Database: Refactor MP1 database for multi seat usage (2 Viewers)

[Anthony Vaughan]

Original? Or refactor?

Original please.

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Anyone who likes Gary Moore can't be all bad . I first saw him when he played with Thin Lizzie.

I've a question about the actor table. I found the following in the supplied database:

14075 Пётр Фёдоров nm7487818
18179 Пётр Фёдоров nm1215228

I see that there are two IMDBActorIDs. Is this the same actor or are they two different actors. Should the combination of actor name and IMDBActorID be unique?

 

[ajs]

I see that there are two IMDBActorIDs. Is this the same actor or are they two different actors. Should the combination of actor name and IMDBActorID be unique?

These are different actors. There could be as many as 100 or more such actors. They may have different patronymics, or they may have the same patronymics. But the IMDBIDs will be different.

It's the same for movie titles, they can be the same but the IMDBID is different. I've seen movies with the same title released in the same year. IMDB used to add /I, /II, /III etc. to their search. But grabber always ignored it and left only the title.

 

[ajs]

Should the combination of actor name and IMDBActorID be unique?

Most likely yes, but some grabbers update the name of the actor, let's say the name was given in English, the next time we updated it to the local language (Russian, German, etc.)

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

It's the same for movie titles, they can be the same but the IMDBID is different. I've seen movies with the same title released in the same year. IMDB used to add /I, /II, /III etc. to their search. But grabber always ignored it and left only the title.

Good to know that. Not obvious otherwise.

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

Most likely yes, but some grabbers update the name of the actor, let's say the name was given in English, the next time we updated it to the local language (Russian, German, etc.)

So is the IMDBActorID the real key?

 

[ajs]

IMDBActorID the real key

It's not that simple. In an ideal world, yes. But in the real world, IMDBID can be empty.
IMDBID is a Unique key, but it can be empty and there can be many such empty entries. It depends on the grabber.
Actor Title - I don't remember an occasion when this was blank.
Actor Title + IMDBID - more like a unique key, but I'm afraid there may be variations.

 

[ajs]

Why did I say it was so easy with the Movies database, and why saving the IMDBUrl from the grabber and trying to get information from it afterwards is a bad idea.

 

[Anthony Vaughan]

It's not that simple. In an ideal world, yes. But in the real world, IMDBID can be empty.
IMDBID is a Unique key, but it can be empty and there can be many such empty entries. It depends on the grabber.
Actor Title - I don't remember an occasion when this was blank.
Actor Title + IMDBID - more like a unique key, but I'm afraid there may be variations.

Yes. I seem to remember seeing IMDBActorID being blank (unknown). But I've never seen the actor name being blank.

So, I'll start out with the combination of actor name and IMDB as unique key and see if we get any exceptions.

Why did I say it was so easy with the Movies database, and why saving the IMDBUrl from the grabber and trying to get information from it afterwards is a bad idea.

Yes, but the IMDBUrl option for scanning is only an option available when it works - the IMDBUrl is valid. Otherwise the app defaults to the standard (i.e. the time-honored) way of doing scans.

 

[ajs]

Yes, but the IMDBUrl option for scanning is only an option available when it works - the IMDBUrl is valid.

How do you check it? And why keep it when we have an IMDBID in the database - it's almost 100% guaranteed accurate identification of the film, IMDBURL is just unnecessary information that will clutter the database.