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Create a Community Database for Images and Metadata


Jbbrack03

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Jbbrack03

I'd love to figure out a way to solve a problem with scraping in Emby. I am finding that Emby never scrapes all of the actor images for movies that I import. And I'm not talking about indie movies, I'm talking about AAA movies with big name actors. It will always find some, but never a complete list. So part of my work-flow for importing a movie is to go back through and manually search for actor images and cards and fill them out myself. I'm a completionist, and having gray cards for actors is a no-go for me. Hopefully I'm not alone in this though.

 

I think that the issue is that the current databases that Emby can scrape are limited. We can't scrape IMDB, so we're left with databases that are incomplete. How about we create our own Emby database and leverage the work that people like me are already doing?

 

What I'm envisioning would be an opt-in sort of thing. I realize that not everyone would necessarily want to share their custom images and/or metadata. But for those of us that would be comfortable doing that, we could create a new Db to potentially fill in the gaps. Over time it could become much more complete than what's currently offered. I'm not talking about replacing the TheMovieDb or Open Movie Db. This would be something to compliment those and to fill in what they lack.

 

It could even be something like this: You upload an Actor Picture and you're presented with a checkbox to add it to the Community Database. You check it and that image is uploaded and connected to the profile in the database for that actor. The same could apply to any Metadata that is currently scraped in Emby. Anytime someone creates something, they get a checkbox to add it to the Community database. By default the Community Database could be the last option for scraping data for content. So if it's not found in the official databases, then the Community database is scraped.

 

I hope this makes sense, and I'm hopeful that I'm not the only one that would be interested in contributing to something like this.

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Jbbrack03

Why not just contribute to the themoviedb?

 

That's a fair question. One thought is just the time that it takes. Content added to that database is not available to scrape immediately. So if you go with that option, you'd search for information in the themoviedb, update that info, wait for it to be available to scrape, and then add that info Emby. Or you'd have to enter it twice (once in Emby and then again in order to also update themoviedb). That's a lot of steps compared to just checking a box while adding data to emby to make it available to other people. The other thought that comes to mind is having control over the data within Emby. Anytime that Emby relies on a 3rd Party resource, you're at the mercy of that resource. If it changes or goes away, you're out of luck. Having Emby create an host their own database would ensure that the resource is always available and compatible.

Edited by Jbbrack03
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Deathsquirrel

The Emby team currently provides zero metadata.  They rely on third parties.  The poster saying the solution is to improve the data at those third party sites is right.

 

Petition the TVDB site to allow programs like Emby to amend their data when users input corrections like adding pictures.  That makes a lot more sense to me.

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Jbbrack03

I appreciate how it is now, but when how it is isn't working, then sometimes you need to think in a different direction. I agree that if everyone banded together and helped each other to clean up some of the existing databases, then that would probably fulfill some of this need. However, that isn't going to happen. In my opinion, we're much more likely to get someone to check a simple box in Emby to share what they just added than to direct them to update another organization's database. It's great that Emby can scrape them, but it's clearly not enough. I've had to fix dozens of missing actors in my library, and it would be great to figure out a way to not need to do that as often. Otherwise it's going to be me and 3 other people slowly trying to fix the existing databases when we could have a lot more people contributing. It's all about the barrier to entry. Clicking a checkbox in Emby is easy. Learning how to submit content to a 3rd Party database that's outside of Emby takes more work. 

Edited by Jbbrack03
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