save full list of producers

[PhiBo]

I thought a couple of minutes about whether to write this as bug report or as feature request.

The "Producer" field of DVDpedia only receives the first 4 producers listed on IMDB. Since the list on IMDB is just alphabetic and not ordered by any kind of role or "importance" that leaves out a lot of famous producers who just happen to have names near the end of the alphabet. So in my opinion the field should include the full list from IMDB.

[sjk]

Has anyone noticed a similar limitation with other sites/fields, i.e. only the first N downloaded values are used?

[Nora]

Make sure you turn on the 'Produced By' setting in the Preferences/Sites for IMDb (click on the little gear button next to the IMDb site). That'll download the full producer credits as opposed to just the ones listed on the movies main page. Same is true for all the other credits.

[PhiBo]

I just tried that and there were still just four producers downloaded. Besides, I think even if it would work, it'll put the producers in the cast section (as all other IMDB settings do) instead of the designated field.

[sjk]

I just tried that and there were still just four producers downloaded.

Same here, after enabling "Produced By" and doing a simple test before posting.

Besides, I think even if it would work, it'll put the producers in the cast section (as all other IMDB settings do) instead of the designated field.

In my test with The Grey (IMDb 1601913), the top four of over a dozen producers listed under "Produced by" appeared in the Producers field for the DVDpedia entry:

I just noticed the Starring field there only displays the first four of five names of its value, without indication the fifth is hidden. And the more complete list is under the Credits tab.

[Conor]

Thank you SJK for the example I was able to test it against The Grey and update the plug-in to add all the producers in DVDpedia beta 20.

The last starring on the next line is a small rare bug that only appears for a few movies. It's more prevalent with a slim edit window as the bug can only happen id the field requires 3 lines or more to display. If you enlarge your edit window a bit more it will go away almost entirely. Because DVDpedia is adaptive to show the number of lines needed to fit the information. I calculate this on the fly depending on the text, but with the multi-value fields it's tough to do as some space is lost on the right since bubbles aren't broken up and fall to the next line. Taking this into account is half science half guessing, based on the number of words and length of them. But I have also updated the beta I spent a few hours working on a new algorithm that should be even better and it makes a mistake it will err on the side of one extra line, instead of the hiding the last name. Do let me know if you find any issues with the new beta.

[PhiBo]

Thanks for the quick fix!

Maybe you should remove the "produced by" checkbox in the IMDB specific settings. Apparently it has no effect anyway.

[Conor]

Indeed it's not relevant if you are already pulling in any of the other data that requires the extended credits to be downloaded, but does have an effect if no other is checked. Since the change is still in the beta change, I'll look at reworking that preference to limit the producers to 4 when unchecked.

[sjk]

Thank you SJK for the example I was able to test it against The Grey and update the plug-in to add all the producers in DVDpedia beta 20.

Doesn't seem to have any effect here, as described below.

The last starring on the next line is a small rare bug that only appears for a few movies. <… useful explanation …> But I have also updated the beta I spent a few hours working on a new algorithm that should be even better and it makes a mistake it will err on the side of one extra line, instead of the hiding the last name.

Gosh, your putting hours of work into that issue sort of makes me wish I hadn't mentioned it.

I do see the difference in the Starring field, without resizing the edit window -- thanks! It'll display at least twenty names now, with no invisible truncation.

Btw, what determines which and how many names get added there? I'm not sure why the numbers vary so widely for my entries. Maybe the field was originally populated from Amazon data, with the more complete list under the Credits tab later pulled from IMDb (and no plugin options enabled). That difference can be confusing when a name is only in the latter when you think it would also be in Starring, e.g. for a smart collection match.

In general, it's not always clear exactly how/when certain fields and the Credits tab are populated with data from different site sources. Usually that doesn't matter to me, though.

Indeed it's not relevant if you are already pulling in any of the other data that requires the extended credits to be downloaded, but does have an effect if no other is checked. Since the change is still in the beta change, I'll look at reworking that preference to limit the producers to 4 when unchecked.

Beta 20 still downloads just the first four producers for The Grey from IMDb when only the "Produced By" option is enabled. Both the Producer field and Credits tab look the same.

[Conor]

Gosh, your putting hours of work into that issue sort of makes me wish I hadn't mentioned it.

It should have worked flawlessly from the beginning. It's one of those things that with time you suddenly realize how to do it better. This time at least it only took a few hours, when creating it originally the first time it took several days to get 99% right the way it used to behave. It's this kind of attention that is slowing down Pocketpedia, yesterday we spent and entire day with the gradient and position of a single cancel button. Today we are tackling updates to the details view on the iPad, there so much space that it completely different from the iPhone.

Sorry for the tangent to the matter at hand Beta 21 should now pull in max 4 producers (when any of the extra options are checked) and all of them (actually max 20) with produced by checked.

The starring field is independent from the credits, with many plug-ins it's impossible to tell what from the credits should go in the starring field. With Amazon it was easy as they would only list the main actors and hence everything went into there. With IMDb it takes the first five and this needs to be updated by hand in the case where more actors are need or were the credits are alphabetical or order of appearance in the movie. Doghouse does store both independently and uses starring for the search as this improves search performance by a large magnitude, so it's somewhat nice to have the main actors in starring.

[sjk]

Beta 21 should now pull in max 4 producers (when any of the extra options are checked) and all of them (actually max 20) with produced by checked.

Starting with a new entry from IMDb for The Grey, beta 21 only downloads the first four producers (populating the Producers field) when any IMDb options (including Produced By) are enabled and none when all options are disabled. I'm not sure what's causing us to get different result, downloading only IMDB data.

The starring field is independent from the credits, with many plug-ins it's impossible to tell what from the credits should go in the starring field. With Amazon it was easy as they would only list the main actors and hence everything went into there. With IMDb it takes the first five and this needs to be updated by hand in the case where more actors are need or were the credits are alphabetical or order of appearance in the movie.

With your explanation and more testing it's clear(er) which subset of Credits info can also appear in the Starring field (and others?). I still don't know all data destinations for every enabled IMDb option, but the majority ends up in Credits (if not overridden with a custom field). The Produced By option relating to the Producers field is one exception. And Plot Keywords uses the Tags field. Btw, is there any reference to the non-custom Tags field on Template Tags page? I only see key:customTag1 and key:customTag2.

Most of my entries have a mix of Amazon and IMDb data, intentionally downloaded in that order for awhile, but it's not always obvious what came from where. The URL field value seems the best indicator of which source entries are created from. Empty ASIN or IMDb fields help locate Amazon-only and IMDb-only entries.

Doghouse does store both independently and uses starring for the search as this improves search performance by a large magnitude, so it's somewhat nice to have the main actors in starring.

[Edit: sitenoise's Films vs physical media topic covers similar ground to my final comments here and I've followed up more there]

I wouldn't mind if certain info was merged/shared between multiple instances of an entry. For example, the DVD vs. Blu-ray entries for Monsters, Inc. have differences for info that could be identical. Hmm, there are four unique entries for that title. Doghouse seems more like an "Amazon style" (product-centric) than "IMDb style" (title-centric) database, which is understandable.

Still working towards a more optimal combination of multiple and single item advantages with my DVDpedia database, if that makes any sense.

[sitenoise]

I'm going to respond to this by creating a new Topic in the Doghouse Forum entitled "Delete at least all the 'Credits' and everything in the 'Starring' Field and re-download them from the best source you can find and then double check them for at least a semblance of accuracy before contributing a Title to the Doghouse", or something like that.