Video store database

You are a database consultant with Ace Software, Inc., and have been assigned to develop a database for the Mom and Pop Johnson video store in town. Mom and Pop have been keeping their records of videos and DVDs purchased from distributors and rented to customers in stacks of invoices and piles of rental forms for years. They have finally decided to automate their record keeping with a relational database.

You sit down with Mom and Pop to discuss their business, and watch their operation for about a week. You discover quickly that a video and a DVD are both copies of a movie kept in a separate plastic case that is rented out. They have several copies of each movie they rent, therefore there are several videos and DVDs for each movie title. You learn that in their inventory they have several thousand videos and DVDs, which they get wholesale from about a half dozen distributors. The video and DVD prices to them are based on the quantity of their shipment and the past business they have done with each company.

The price of a DVD for a movie might be different than the price of a video for the same movie, even from the same distributor. Each distributor provides different types of movies (e.g., suspense, horror, mystery, comedy, etc.). A single distributor may provide several different types of movies in both video and DVD format. It is possible to obtain the same movie from multiple distributors and at different wholesale prices.

Each video and DVD has a unique identification number that Mom and Pop assign in their inventory, in addition to the distributor's serial number for the item. Each movie also has a unique identification number Mom and Pop assign in addition to the title and any movie IDs the distributors use in their electronic catalogs. Distributors provide electronic catalogs to Mom and Pop, and the information from these catalogs must be included in the database.

Mom and Pop need to record when a video or DVD is rented, when a video or DVD is returned, and all customer charges such as late and damaged fees, failure to rewind fees, and taxes. They need a report of which videos are returned late because there are standard and late charges. On occasion there are discount prices for certain movies or types of movies. Customers want to rent movies based on actors or actresses, running length, type of movie, rating, year released, the director, and the Academy Awards won (by the movie, the actors, the actresses and/or the directors). Customers also want to know how many videos they have rented in the last month, year, and so forth. Mom and Pop need to keep only basic information on customers in their database, such as name, address, telephone numbers, etc.