Tvdb changes to a subscribe model

Trakt Questions & Help
427

Here is an example just from today, this is from the UK’s biggest commercial channel

Season 2 started last week (episode 2 is on tonight)

as you see here, last weeks episode is the only one available in season 02, and there is no description for it

https://thetvdb.com/series/410733-the-larkins/seasons/official/2
as you can see, season 02 is upto date and with descriptions

using the same show, the runtime for S02E01 is 1h, this is on a commercial channel for 1h with ads, runtime will be more like 44 mins (this issue i am not bothered about)

This is just from looking for shows today

This type of thing is ongoing

428

I have spent years adding hundreds of episodes to tvdb

So spare me the patronising comments of just update the data

When you spend all that time updating things, and then someone comes along and says we dont use that data anymore, just re-enter it, then no, i am not going to find time to do it

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431

Perfectly fine to ask all these questions. However, I’m not going to provide details on business discussions we’ve had behind the scenes regarding TMDB vs. TVDB. We decided switching to TMDB as the primary TV data source makes the most sense for Trakt.

Regarding data issues, the best way to alert us is using the report button on every movie, show, season, and episode page. We have a dedicated Trakt employee that helps clean things up like merging, re-ordering, etc. It’s best to have TMDB updated first of course, but we have certain things we can lock or override as needed based on those reports.

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433

Why you loose all this time and effort and be pissed about this.
Is someone forcing you to use Trakt ? go to T, tvmaze, the pogdesign how it is called.

i mean too much effort in writing rants on why and how and i feel you are doing wrong with all this anger. Address your anger in filling TMDB or find another site.

And that is not a mainstream show. Also as you ensist on giving you answerts on something that really doesn’t matter let’s talk again about all this

please for each bullet give an example

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435

What is the definition of a mainstream show?

This show airs in prime time on a Sunday evening on our biggest commercial broadcaster (2nd biggest broadcaster overall)

The rest of your post is just an angry rant, so will ignore it

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436

Can we please stop feeding the vampire? It’ll never end in a way that satisfies anyone.

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437

ImpaktNY48 writes “Did you speak to TVDB to negotiate an actual price for the new API, and then decide to make the transition to TMDB due to the price being too high?” The answer lies in the initial post about the transition: What it really boils down to is a moral opposition to taking in data from a community and then trying to sell it back to them. We believe when a user contributes to an online data source, they mean for that work to be shared with everyone around them. Both TMDB and Trakt have open and free APIs for developers to build upon that hard work.

The answer is, ultimately: it doesn’t matter what price TVDB offers Trakt (and thus it doesn’t matter if Trakt reached out to TVDB before, after, during, or ever): TVDB could have even offered free access to Trakt, but Trakt would still have been morally opposed to using TVDB. There’s the answer. It doesn’t matter if TVDB became free for Trakt, it doesn’t matter if TVDB had better data, it doesn’t matter if TMDB accepts YouTube shows or not, it matters solely on Trakt’s moral compass.

The only option is to convince TMDB to force their API to be paid. Then, Trakt would have the same moral opposition to TMDB’s policies, and they’d initiate another round of R&D to find someone else to source data from. But, given TVDB’s unchanged approach to monetizing their API, Trakt still wouldn’t pick TVDB.

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438

Is that a royal we? Who is this “we” you speak of? Don’t speak for others :joy:

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442

It’s ridiculous that I’m defending myself so much for asking for some basic transparency about something incredibly significant.

The issue is that you’re unwilling to accept the explanation that was given. You keep asking the same specific question over and over again, hinging desperately on whether Trakt called TVDB about a mythical price, when the explanation that was given is that a call or the price wouldn’t have mattered at all. You’ve even just today answered the question yourself, now, after years of beating the “that doesn’t look good” drum, when that drum isn’t worth a damn: Trakt is diametrically opposed to what TVDB did. Why would they bother or give a damn about what sorta “deals” TVDB can get them on the phone? They wouldn’t. In the eyes of Trakt, TVDB made a dishonorable mistake, and Trakt isn’t going to go back, even at the cost of upsetting their users. Your mentality is that Trakt made a bad data-driven mistake, but you’re unwilling to move on, waiting desperately for your righteous AHA! moment, as if that’s gonna change anything. It’s not. For all the “understanding” and “respect” you claim about Trakt’s morals, you seem awfully hopefully that they’re gonna reneg on those morals, simply because TVDB gives them a better price. They’re not.

Does it suck that TMDB doesn’t allow some YouTube shows? Or that some of the “shows” I watch are split up annoyingly on TMDB? Sure, absolutely. Is it gonna kill me that I have to keep a separate list of my RiffTrax or The Last Drive-In or YouTube watches? No. But I certainly don’t need further details or understanding than what was already given. I certainly don’t care whether Trakt called TVDB. Trakt made a line in the sand, deciding that the “cost” (quoted deliberately, as I’m not just talking “price” here) of doing business with TVDB was morally egregious. I happen to agree with that decision, TMDB warts and all. You don’t, and that’s OK too! But you’re not gonna get your Phoenix Wright moment.

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444

Νο! do no speak for other users. As many many posted WE DO NOT CARE! i do not need an explanation.

And as someone said “stop feeding the vampire”, i’m sorry

@justin since i’m the original TS can i lock this. It served it purpose people who want to rant and speak in general about shows noone is heard about or WHY we do not have TVDB and probably have a gun on their head to stay at trakt, but nooooo just stay, i will bitch about staying they can open another thread called “please please give me an explanation”

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445

I agree for the most part. However, just because “it’s a show no one has heard about” doesn’t make that show any less valid. I do not require an explanation from @justin though. I’ve long accepted this is just how it is. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to resume adding episodes to my shows that no one has ever heard of.

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447

I am finding tmdb far worse in quality than what we had before

New shows are missing
New seasons are missing
New episodes are missing
No details for episodes
Random run times
Shows that ended decades ago suddenly having unwatched episodes

Apart from run time, the above are mostly correct on tvdb

In my experience, neither site is perfect. I run another app that relies on TVDB, and when I look at upcoming episodes, consistently find stuff that TMDB has that TVDB doesn’t, and vice versa. I go to whichever site is missing information and update it (or submit a ticket if they’ve locked it for whatever reason), and move on with my day.

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448

Who is this “we” you speak of? Don’t speak for others.

449

I find it very strange that so many paying users are opposed to understanding what the business chose to do with our money, when other apps I pay to use simply offer the ability to use TMDB, TVDB, even TVMaze and others so I don’t have to worry about who is missing what. The ardent desire to stay misinformed and jump down someone’s throat for wanting a clarity other developers, and even this developer, elsewhere, would offer freely is so, so strange.

Maybe this is why it took so long to join the forum even when I was paying before. Caring about things is actually okay sometimes.

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450

I guess that would include me. It is more of the fact that I don’t need an explanation, than I don’t want one.

Because I see this as an upgrade from a cluttered database(on Trakt) full of incorrect/duplicate/spam listings(on Trakt) to one that is much better.

The main reason I feel that way is because we only have one main database we are pulling from, we have been able to fix many issues that have arisen that would not have been possible with two conflicting databases.

Before it was a nightmare whenever TVDB and TMDB would have conflicts especially on episode order. For instance you would have episodes with the air-dates, artwork, titles and descriptions all be from different episodes. It was be a mess and the whole listing for the show would quickly become unusable.

IMHO Trakt needed to eventually pick one main database to pull from to avoid these issues and TVDB made that decision for them.

Also if we were still on TVDB stuff like this would still be an issue… Tvdb changes to a subscribe model - #61 by arcreactor

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452

:+1: You’re good, it makes me have to clarify my point, also… same here :rofl:

*Lack of need

Trakt has been pretty clear, they didn’t want to pay for API access/didn’t like how it was handled by TVDB. What else is there to be explained/transparent/informed about? Am I missing something?

I am saying that Trakt had a worse database than ether service by using both TVDB and TMDB, and needed to pick one. I am not comparing TVDB to TMDB.

Unfortunately they were both being used quite equally. We would get artwork from one, we would use air dates and titles from the other etc. There was and still is a bunch of mismatch.

See here as an example… VeggieTales: All Episodes - Trakt it has not been fixed even now due to the work required to fix the mismatch. I can get you plenty more examples if you would like.

Most importantly when one didn’t have info it would fall back to the other database.

They do allow the majority though and as I mentioned before, we would get artwork from one, we would use air dates and titles from the other etc. If only one episode was off it would throw off an entire show.

On the contrary there is many listings on Trakt that were incorrect before and needed updating.
When there is a discrepancy you have to find the correct info and change TVDB or TMDB to what is correct otherwise you cannot transition properly.

I see what you mean, it is good to have a backup. But that would be incredibly difficult due to previously mentioned reasons. It is easier to manage one basket than two with the exact same egg(show) in both.

Well… actually this issue was with what I mentioned earlier with Trakt having the same ID for the content on both TMDB and TVDB and there being inconsistency. There was no way to even add the correct shows as it would just link to the original listing.

With I am Groot, it was advertised as a show but changed it before release to be a bunch of short films. In this case with two databases it would have made two different listings on Trakt with no way of removing the incorrect one. It is correct on Trakt now due to only having one database. I am Groot Collection

454

TVDB was pretty clear they were going to start charging for their basic service. At the end of the day that is $ out of Trakt’s bottom line.

That’s what I said…
Also don’t forget that if there was missing info it was filled in by the alternative source whether it was right or not.

I stand by what I said, it is because it is pulling from multiple databases. For instance which episode is LarryBoy and the Bad Apple? Just looking at the art you would say s1e34, if you look at the title it would be s1e24.

Not what I said…
I said we needed to leave one or the other. And not because of just one series because of multiple.

You are not conforming to TMDB if you have to change TMDB. Even if we were not switching to TMDB to have Trakt correct you would still need to fix discrepancies between the two for data to display properly on Trakt.

As far as I am aware it was not possible at the time, don’t know if that changed.

TMDB has more TV shows/movies/people, they are in the lead except for episodes…

https://thetvdb.com/about

456

Animes is niche? We’re back in the early 90s again?! :thinking:

458

Really strange what they’re doing with the site to be honest. Haven’t seen a new cutoff date announced for it and the site updates are not really giving me the impression they’re trying too hard. And after supposedly hiring professional moderators support tickets are just gathering dust over there too…

I honestly haven’t bothered with the trakt TMDB comparison in recent months but to my shock we’re still looking at a whooping 67’182 problem items to fix. Anyhow, I took this occasion to fix up some of my related content with some basic macros and gotta say, kudos to the trakt moderation queue → you’re fast and take the extra steps needed to move the plays around which enables us to actually tackle this :clap: .
That said, I’m still of the opinion, that we have to sift trough way too much shit in the “missing on TMDB” section. I’ve nagged about this before but please let us categorize this stuff and have a clear path forward with them. Consider adding a status “Legacy show” to establish titles which are not allowed on TMDB so they don’t show up anymore (going by the first couple of https://trakt.tv/transition/tmdb/missing that would be things like Abridged series, Youtube shows, Podcasts, etc.) and maybe even something like “Bundle/Master collection” to flag items which are not technically missing on TMDB but need to be split up and transferred to the appropriate titles! This way we would slowly but surely find out what is actually still missing or not yet linked up over there!

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