COMP208 - Group 8: Aaliyah Gangat, Alex Goddard, Putri Monica, Rafi’ah Nadeem, Samiya Ali, Xiaowei Zhang

Project Description Selecting movies for group viewing often leads to the common setback of someone having already seen the chosen film. Our system addresses this by offering a movie suggestion engine that integrates user preferences. Users create accounts, input relevant details, and add friends to form a network. To ensure data security, our system employs encryption algorithms and multiple password-protected databases. We will then perform multiple SQL queries to identify ‘matches’. Drawing inspiration from Tinder, our interface displays movies with their posters, a brief synopsis, and main cast members, users can then mark a movie as watched or ‘swipe’ to show their preference. These movies will be randomly generated using the TMDb API. When linked users indicate similar preferences, the system identifies and recommends these mutual choices. This streamlined approach aims to simplify movie selection among friends, ensuring a more cohesive and enjoyable viewing experience.

Additional features (time permitting):

• Suggest friends based on similar movie preferences
• Provide the Trailer using TMDb
• Provide up-to-date information on viewing options
• Online chat to provide interactions between users while watching the movie
• Employ machine learning algorithms using a data set to reduce continuous API calls

Aims and Objectives At the end of the project, we are aiming to have a functional platform that:

• Recommends movies to users using user preferences,
• Allows them to choose a movie to watch with friends,
• Provides movie trailers from TMDb,
• Supplies information on where to watch the movie,
• Includes an online chat that allows users to interact with each other whilst watching the movie,
• Allows users to add friends to their network Our key objectives include:
• Implementing a robust Java code that matches users based on their movie preferences,
• Testing the buttons to ensure correct functionality and system flow
• Implementing the HTML and CSS framework correctly to ensure the display work is as required,
• Allowing the user to successfully create an account so that their preferences can be stored in the database
• Allowing successful user authentication each time the user accesses the platform
• Creating and storing the relevant API Key, enabling access to relevant information
• Ensuring TMDb is embedded into our platform efficiently and securely using relevant API calls
• Efficiently and securely storing each user’s account information (utilising encryption algorithms when necessary) and movie preferences in a SQL database and accessing it securely using SQL queries
• Effective beta testing that provides useful feedback to improve our platform, such as ensuring no bugs, reliability, usability, speed and compatibility