How to handle multiple actors with the same name?

[GhostRider 46]

Hi

 

I ran into a small problem for a film in which the actor being selected was the incorrect one. It turns out there are several Steve McQueens in IMDb. Both MediaBrowser and Meta<browser/> seem to struggle in this situation and just show the most current Steve McQueen.

 

Whilst viewing the actors in the MediaBrowser dashboard I noticed I had the wrong Steve McQueen. I could not change this easily in MediaBrowser by browsing for images etc as it just seems to pick up one Steve McQueen. In the end I fixed it by overwriting the Actor's IMDb number in MediaBrowser Dashboard and then re-searching for metadata which gave me the right Steve McQueen.

 

This rises a couple of questions:

 

1) Is there an easy way in MediaBrowser to show when there are multiple actors with the same name and allow you to select the right one?

2) What if I had two different films with the different Steve McQueens? Does the ImagesByName/People folder cope with this situation?

 

Many thanks

 

 

 

[Luke 37064]

well the issue starts with the metadata providers. when we get the people list for a movie or series, all we get are names

[ebr 14912]

Using the IDs I believe you can handle finding a specific Steve, but I do not believe our system will be able to handle multiple same-named actors because the folder is created from the name, not the ID.  Not really sure how to support that other than completely re-designing that system.

 

That may make sense now (although, could also be painful) since we create all of this for you.  The whole IBN system was originally designed as a user-maintained item so by name was the only practical way to do it.

 

However, as Luke said, all we have is a name from the source so, even if we re-design our system, we have no way of knowing which one each movie should reference.

[GhostRider 46]

Searching IMDb by name shows there are five Steve McQueens and it shows them as Steve McQueen (I), Steve McQueen (III) etc. Does the API include the (I) bit when it returns the name?

 

If I add Twelve Years a Slave to my collection I will then need two separate Steve McQueen folders in my IBN folder. Is this possible to implement?

 

Quick examples:

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2588606/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

 

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000537/?ref_=nv_sr_2

Edited March 9, 2014 by GhostRider

[SirFoggy 2]

Same problem here and I respectfully disagree the problem is with metadata providers only. I will use the movie "Alien" as an example.

Special effects supervisor was Brian Johnson which MB correctly lists in "Cast & Crew" section of the movie. On IMDb's "Full Cast & Crew" page for the movie Brian Johnson is listed in the "Special Effects" section and his name entry correctly links to the appropriate IMDb page. Problem here is that Metadata Manager somehow links to and shows another Brian Johnson, the one of the AC/DC fame.

Remove Date of birth, External Id entries, type in correct IMDb Id, click Save & refresh. IMDb Id is correct but Date of birth and TheMovieDb Id reverts to the original and incorrect values. Person's image remains even if it's of the wrong person. Several more edits, saves, restarts, re-scans, shutdowns later ... there's a new folder Brian Johnson (Brian Johncock) with no files in it. Shut down the server, copy person.xml file from the "wrong" into the "correct" (new) folder, start up the server, scan library ... empty Brian Johnson folder is back, person.xml file in Brian Johnson (Brian Johncock) no longer contains IMDb Id. I again manually add IMDb Id, click Save & Refresh and ... YIKES!!! I get all that wrong (Date of birth and TheMovieDb) data back, path again points to Brian Johnson folder, and picture of Brian Johnson of AC/DC is back as well!

So why MB keeps refreshing old and incorrect entries? It does keep the correct IMDb Id (nm0424644) but pulls additional data from a wrong TheMovieDb Id. What is the point of having the Save function which has mind of its own? Sorry but I feel pretty much as if I was told "F' off, you're not clever enough to do this on your own. Stay away!"

This behavior is consistent and replicated on another PC with a fresh MB server install and "Alien" as the only movie in the library. While playing around I found 6 different individuals, each with a different IMDb Id, different functions/careers but all sharing the same name. We obviously can't have 6 separate folders with exactly the same names. How do we go about this?

[GhostRider 46]

I am not sure if the API to IMDB supports returning multiple ids when queried by name only.

 

I wondered if it would be possible for MB to extend the imagesbyname\people to imagesbyname\people\cast and imagesbyname\people\crew? At least this would remove one big area for duplicate names.

 

The research I did suggests the Actors Union prevents two living actors having the same stage name so this would be a big help with the above. But it would not help with a living actor having the same name as a decreased actor as the Actors Union rules will allow this.