Confirmed. I've only tested a few, but it seems the IMDb plugin is no longer downloading a poster. Following is a log of one attempt:
(07/24/2009 12:25:11 PM) Logging in...
(07/24/2009 12:25:12 PM) POST: http://www.imdb.com/register-imdb/login?
(07/24/2009 12:25:13 PM) Redirected to: https://secure.imdb.com/register-imdb/login
(07/24/2009 12:25:14 PM) Searching movie information for: Blade Runner
(07/24/2009 12:25:14 PM) GET: http://imdb.com/title/tt0083658/
(07/24/2009 12:25:14 PM) Redirected to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/
(07/24/2009 12:25:17 PM) GET: http://imdb.com/title/tt0083658/keywords
(07/24/2009 12:25:17 PM) Redirected to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/keywords
(07/24/2009 12:25:19 PM) GET: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/fullcredits#cast
(07/24/2009 12:25:22 PM) GET: http://imdb.com/title/tt0083658/movieconnections
(07/24/2009 12:25:22 PM) Redirected to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/movieconnections
(07/24/2009 12:25:24 PM) GET: http://imdb.com/title/tt0083658/awards
(07/24/2009 12:25:24 PM) Redirected to: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/awards
(07/24/2009 12:25:26 PM) GET: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/business
(07/24/2009 12:25:28 PM) GET: http://imdb.com/rg/action-box-title/primary-photo/media/rm703044096/tt0083658
(07/24/2009 12:25:29 PM) Redirected to: http://www.imdb.com/rg/action-box-title/primary-photo/media/rm703044096/tt0083658
(07/24/2009 12:25:29 PM) Redirected to: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm703044096/tt0083658
Using any of the last three URL's directly in a browser goes to the last one, and this is the "Photos" page with the poster selected. So this seems to be correct. And watching the status bar during the download leaves the impression a poster is being downloaded. But when it's done—no poster.
There is no error message because a record is found—this is just one piece of information it's not getting. I suppose this is yet another problem resulting from recent changes to the IMDb site. Hopefully, everything will be fixed in the next update to the plugin.
In the meantime, you can use one of the poster plugins, which usually provide much better quality posters anyway. I recommend using a batch file update where the IMDb plugin is run first, followed by a poster plugin. Set IMDb overwrite fields preference to get a poster if one does not exist, and the poster plugin to overwrite. That way, you should end up with the best available poster.
The IMDb poster is usually of poor quality because it's only intended to serve as a thumbnail. But I've found it can be useful as a starting point for finding a better quality poster. Install the
TinEye Reverse Image Search plugin to your browser. Click the IMDb URL in PVD to navigate to a movie page. Right-click on the poster thumbnail, and select "Search Image on TinEye." Sort the results list by "biggest image" to find the highest resolution matches. This is a very powerful because it's searching for other versions of the same image (based on a digital signature), rather than the movie title or image file name. If you prefer a different poster, click on the thumbnail to navigate to the photos page. Display the available poster images, and then search TinEye for the one you want. This works equally well for finding better quality photos for people.
It would be
so nice to have a script that would automate this.