4 DRS PRO START 5.1 Online DVD Rental System 5.1 is divided into three versions which are DRS Pro Start 5.1, DRS Pro Business 5.1, and DRS Pro VIP 5.1. Three difference versions of the system can meet the difference need from customer who is running their rental business. In this case, basic function is more suitable for apply by small enterprise.  By the way, DRS Pro Business 5.1 and DRS Pro VIP 5.1 are more suitable for the medium or large company with contained advanced functionalities and specific solution that is given. DRS Pro Start 5.1 is a system that fully implement through online, customer no need reach to the shop and all the services are provided to customers through E-Commerce. After reservation is making by customer, videos are pack in envelop and directly shipping to the customer, it bringing a convenience way to the customers at difference location. Time saving and cost saving is a main issues for customer when they getting to the shop to choose the movies. Through online services, there are no any due date or late payment of the movies rental. So, the two functions that are time and date management and auto late calculation payment of the system can be ignore and omitted. By using this system, company need spend a larger amount of the human resources cost and material cost such as shipping cost, quantity of DVDs, and worker. From the powerful function of automation email sending function in this system, customer can receive the notification which sending by the system automatically such as disc returned/dispatched, titles requiring rating, recommendations, titles coming soon and etc. The function of search engine is provided to let user quickly search movies. Video rating, customer commend are welcome update by users. There are very limited catalogue in DRS Pro Start 5.1 package. The simple layout and less attraction website easy lead the users bored. Figure 2.10: Administration Support (DRS PRO START 5.1) Figure 2.11: Customer Support (DRS PRO START 5.1) 2.4.5 W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ rental system According to the article, W3Rent is an online system that similar with DRS Pro Start 5.1 which is implements the business through E-Commerce. Customer no need arrive to the shop but they can receive the movies anytime, anywhere through shipment method from making reservation through online. So, time and date management and auto late calculation payment can be ignored same as DRS Pro Start 5.1. Security had provided to prevent unauthorized to access the information. Difference users in this system have difference access level such as customer only can login to the customer support website but they are not allow access to the administrator functional area. The staff can login to manage the inventory and being transaction with customer of the administrator area. Limit the functionalities can clearly divide the task for difference type of position and not confuse. According to article, there are no provided report function and transaction record function to the customer. So customer cannot find the history of transaction when they want check back the movies whether had rent by them previously or not. Report cannot generate without historical of transaction record. There are special function in this system is this system can handle the damaged item such as broken of DVDs, damaged DVDs, or lost of DVDs. The system can keep track this DVDs and placing them to specific section. Automation email sending had provided by this system that can help the company saving the cost of time because any notification, returned or dispatched are auto send out to the customer by mail. Besides that, this system had less interaction with the customer because it no provided movies rating and recommendation on the movies to the customer. So, company does not know which type of the movies is more preferable by customer and focusing on promote the popular movies that rate by customer. 2.4.6 Online Video Rental Management System Focusing on customer service is the main purpose of this project to target the customer preferable on the movies to affect the sales. An attractive main page of the customer website is very important to capture the interest of the customer when they are browsing to the website. Short movies previews at the website can attract the customer to click them and watch the content of the movies, so customer will immediately take a consideration of the movies to rent based on their preference. Besides that, the related movies will be prompt out below the movies that watching by customer, so customer can rent more. Powerful search engine and movies catalog should provide to the customer to search the specific movies with easily and faster. Furthermore, this system will give some suggestion to the customer when customer in hesitate to choose the movies by key in some words about what types of the movies are more prefer by them based on the mood feeling. After customer watched the movies, they can give some recommendation and movies rating through login to the website. In the administrator part, access level has provide to users to separate the position such as customer can browse to the customer support area to watch the movies, leave recommendation and enjoy the services that provide by this system, staff can login to administrator function to process the transaction with the customer but they are not allows to change any information of the inventory or delete the customer information. Only the boss or manager can access all the data in this system. Limit the function to difference users are important to ensure the security if the company to prevent attack by un-authorization. By the way, transaction record, payment detail and calculation functions have included in this system. Report need to generate and show the total sales of each month to easy the user make decision in supply the videos from supplier. Email automation sending function can given notification, promotion for new movies and remind customer when the rental is up to date. This system no provides videos shipping, so customer needs to rent the movies directly in the shop base on the limited resource of the Stop And Stick Company. 2.4.7 Discussion of table 2.4 and table 2.5 By comparing online video rental management system with another four existing systems, it found that the previously of four software are very strongly focused on the administrator part. If company only focus on administrator part, they would not know what are the types of movies customer more prefer from interaction with the customer through get feedback from them. By focusing customer services within this project, long term profit can be measure by update information from customer. All of these systems allow the users to keep track the rental, stores the customers detail, taxes calculation which are basic functionalities of the system accept VidRent system. Beside this, there have provides customer rating, recommendation give by customer and get the feedback from customer accept W3Rent System. VidRent System and Online Video Rental Management System no provide online payment and the transaction need directly process in the shop because of limited resource and the system are suitable for small enterprise use. Nowadays, more and more system needs to focus on the customer services to provide integrated system to the customer and catch up their time. By automation email generation, email can auto send to the customer when the movies up to date or during release the new movies to save the cost and time. From this, VidRent and Video rental software is lack of this function. Besides that, search engine and movies catalog is most important function to easy find information, product or movies from the customer. Lack of those functions from Video Rental Software and DRS Pro Start 5.1 System are easy confused and make the interface more complexity. For DRS Pro Start 5.1 and W3Rent system, the functions of time and date management, and auto late calculation payment are no need because they provided the shipping services to the customer and there are no any fines on the late return. There are differences of Video Rental Software which is included the functionalities of time and date management, and auto late calculation payment no matter it is same area with DRS Pro Start 5.1 and W3Rent system. 2.5 Chapter conclusion Chapter 2 concluded with five system comparison that included VidRent Online DVD Rental Software, Video Rental Software, DRS Pro Start, W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ Rental System, and Online Video Rental Management System. Comparing between these projects system with other systems in current market had been done by comparing the specialization, features and functionality of the system. From the lack functionalities require by other system, full functionalities and special functions are need to add in this project to enhance the quality of the system and target to enlarge the market from small enterprise. Before comparison process, definition of this project had been identified and it advantages and disadvantages of this Online Video Rental Management System.