DVDpedia field selection.

[ChoccyHobNob]

OK I've been fighting with this for a while now and I can't figure it out.

How do I choose which field is populated by which source?

Basically I want the title to come from iMDB ('2001: A Space Odyssey' is correct, Amazons '2001 - A Space Odyssey' isn't).
I want the artwork to come from Amazon (it tends to be better than iMDB's, no chance it could come from IMPAwards or MovePosterDB is there?)
I want the genre to come from iMDB (8 Mile is not a 'Period' movie)
I want the cast from iMDB, Amazon don't list everyone.
I want the plot synopsis to come from iMDB (I don't care that "Johnny" thinks the film is crap, I want to know what it's about, I'd rather get the plot from tmDB but there isn't a source for that.)

If I use iMDB as my primary search it mostly works out but adding the Amazon details is a bit patchy, it often doesn't let me chose a title and goes with the first entry, it hardly ever gets the price or extras right. If I use Amazon as my primary search I can pick the right dvd edition but the iMDB info only fills in the blanks leaving all the unwanted Amazon junk in place.

This is driving me nuts! Any help would be really welcome.

[kbarnes70]

OK I've been fighting with this for a while now and I can't figure it out.

How do I choose which field is populated by which source?

Basically I want the title to come from iMDB ('2001: A Space Odyssey' is correct, Amazons '2001 - A Space Odyssey' isn't).
I want the artwork to come from Amazon (it tends to be better than iMDB's, no chance it could come from IMPAwards or MovePosterDB is there?)
I want the genre to come from iMDB (8 Mile is not a 'Period' movie)
I want the cast from iMDB, Amazon don't list everyone.
I want the plot synopsis to come from iMDB (I don't care that "Johnny" thinks the film is crap, I want to know what it's about, I'd rather get the plot from tmDB but there isn't a source for that.)

If I use iMDB as my primary search it mostly works out but adding the Amazon details is a bit patchy, it often doesn't let me chose a title and goes with the first entry, it hardly ever gets the price or extras right. If I use Amazon as my primary search I can pick the right dvd edition but the iMDB info only fills in the blanks leaving all the unwanted Amazon junk in place.

This is driving me nuts! Any help would be really welcome.

Good analysis. This is what I do. I manually add the movie using the title and IMDb as the source. This is in the standard Add Movie dialog. Make sure to tell it to search IMDb. It invariably finds the right movie from the title. If there is any doubt the drawer opens and gives you a choice. Then, once I have added the movie to my DVDpedia database, I do a secondary 'Get Advanced Info' (context menu) and select Amazon. This fills in the bits that IMDb might have missed. Because DVDpedia doesn't overwrite any completed fields, the plot summary, title, cast, genre etc are all left as IMDb intended them to be.

This would be a bit long-winded if you were bulk adding hundreds of movies, but for new movies it works well when you are adding just a few at a time (I add them as I buy them).

Finally, I get my artwork from movieposterdb.com as I prefer the art from the original movie poster to the DVD cover artwork, usually.

Just one thing: if when you try to use the Amazon data (after adding the movie from IMDb) it doesn't give you a choice and just uses the first one it finds, you need to uncheck the box in the General Pane of Preferences that says "Add first search result automatically". This will force open the drawer and let you choose the correct title.

HTH.

Kind regards,

Keith

[Nora]

Just one thing: if when you try to use the Amazon data (after adding the movie from IMDb) it doesn't give you a choice and just uses the first one it finds, you need to uncheck the box in the General Pane of Preferences that says "Add first search result automatically". This will force open the drawer and let you choose the correct title.

That preference setting only refers to the initial search, the one performed via the search dialogue. Once you have the Add/Edit window open, use the little gear button in that window to do an advanced search. That way if there is more than one result returned the little drawer on the side will pop out so you can add the correct result. If there's only one result returned, it will be added automatically.

The 'Get Advanced Info' menu command (either from the Advanced menu or via the contextual menu) always adds the first result of a search automatically.

[ChoccyHobNob]

That preference setting only refers to the initial search, the one performed via the search dialogue. Once you have the Add/Edit window open, use the little gear button in that window to do an advanced search. That way if there is more than one result returned the little drawer on the side will pop out so you can add the correct result. If there's only one result returned, it will be added automatically.

This bit doesn't seem to work consistently for me. If I use iMDB as my primary search it will find a list of movies, usually with the correct one at the top but it is unreliable at downloading the movie details. I have to click on the second movie and then back to the first movie (sometimes many times) before the movie data is correctly populated.

If I then select Amazon from the little gear icon it will populate some of the fields I'd expect to come from Amazon but not all of them (usually it misses the price, which is something I'd expect Amazon to always have on it's details page). I rarely get a list of titles to pick from, so I assume it is using the first title that matches, sometimes I do get a list to pick from, it seems inconsistent and I can't pin down what causes the list to show. If I use Amazon as the primary search for the same titles I will get a list so there is definitely more than one match.

[kbarnes70]

That preference setting only refers to the initial search, the one performed via the search dialogue. Once you have the Add/Edit window open, use the little gear button in that window to do an advanced search. That way if there is more than one result returned the little drawer on the side will pop out so you can add the correct result. If there's only one result returned, it will be added automatically.

This bit doesn't seem to work consistently for me. If I use iMDB as my primary search it will find a list of movies, usually with the correct one at the top but it is unreliable at downloading the movie details. I have to click on the second movie and then back to the first movie (sometimes many times) before the movie data is correctly populated.

I find that if I input the exact title into the Add Movie dialog, IMDb almost always comes up with the correct movie. I stress that I add it from the 'Add' dialog box using title as the search term and IMDb as the source of course. I do this manually now - I used iSight initially to get the bulk of my collection catalogued and that was a different ball game, but now, for new DVDs I manually add them as it is easy enough to add one or two or even a few at a time this way. This method lets me get the bulk of the data from IMDb and to just use Amazon on a second pass to fill in odds and ends that IMDb doesn't have.

If I then select Amazon from the little gear icon it will populate some of the fields I'd expect to come from Amazon but not all of them (usually it misses the price, which is something I'd expect Amazon to always have on it's details page). I rarely get a list of titles to pick from, so I assume it is using the first title that matches, sometimes I do get a list to pick from, it seems inconsistent and I can't pin down what causes the list to show. If I use Amazon as the primary search for the same titles I will get a list so there is definitely more than one match.

That's odd, as you say. It seems to work fine for me - having said that, I am not scrupulously checking to see that *all* of the Amazon data has been imported. TBH if I just used the IMDb it would be enough for me and they could scrap Amazon altogether (for DVDpedia at least) - I only add the extra info from Amazon because I can and because it's simple enough to do.

Kind regards,

Keith

[ChoccyHobNob]

I just tried this...

• I click on "Add"
• In the box I type '8MM', iMDB is selected as the default search.
• It pulls back a list of movies 8MM (1999) is the first one but there is no data pulled.
• I click on the second one (Slacker (1991)) it populates
• I click on the first one (8MM (1999)) this time it pulls the data correctly
• I click on the little gear icon and select "Amazon UK"
• It fills in some extra info, there is no list of titles to choose from, it doesn't include the price.
• I hit Add and close the search box
• In the main window I right click on 8MM and select "Open Amazon"
• It opens "8MM [DVD] [1999] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]" (This title is only available from Amazon sellers not Amazon directly so there is no price.)
• I type '8MM' into the Amazon search box
• It returns 29 results, the first one is "8mm [DVD] [1999]" which is the UK edition, sold by Amazon and has a price, this is my edition and the one I wanted but I wasn't given the opportunity to choose that one.

Note: I just did this again to recheck what I had typed and this time, iMDB returned the data first time (no clicking on Slacker (1991)) and when I select "Amazon UK" from the gear icon I get a list of titles, with the right edition at the top, selecting that one pulls all the data in correctly.

Note 2: I couldn't believe that it worked that time so I tried it again. This time iMDB pulled the right data first time (no clicking on Slacker (1991)) but selecting "Amazon UK" from the gear icon just populated the data from the "8MM [DVD] [1999] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]" title again, no list was offered.

So that's 3 attempts at adding a movie, all the attempts are different, all for the same film.

[kbarnes70]

I just tried this...

• I click on "Add"
• In the box I type '8MM', iMDB is selected as the default search.
• It pulls back a list of movies 8MM (1999) is the first one but there is no data pulled.
• I click on the second one (Slacker (1991)) it populates
• I click on the first one (8MM (1999)) this time it pulls the data correctly
• I click on the little gear icon and select "Amazon UK"
• It fills in some extra info, there is no list of titles to choose from, it doesn't include the price.
• I hit Add and close the search box
• In the main window I right click on 8MM and select "Open Amazon"
• It opens "8MM [DVD] [1999] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]" (This title is only available from Amazon sellers not Amazon directly so there is no price.)
• I type '8MM' into the Amazon search box
• It returns 29 results, the first one is "8mm [DVD] [1999]" which is the UK edition, sold by Amazon and has a price, this is my edition and the one I wanted but I wasn't given the opportunity to choose that one.

Note: I just did this again to recheck what I had typed and this time, iMDB returned the data first time (no clicking on Slacker (1991)) and when I select "Amazon UK" from the gear icon I get a list of titles, with the right edition at the top, selecting that one pulls all the data in correctly.

Note 2: I couldn't believe that it worked that time so I tried it again. This time iMDB pulled the right data first time (no clicking on Slacker (1991)) but selecting "Amazon UK" from the gear icon just populated the data from the "8MM [DVD] [1999] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]" title again, no list was offered.

So that's 3 attempts at adding a movie, all the attempts are different, all for the same film.

This is very strange. I just tried it with the same title and IMDB came up with the right one first go. I then used the gear thing to pull in more data from Amazon on a second pass and that worked OK too. I tried this three times and it was the same each time. However, you are right that when using the Amazon source no alternative titles were offered - it just pulled the data right in. Is this because once IMDb has found the correct movie there is no need for Amazon to look any further? Not sure. Conor?? Nora??

I wonder what is going on there? Maybe it's time to shout for Conor and possibly send him your database file so he can see if there's a reason. It worked every time for me, consistently is all I can tell you. Sorry I can't confirm or replicate your findings - especially this bizarre thing of having to click the second title in the list in order to populate the fields. I'd be interested to hear what the guys at Bruji have to say though.

UPDATE: I just realised I was pulling in the Amazon data from Amazon US. I tried it again with Amazon UK and it does what you describe - no price in the price field and no alternative titles offered. I added the movie and then went to the Amazon site using DVDpedia's Amazon button and it takes me to the NTSC version as you found. I then typed 8mm into Amazon's search and the R2 title is the first of the 29 offered. So the question here is "why isn't the initial search of Amazon UK, using the gear in the Add dialog, after having first found the title at IMDb, not returning the correct movie or at least offering a choice, which should include the R2 version, especially when searching Amazon UK?"

I still can't replicate the thing where you have to select the second title in the list before you can add the data though. For me, it finds and adds the info from the IMDb search, first time every time. Odd.

Kind regards,

Keith

[ChoccyHobNob]

This is definitely a bug and it's making DVDPedia unusable for me.
Conor? Nora? anyone able to offer some help?
Searching for movies from the different sources is a pretty important part of what DVDPedia does and in it's current state it's hopeless. And theres no way I'm entering 2000+ movies by hand. I'm starting to wish I'd never paid for all the pedias.

[Conor]

The more important bug of the details not loading sounds like a internet connection issue. Like Keith we get an immediate result overtime as well. Is there anything that would block the loading of IMDb? Since it is an intermittent problem it could be related to the IMDB server or the connection from your house to it. If this continues to happen in the future let us know and I can send you a special version that will log more information.

The second issue with not being able to select an Amazon result is that the data from IMDb includes an ASIN for the movie. On this page you can see it picks the second result. And you are correct, it should pick the first one. I have fixed that bug and you can download beta 9 for the fix. Having this ASIN means an exact match on Amazon and no choice is given when getting more info. You can remove the information from the ASIN field under the extras tab if you would like to have a choice on Amazon. Which you might still want to do with the beta as IMDb is partial to the US Amazon and not the UK.

The IMDb plug-in can also be modified not to include the ASIN information, but that would require Xcode to be installed.

It might also be easier to add the IMDb info only first and then use the multi-edit to remove the ASIN and go back in and use the gear button in the edit panl to add the Amazon info. Having the movie already in your database will also allow you to use the cancel button as well as the undo in the table view if the information added is not correct.

[kbarnes70]

The more important bug of the details not loading sounds like a internet connection issue. Like Keith we get an immediate result overtime as well. Is there anything that would block the loading of IMDb? Since it is an intermittent problem it could be related to the IMDB server or the connection from your house to it. If this continues to happen in the future let us know and I can send you a special version that will log more information.

I find that quite often I have to request info from IMDb more than once. Sometimes, for example, I will update the user ratings for a movie by blanking the field and then doing a Get Advanced Info from IMDb. On occasion I have to repeat the 'get info' once or twice before it completes the field. This presumably is an IMDb issue and may happen more often during busy times.

It might also be easier to add the IMDb info only first and then use the multi-edit to remove the ASIN and go back in and use the gear button in the edit panl to add the Amazon info. Having the movie already in your database will also allow you to use the cancel button as well as the undo in the table view if the information added is not correct.

This is how I am tending to do it these days. The main issues I have on this subject are that I would like to see a setting to get info from the UK version of IMDB because certain information is country-specific (ratings, release dates etc) and this would then give me the correct ASIN information as well. It would also make for a more sophisticated international user experience - DVDpedia seems to have many users outside the USA and I am sure they would welcome country-specific IMDb data.

Kind regards,

Keith

[ChoccyHobNob]

Ok well that makes sense.
Thanks Conor for the explanation

I guess the timeout issue would be down to imdb, My connection is rarely busy (though I was running a handbrake encode while doing the original 8mm test so my cpu was maxed out). IIRC xbmc/plex had similar imdb issues a while back and had to up the timeout period to compensate.

I have changed the imdb plugin to use uk.imdb.com instead of akas.imdb.com and have taken out the asin lookup. It now gives me a lookup list for 8mm on amazon uk as expected.

I thought 'woot' and dived straight in, tried looking up "(500) Days of Summer"

IMDB got the lookup, found all the right info.
I hit Amazon UK from the gear icon and got nothing, no lookup list, no auto fill of the first choice, nothing.
So I went to amazon uk and manually searched, there were 40 results, the first two of which were the right title (blu-ray and dvd)
'damn' I thought, 'I screwed up the code'
So I downloaded the beta you posted and tried it with that.
Same result. (I guess that follows, changing the imdb plugin shouldn't kill the amazon lookup)
So I went back to my version, looked it up again on imdb, got a hit
Tried the amazon uk search from the gear icon, got nothing.
Copied the asin from the amazon website and put it in the asin field on the extras tab and hit amazon uk again.
This time I get all the details added correctly.

Theres still a bug there somewhere!

[ChoccyHobNob]

I find that quite often I have to request info from IMDb more than once. Sometimes, for example, I will update the user ratings for a movie by blanking the field and then doing a Get Advanced Info from IMDb. On occasion I have to repeat the 'get info' once or twice before it completes the field. This presumably is an IMDb issue and may happen more often during busy times.

This is the same thing as my issue, I just pick a different title from the list and then go back to the right one to force it to re search.

This is how I am tending to do it these days. The main issues I have on this subject are that I would like to see a setting to get info from the UK version of IMDB because certain information is country-specific (ratings, release dates etc) and this would then give me the correct ASIN information as well. It would also make for a more sophisticated international user experience - DVDpedia seems to have many users outside the USA and I am sure they would welcome country-specific IMDb data.

Certification is coming from the mpaa. It doesn't come from the certification field and I can understand why, look at "The Exorcist" for a good example, there are 3 UK certifications (UK:X theatrical, UK:18 1990, UK:18 2008) which one should it be? "The day of the woman" is even more confusing, look at the canada ratings on that!

Using 300 (2006) as an example for the dates

The release date comes from the imdb 300 /dvd/ page, this says Aug 2007. This should be overwritten by the amazon date when you pick a specific edition but it isn't

The production date was 2006, the US release was Dec 2006 (and then again in March 2007, the us dvd was Jul 2007), the uk release was march 2007 (the uk dvd was Nov 2007, blu-ray Oct 2007)

I would like dvdpedia to store the imdb production year (2006), the imdb UK Theatrical release date (March 2007) and the Amazon UK dvd release date for my edition (Oct 2007 in this case)

What I actually get is theatrical 2007 (I think thats the uk theatrical release) and release Aug 2007 (the imdb first dvd release date). It doesn't store production year at all.

[kbarnes70]

I find that quite often I have to request info from IMDb more than once. Sometimes, for example, I will update the user ratings for a movie by blanking the field and then doing a Get Advanced Info from IMDb. On occasion I have to repeat the 'get info' once or twice before it completes the field. This presumably is an IMDb issue and may happen more often during busy times.

This is the same thing as my issue, I just pick a different title from the list and then go back to the right one to force it to re search.

This is how I am tending to do it these days. The main issues I have on this subject are that I would like to see a setting to get info from the UK version of IMDB because certain information is country-specific (ratings, release dates etc) and this would then give me the correct ASIN information as well. It would also make for a more sophisticated international user experience - DVDpedia seems to have many users outside the USA and I am sure they would welcome country-specific IMDb data.

Certification is coming from the mpaa. It doesn't come from the certification field and I can understand why, look at "The Exorcist" for a good example, there are 3 UK certifications (UK:X theatrical, UK:18 1990, UK:18 2008) which one should it be? "The day of the woman" is even more confusing, look at the canada ratings on that!

Using 300 (2006) as an example for the dates

The release date comes from the imdb 300 /dvd/ page, this says Aug 2007. This should be overwritten by the amazon date when you pick a specific edition but it isn't

The production date was 2006, the US release was Dec 2006 (and then again in March 2007, the us dvd was Jul 2007), the uk release was march 2007 (the uk dvd was Nov 2007, blu-ray Oct 2007)

I would like dvdpedia to store the imdb production year (2006), the imdb UK Theatrical release date (March 2007) and the Amazon UK dvd release date for my edition (Oct 2007 in this case)

What I actually get is theatrical 2007 (I think thats the uk theatrical release) and release Aug 2007 (the imdb first dvd release date). It doesn't store production year at all.

Yes, I agree. DVDpedia works very well if you are in the USA but the international aspects are not so sophisticated at the moment. The classification, for example, comes from the MPAA as you say, because DVDpedia searches the US version of IMDb. I'd naturally like the classifications from the BBFC as I am in the UK but this would mean accessing the UK version of IMDb. Similar problems occur with the release dates, original titles and so on. I'm sure Conor and the guys will get around to this eventually - in the meantime, I do the best I can with the US version of IMDb and change details manually where I spot anomalies.

Kind regards,

Keith

[Conor]

Thank you for the bug report, I have updated the beta 10 to be able to handle parenthesis in an Amazon keyword search.

We want to improve the international support to be able to gather the appropriate country ratings. Integrating all the other information would need a bigger overhaul; however, you seem to be handy with Xcode you would be able to add some of the information that you want to gather to the custom fields.

[ChoccyHobNob]

Yes, I agree. DVDpedia works very well if you are in the USA but the international aspects are not so sophisticated at the moment. The classification, for example, comes from the MPAA as you say, because DVDpedia searches the US version of IMDb. I'd naturally like the classifications from the BBFC as I am in the UK but this would mean accessing the UK version of IMDb. Similar problems occur with the release dates, original titles and so on. I'm sure Conor and the guys will get around to this eventually - in the meantime, I do the best I can with the US version of IMDb and change details manually where I spot anomalies.

Actually the BBFC certification isn't presented to UK users in place of the MPAA on IMDB. IMDB is very USA centric and the results from a search are the same whether you use uk.imdb or akas.imdb.

Release dates are correctly handled by IMDB and they present the theatrical release for your region (which DVDPedia then picks up)

Original title is not region specific on IMDB and is correctly listed with the original international title, they list AKA's but the 'original' title is the same regardless of your region. ie.

"Ghost in the shell" is a good example, it's listed as "Kôkaku kidôtai", the original title, regardless of the fact that in the west the USA and UK both called it "Ghost in the Shell"

"Day of the Woman" is another good example of that. Almost everywhere is is known as "I Spit on Your Grave"