Original title (1 Viewer)

[Mohram]

Hi, and thanks for a great plugin!

I have a problem using the option "Use the original title from the movie". It was working perfectly, but after a reinstall of my HTPC it's not. What I want is to use the original title of every movie I have, no matter what language. For instance I want Cidade de Deus (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/) to list as that, and not the swedish title 'Guds stad' as it does now. The same with Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/) that now lists as 'Amelie från Montmartre'.
Now these were to non-english examples, but it's the same with some movies with english titles as well, like A few good men (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/) that I now have listed as 'På heder och samvete'. But.. a lot of English-titled movies get their original english titles, like the Harry Potter-movies and the Lethal Weapon-quadrilogy.
So.. I can't make any sense of this and need help. What could be wrong and how do I fix it? Is it even fixable?

Thanks in advance!

 

[RoChess]

You stumbled upon the Amazon/IMDb website nightmare that has not been fun.

In their sheer genius they decided that since you live in Sweden and they can detect that via your IP/language-settings, that when a Swedish title is available on the AKA page, as per: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/releaseinfo that they should give you that tile instead. What that in turn does is totally kill the "English" / "Original Title" detection system that I had designed, because at that point the English title becomes Swedish title and the original title is 'lost'.

If I visit http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/ then I get "City of God (2002)" and below that "Cidade de Deus (original title)", but if you visit the same page from your Swedish location, it shows something totally different (well it should, because that is why you get such weird results in MovPic).

I've been working on a full rewrite of IMDb+ to come up with a better system, as I've gathered many log files from European users and I think I've stumbled on a way that would allow me to make all of that functional again and even add additional options. A full rewrite is just very time consuming, and it is also hard for me to test it. So far I've been lucky and have been able to test my theories with online proxy sites such as www.4proxy.de, but finding free time to actually work on it has been a problem lately.

In short, right now your only option is to force English titles, because at least after many fixes I got that part to work again for foreign users. Then you could open MovPic config and manually edit the titles for those few movies you wish to have that 'real' original title on (copy and paste it from the AKA entries from the field below it). Or you can use the custom rename database system for this.

If you are technical then you could use a USA based proxy that you can configure your HTPC to use, so that IMDb website thinks you are based in US and will give you the 'correct' titles.

Keep an eye on the IMDb+ forum though, because it is high on my ToDo list to get that done, but I might be forced to come out with another version first that incorporates some other features first (as they are easier to add).

PS: The reason why the movie series show English title, is because they all get their title renamed based on the default rename database that contains all the series information. So as stated above, you could use that to 'correct' these movies that you prefer to get another title on, and configure IMDb+ to use English titles on everthing by default. You would then create an entry such as:

<rename title="tt0317248" title="Cidade de Deus" />

Or: <rename title="tt0317248" title="Cidade de Deus (City of God)" />

Once you save the XML file with notepad the changes are instant and you can refresh the movie in question inside Moving-Pictures GUI, use IMDb+ plugin hidden refresh system, or MovPic config, and the title will get updated instant. Keep in mind that any 'list' entry does not get update until you restart MovPic.

 

[Mohram]

Thank you for your lenghty and informative reply!

I now understand that the problem is not in my end. What a relief! Thought I was an idiot not understanding how to set things up
I'm at work now, but when I get home I'm gonna give it another go. I don't have all the settings available in my head, so what would be the best way of setting things up to get English titles? Cause honestly, most original titles ARE English titles And then I can fix the others manually. Will the setting to use English titles set English titles for my Swedish movies as well? I guess so.. But no problem, I'll just fix them manually as well if that happens.

I suppose I could set up a proxy on my HTPC, I use it sometimes on my desktop computer. But nah, not right now. But I'll keep it in mind though!

Where is this xml-file for renaming series of movies located? And what is it called? Don't wanna start messing with the wrong one

And again, thank you for your reply

 

[RoChess]

You are welcome.

Start Button/Screen -> All Programs -> Team MediaPortal -> MediaPortal -> "User Files" shortcut -> "IMDb+" folder -> the 'custom' XML file, just open it with notepad.

As for getting English titles to work, just do not configure IMDb+ to use original title. At least not until I figured it out how to make that work for non-USA users again.

 

[Lightning303]

If I visit http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/ then I get "City of God (2002)" and below that "Cidade de Deus (original title)", but if you visit the same page from your Swedish location, it shows something totally different (well it should, because that is why you get such weird results in MovPic).

Well, i of course can not comment on what he sees when he visits the site, but for me that isnt true.
I played around with the options of imdb+ quite a lot in the last week or so.
What i would like the most, is all my movies with original title. When enabling this option, i get the same results as @Mohram, all my movies now have german titles. However, when i visit the akas page of that title, there is always an entry with (original title).
So from my point of view, imdb+ should just use this string instead of any other. Of course i have no clue about the scraper in itself, so that seems to be not possible for some reason.
I just wanted to let you now that i see the original title in akas in germany, and still get a german title even when original is set in settings. Not that you are workingtfrom worng information .
To work around i force english titles and the rest gets renamed by the custom rename xml.

Also if you need any logs, html codes or whatever in the future, just let me know .

 

[RoChess]

Well, i of course can not comment on what he sees when he visits the site, but for me that isnt true.

That movie in question doesn't have a German translated title, so that is why your result match USA one. It is only when a localized title exists (that is different then USA title) on the AKA page that things go crazy. Was able to check that via the 4proxy.de site myself, as it allows me to see what a German user sees.

I have mainly figured a new system out though, on paper anyway, because there are small changes I can detect and in worst case I'll have to do a sneaky additional scrape and I will be able to come up with a new system that will tell me exactly what location the user is from, what titles IMDb+ gives and how to decipher it all to then be able to display the titles in anyway I want (and allow IMDb+ options to configure it for the users).

I'll definatly be needing help from European users in testing it and providing details logs, html sources and other items when it is time to debug, so keep an eye on the IMDb+ forum when I put out the request

 

[Mohram]

I did as suggested and turned the Original title option off, and now I get English titles for all my Movies. And then I edited the custom xml-file to get the original titles for my non-English movies. While I was in there I also added some custom titles for a series of Swedish cop-movies that used to be all over the place in my list of movies, and now everything turned out great! Thanks for your help, RoChess!

 

[Lightning303]

Oh, i think i missunderstood the akas.imdb... page with the releaseinfo page.
Still i get the original title information for movies with german titles.
For example: "X-Men: The Last Stand"
When scraping with the option original title, i get the german name "X-Men - Der letzte Widerstand".
Now looking at varios imdb pages.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376994/ shows me at the top:

 X-Men - Der letzte Widerstand (2006)
"X-Men: The Last Stand" (original title)

http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0376994/ shows me at the top:

 X-Men - Der letzte Widerstand (2006)
"X-Men: The Last Stand" (original title)

And looking at the releasedate page under akas http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376994/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_dt#akas gives me:

Also Known As (AKA)
X-Men: The Last Stand	Canada (original title)
X-Men 3	Singapore (English title) / USA (working title)
X-Men 3: The Last Stand	Canada (imdb display title) (English title) / USA (working title)
X-men 3 - La batalla final	Argentina / South America (Spanish title)
X3	International (informal short title) (English title) / USA (promotional abbreviation)
Люди Икс: Последняя битва	Russia
Х-Мен: Последният сблъсък	Bulgaria (Bulgarian title)
Iks-ljudi: Poslednje uporište	Serbia
Iksmenai. Zutbutinis musis	Lithuania (imdb display title)
X III: The Last Stand	USA (DVD box title)
X-Men - Conflitto finale	Italy (imdb display title)
X-Men - Der letzte Widerstand	Germany
X-Men - L'affrontement final	France (imdb display title)
X-Men - O Confronto Final	Portugal (imdb display title)
X-Men - Viimeinen kohtaaminen	Finland (imdb display title)
X-Men 3 - Hamiflat Ha'acharon	Israel (Hebrew title)
X-Men 3 - O Confronto Final	Brazil (imdb display title)
X-Men. La decisión final	Spain (imdb display title)
X-Men: Az ellenállás vége	Hungary (imdb display title)
X-Men: Final Decision	Japan (English title)
X-Men: Ostatni bastion	Poland (imdb display title)
X-Men: Poslední vzdor	Czech Republic (imdb display title)
X-Men: Posljednja fronta	Croatia (imdb display title)
X-Men: The Last Stand	Sweden (imdb display title)
X-mehed - viimane vastuhakk	Estonia
X-men - I teliki anametrisi	Greece (transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title)
X-men - L'engagement ultime	Canada (French title)
X-men - La batalla final	Argentina
X-men: Son direnis	Turkey (Turkish title)

So from my point of view, the original title is there, on all three pages, so there should be a way to scrape that.

I'll definatly be needing help from European users in testing it and providing details logs, html sources and other items when it is time to debug, so keep an eye on the IMDb+ forum when I put out the request

Sure will do

 

[RoChess]

@Mohram, great that it all works. Now you can go back to enjoying the results

So from my point of view, the original title is there, on all three pages, so there should be a way to scrape that.

The existing system already functioned like you described, but then Amazon/IMDb adjusted it. See the problem is I don't know what "original title" stands for. For USA users, it means the original foreign title. So if we take the original "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" a Swedish movie. Then I see "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" as title and "Män som hatar kvinnor" as (original title). In that case I grab both and know first is English and the other is some other foreign language. You on the other hand in Germany (according to 4proxy.de) see "Verblendung" as 'English title' and "Män som hatar kvinnor" as (original title).

So sometimes the main title is English, sometimes it is foreigh as well, sometimes the original title is the actual original foreign title, and sometimes it is the English title for foreign users. That is a lot of sometimes and I need to come up with a new system that is '100% sure' on what it is, so I can get the "English title", optional "translated title" (the AKA title given to foreign users of that language) and optional "original foreign title" if the movie has one.

I have some ideas on how to make that work, but it means a full rewrite to the existing system, because it takes a whole new approach to do so. Actually it is three ideas, one is to emulate the cookie needed to tell IMDb that you want English titles that will work in a static way without a user account, the other is to use part of the mobile API system (or proxy) and finally if all fails do some fancy regular expression on multiple pages to get the info indirectly.

I'll get to it, just a lot of work, so harder to schedule free time for it.

 

[RoChess]

While I was in there I also added some custom titles for a series of Swedish cop-movies that used to be all over the place in my list of movies, and now everything turned out great!

Add a copy of those entries in here please: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/custom-rename-share-xml-entries-on-foreign-series.118716/

It might benefit another Swedish user. If the titles are available in English, I will add the series to the default rename database.