IMDb original title option (DVDpedia)

[Lodovico]

I've noticed in the last few days that any foreign language title I add to DVDpedia using IMDb search now comes up with the English language title in the Title field. E.g., I was trying to add "Les assassins de l'ordre" (1971) and it came up as "Law Breakers" instead.

This appears to be a change at IMDb, as the same thing happens when I search on their site.

Would it be possible to add a preference option so that DVDpedia always favours the original title in IMDb searches?

And maybe even an option for "<original title> (AKA <english title>)"...?

[Lodovico]

Ah, it's OK now. My IMDb searches are generating foreign titles correctly.

If they did change something at IMDb, they seem to have changed it back.

EDIT: There's a discussion of the "English title first" change at IMDb here: http://akas.imdb.com/board/bd0000042/nest/158018338. They've reverted the change for now, but it appears they may re-implement it, except in the akas.imdb.com domain.

[kbarnes70]

I've noticed in the last few days that any foreign language title I add to DVDpedia using IMDb search now comes up with the English language title in the Title field. E.g., I was trying to add "Les assassins de l'ordre" (1971) and it came up as "Law Breakers" instead.

This appears to be a change at IMDb, as the same thing happens when I search on their site.

Would it be possible to add a preference option so that DVDpedia always favours the original title in IMDb searches?

And maybe even an option for "<original title> (AKA <english title>)"...?

I'd actually prefer the opposite to you - to have the English Language title entered into DVDpedia. When I try to find, for example, House of Flying Daggers in my collection, I want to look it up under H on my shelves, not under its original title of "Shi mian mai fu" which I would never remember!

IMDB has gone back to using the original title when you do a search, so if you search for House of Flying Daggers, it comes up as Shi mian mai fu.

Conor, is there some way to force it to use the English title in the way that Lodovico suggests (although the opposite way around for me)? Thanks.

Kind regards,

Keith

[Lodovico]

From the IMDb discussion thread I linked to, it appears that their long-term plan is to make us.imdb.com display the US English titles, uk.imdb.com display the UK English titles, http://www.imdb.fr the French titles, http://www.imdb.de the German titles, and so on.

akas.imdb.com will display the title in the original language. The main site, http://www.imdb.com, will hopefully do the same (but may not).

A way for DVDpedia to deal with all this (and keep both me and kbarnes70 happy) would be to allow the user to choose which IMDb site it's using for searches.

[kbarnes70]

From the IMDb discussion thread I linked to, it appears that their long-term plan is to make us.imdb.com display the US English titles, uk.imdb.com display the UK English titles, http://www.imdb.fr the French titles, http://www.imdb.de the German titles, and so on.

akas.imdb.com will display the title in the original language. The main site, http://www.imdb.com, will hopefully do the same (but may not).

A way for DVDpedia to deal with all this (and keep both me and kbarnes70 happy) would be to allow the user to choose which IMDb site it's using for searches.

Yes, I have mentioned this before. At the moment, DVDpedia uses the US site for IMDb. I would much prefer to use the UK site and, I would imagine, French users would prefer the French site, German users the German site and so on. I don't know if this would be a big deal in programming terms, but it would be a terrific benefit to users. Any chance, Conor?

Kind regards,

Keith

[Conor]

A lot of changes going on. On our side we have to wait and see what the final results are before adapting to them. As of right now most of the sites are displaying the original title. House of Flying Daggers is still "Shi mian mai fu" and they haven't implemented their plan to display the title for the current domain.

We would like to add the possibility of localizing the information to a specific country site, but at the moment that involves incredible amount of complexity. Adding an option for changing the country is not the complicated bit, it's understanding all the information for all the different possibilities that this opens up. Already with the "Also Known As" it's complicated to try to match the users locale to one of all the options listed and hence why DVDpedia does not try at the moment. If there is a standardization on how they begin to handle this in the future we might to be able to allow more localization.

[kbarnes70]

A lot of changes going on. On our side we have to wait and see what the final results are before adapting to them. As of right now most of the sites are displaying the original title. House of Flying Daggers is still "Shi mian mai fu" and they haven't implemented their plan to display the title for the current domain.

We would like to add the possibility of localizing the information to a specific country site, but at the moment that involves incredible amount of complexity. Adding an option for changing the country is not the complicated bit, it's understanding all the information for all the different possibilities that this opens up. Already with the "Also Known As" it's complicated to try to match the users locale to one of all the options listed and hence why DVDpedia does not try at the moment. If there is a standardization on how they begin to handle this in the future we might to be able to allow more localization.

What seems simple to the uninitiated (me) always has complications to those who know (you) If you can do it, that would be great. If you can't, then DVDpedia is still a terrific program that I do genuinely find indispensable. Only today I went to my shelves to reach down a movie and I couldn't find it. I assumed it had been misfiled and spent 10 minutes searching for it. No use. Went to DVDpedia to search for it.... yep - I don't have it!

Kind regards,

Keith

[Lodovico]

Aaargh! IMDb have reimplemented the "English title first" behaviour. Searching for any film in any language on imdb.com now brings up the English language version of the title.

You can switch off this behaviour in IMDb site preferences. But this doesn't solve the problem in DVDpedia. If I try to add Satyajit Ray's "Aparajito" (the original title by which the film is known everywhere) I get "The Unvanquished".

I'll repeat my request from the first post in the thread: Would it be possible to add a preference option so that DVDpedia always favours the original title in IMDb searches?

[Conor]

Thank you for the information. It's something we are going to address in a release of a plug-in with more options for the international versions. Glad to see the original title making an appearance. I have updated DVDpedia beta 34 to include the original title information for the original title field so that at "Aparajito" won't be discarded.

[Rudy]

I've worked woth the beta but I would prefer adding titles the other way: the original title in the main titlefield and the english title in a seperate field. I'll second Lodovico with his 'adding this as a preference option'.

I've noticed an increase in app size, from 20Mb to 50Mb, lots of hidden features?

[Conor]

Thank you for the feedback on the new changes.

lots of hidden features?

Yes. Also the beta is not as compact as the regular version, it includes debugging code that will print our more information in the (rare) event of a crash. As well as uncompressed UI elements that allow us to work with the localizations during betas.