Localized IMDb search

[Overlord]

Hello to all!

First, congrats is due to nostra for this great piece of software, it even beats commercial ones and i find it a pleasure to use
Well I'm glad to be here and I hope to be useful for some, albeit small, improvement.

Preamble:
is kinda simple, we all know IMDb is de facto the definitive source to obtain movie informations, even if you are not from an english speaking country (like me to say one). Local sites are pale surrogates of IMDb vastness.

The issue:
if you're not english there's a big probability that you name your movies with translated titles. If you, like me, would like to inject all this movies into PVD, and save much time, should use IMDb search, 'cause it will be a shure shot (italian sites for example are very incomplete) but...what the hell, IMDb doesn't seem to find anything!
Of course I'd say, one have to use the localized version of IMDb (not everyone knows this possibility). At the moment there are few: UK, German, Italian. There's also a refined way: akas.imdb.com. Its search is performed on every AKA of the movie Db, making every search 99% accurate as one expect it to be!

The fact is, I tried so many software and not a single one implements this simple but very powerful and useful feature... with PVD I first felt to have found the definitive program, so I'm here to suggest such a feature, or simply (as a programmer) help to create it!
However I think this wouldn't be too difficult to change the approach of the imdb.dll plugin, maybe to use only the AKA one in first instance (with english title search it returns the same results of the main site search) or to create a bridge plugin to shot the right URL to imdb.dll. In the end the only difference is the beginning of the url (www.imdb.com/... - akas.imdb.com/...), the identificative number after that is fortunately the same.

Nostra, you're the master, I'll wait for your wise reply 

[nostra]

Welcome to the forum, Overlord.

It is an interesting suggestion indeed. It seems like I can easily add an option to the existing plugin to use akas instead of original titles. What do you think of this solution?

[rick.ca]

It seems like I can easily add an option to the existing plugin to use akas instead of original titles.

I've been testing this (by comparing Web searches using akas.imdb.com vs. www.imdb.com) and was about to suggest this. The AKA URL seems to function exactly the same as the regular, so it could probably be used as the "base."

I doubt it will make any much difference to users like me. Although I have a number of "foreign" movies in my database, I couldn't find any where this made a difference. This might be because they're all "popular," so either IMDb search finds the English title. I can see, however, how this might make a huge difference to non-English users searching for titles in their own language—assuming those are not going to be recognized as "popular" titles.

Thanks for the tip, Overlord! I've added this to my Web search collection so I can try it if the plugin has a problem identifying a movie: http://akas.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%s

[Overlord]

Good morning guys and thanks for the quick heads up

I'm shure that after a few trials you're gonna notice the goodness of this, it can easily be used instead of the main search, but I understand the criticality of imdb plugin...
Nostra, I'm shure that any way you realize this, it will be right. My suggestion is just not to bury it too deep, because I'm shure the non-english users of PVD all around the world are already so much (at least I hope, it deserves it  .

Keep me informed and thank you both for the hard work!

[nostra]

The new IMDB plugin has an option to search in Aka Titles and it sets this option on automatically if non english locale is selected in windows.

[Overlord]

I'm astonished, nostra, really.
One couldn't be so quick even if paid  (but my donation is guaranteed).

Now it's only a matter of fixing those corrupted archives (unfortunately not only 0.9.9.10 one) and we'll begin enjoying your hard work!
From now on consider me as another of your testers 

Thanks again!

[rick.ca]

Actually, it's all your fault, Overlord. Distraught at having missed his self-imposed 24-hour deadline for implementing a sensible feature request, he slipped up. Maybe your donation will cheer him up.

[nostra]

I am sorry for the problems with installation files. I have fixed the files now.

[Overlord]

  you're right rick!
now that I have fulfilled my duty I hope everything is going to be fine as always; it's not so much but as my first ever donation I think it has a great symbolical value.

I want to add: It Works!
For the first time ever an Italian person can switch to silent mode without headaches at all...I'm touched 
And just like me any other non-english movie lover in the world.

Thank you again nostra for your hard work, PVD reflects all your dedication and seriousness and I'll be around here for a lot of time, shure .
If I could be of some help (I am -actually was- a programmer, or I could translate) just let me know.

See ya around guys!

[nostra]

Thanks for your donation, Overlord.

If I could be of some help (I am -actually was- a programmer, or I could translate) just let me know.

Actually, you can help a lot. There is no Italian translation for the version 0.9.9. You could also wright some scripts if you have nothing to do There also Skins you could take a look at...

[rick.ca]

The AKA setting doesn't seem to "stick." I check it in the plugin configuration, but when I close and re-open the dialog, the setting is gone.

[nostra]

Ups, get the update here http://www.videodb.info/bin/plugins/imdb.zip

[Overlord]

Actually, you can help a lot. There is no Italian translation for the version 0.9.9. You could also wright some scripts if you have nothing to do There also Skins you could take a look at...

Nothing to do is not, unfortunately, my case... I work almost every day, but soon there'll be some free days for me, so I think there's going to be space enough for at least a good translation
Skin work is also temptating, but it requires more time and I don't like to promise in vain, so if times will be better expect this too.

The AKA setting doesn't seem to "stick." I check it in the plugin configuration, but when I close and re-open the dialog, the setting is gone.

I noticed this strange behaviour only when I tried to import a big number of movies in silent mode, the big part of those have not been recognized (don't know why but also english titled movies that if inserted one by one with new movie master are found perfecly...so maybe there's something more).

Talkin' about glitches, i have a pair of minor to add (know it's not the right place  ):
- in auto scan results dialog, where it asks you what to do with the new movies found, the state of the check boxes is not saved (e.g. one wants only movie info checked).
- sometimes and with combinations of new movie found, PVD leaves alone 1 or 2 of those (say there are 200 and scan returns 198). After many trials I couldn't isolate the problem, as it's not file related. Plus, PVD 0.9.8.20 didn't behave like this, with the exact same files.
- I would change the default regexp in pvdconf.ini related to episodes, as it does not allow to have the <eptitle> field with spaces (it results only the first word of the episode title).

Sorry for the long post  

Edit: forget about the second point, I found the solution: some regexp messed with the combination of S.W.A.T..avi and 21.avi, considering them as an individual movie called 'movies'  (the name of the folder) now I can understand why I couldn't isolate the issue and dividing my collection in various groups of a hundred movies worked right...

About the big part of movies not recognized, found why disabling silent mode: after 10 movie informations correctly downloaded it begins to shot annoying bad requests, could it be related to PVD or maybe a protection of the IMDb site?
Hope to have been helpful