Movie Title Alternate or A.K.A.

[Bottles51 74]

It would be nice to be able to see the alternate name of a movie or A.K.A. somewhere in the movie description or near title. Also would be nice for it to show when you search for it as well.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Bottles51

[Luke 42077]

Hi, yes this as well as original title are both possible for the future. Thanks.

[adminExitium 355]

I am not sure if it belongs here or you want me to create a separate FR, but it would help if that field could be customizable to not just show the alternate title but basically any user entered text.

There's something similar in Plex named Edition which can be set to whatever the user wants and is shown alongside the Title. A tool for that has been developed which can be configured to show stuff like the Director, Country, Language, Rating, Bitrate and lots more.

Source: https://github.com/Entree3k/Edition-Manager

 

[HouseOfCards 95]

I found this while searching, but I was thinking something similar to this and other requests around alternate titles.

I was just going to suggest that the metadata allow to add "Alternate Titles".  Many old horror films were re-released or issued under multiple names.  Italian Horror films, for example, would be released under one name in Italy, and another here in the USA.  Adding a simple filter, a user could select to show the title under every name in the movie list.  So if you actually have "Main Title", it would show in the movie list as usual.  If you enabled alternate titles, it would also appear in the list as "Some Other Name".

This would help searching for a movie you already have, but just didn't know it was a retitle from another name.

 

[Luke 42077]

2 hours ago, HouseOfCards said:

I found this while searching, but I was thinking something similar to this and other requests around alternate titles.

I was just going to suggest that the metadata allow to add "Alternate Titles".  Many old horror films were re-released or issued under multiple names.  Italian Horror films, for example, would be released under one name in Italy, and another here in the USA.  Adding a simple filter, a user could select to show the title under every name in the movie list.  So if you actually have "Main Title", it would show in the movie list as usual.  If you enabled alternate titles, it would also appear in the list as "Some Other Name".

This would help searching for a movie you already have, but just didn't know it was a retitle from another name.

 

HI, is having title and original title not enough?

[HouseOfCards 95]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

HI, is having title and original title not enough?

So the issue I run into, being a fan of 70's-80's grindhouse horror and exploitation films, is that many of them have numerous titles.

An example is Lucio Fulci’s Zombie  (1979).  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080057/releaseinfo/#akas

The film was deliberately retitled across markets to exploit the success of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead  (Zombi in Italy).  As a result, it circulated under many official and semi-official names, including:

Zombi 2  (Italy, Implying It Was A Sequel To Dawn Of The Dead)
Zombie  (Original Export Title)
Zombie Flesh Eaters  (UK)
Island Of The Living Dead
The Dead Walk
Night Of The Zombies
Woodoo  (European Markets)

So imagine you see a documentary, or read an article that references the movie under one of those names, but you have the movie under a different name.  You spend time and money tracking down a copy of the movie you just learned of, only to find out you already have it, just under a different name.  This isn't unusual, at least in this genre.  So my thought is when I enter a movie, I can look up any alternate names and enter them under AKA's in the metadata.  And then have it show multiple times under each name.  This way, two years later, I don't find myself looking for the same movie with a different name.  I'll just see it listed once under each.  Sure, a movie like this would appear 7 times... but that could be a checkbox option like "Show Alternate Titles" or some such thing.

I only mention it because it seems like it would be simple fields in the metadata.  Not a huge change.  Of course, us non-developers always assume something is "simple".  LOL.  But just a + icon in the metadata with "Add Alternate Title" or something similar, so we could add as many as we needed.

Just an idea to add a real-world useful feature.  Thanks!

[Luke 42077]

OK yes storing multiple titles is certainly possible. Thanks.

[crusher11 1101]

You can already store multiple titles in the “Original Title” section, the only issue is displaying them.

[HouseOfCards 95]

32 minutes ago, crusher11 said:

You can already store multiple titles in the “Original Title” section, the only issue is displaying them.

You can only store *1* alternate title.  Many have several different names. 

[crusher11 1101]

13 hours ago, HouseOfCards said:

You can only store *1* alternate title.

No? It can handle a comma-delineated list just fine.

[Luke 42077]

7 hours ago, crusher11 said:

No? It can handle a comma-delineated list just fine.

That’s not how the original title field was meant to be used, although you might be able to get away with it.

[crusher11 1101]

50 minutes ago, Luke said:

That’s not how the original title field was meant to be used, although you might be able to get away with it.

What could it possibly break? It's not displayed anywhere. Even if it was, it'd just display the same comma-delineated list and I don't see a situation where that's a problem but a lengthy title like Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb or How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns isn't.

[HouseOfCards 95]

1 minute ago, crusher11 said:

What could it possibly break? It's not displayed anywhere. Even if it was, it'd just display the same comma-delineated list and I don't see a situation where that's a problem but a lengthy title like Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb or How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns isn't.

The point here is that we're looking to have the movie appear in the list of movies under each name, so this isn't a solution.

[crusher11 1101]

3 minutes ago, HouseOfCards said:

The point here is that we're looking to have the movie appear in the list of movies under each name, so this isn't a solution.

The “Original Title” field is searchable, so it resolves your issue of trying to find a film without knowing which title Emby is using for it.

Having the same movie appear multiple times in a library is a clumsy solution.

[HouseOfCards 95]

2 minutes ago, crusher11 said:

Having the same movie appear multiple times in a library is a clumsy solution.

That's one opinion.

[Luke 42077]

4 hours ago, crusher11 said:

What could it possibly break? It's not displayed anywhere. Even if it was, it'd just display the same comma-delineated list and I don't see a situation where that's a problem but a lengthy title like Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb or How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns isn't.

Currently nothing. If we start doing more with original title in the future then it could.

[HouseOfCards 95]

Sorry, had to step out for a while...

So in the case I outlined, where there are multiple titles for the same movie, I'm envisioning this.

Then, either in the movie list header like this, or in the filter drop-down, whatever...  A toggle to "Show Alternate Titles" if the user prefers it that way.

 

Simple, clean...  And just a suggestion to make life easier when users collect things that have re-issues under different names, etc...  If we use the hack for a comma-separated list, in my image above, that would create a movie called "Ebirah" and a movie called "Horror Of The Deep".  Any movie with a comma would cause this issue.  Also, the movies in my library have English names, with many alternate titles in other languages.  To search, I'd have to know how to translate/spell Italian.  It's actually cleaner and simpler this way.  If the user doesn't enter alternate names or select the toggle, nothing is different.  It would only change the display behavior if a user chose to do it with duplicates shown.

By default, the metadata update scripts could take the "Original Title" if it's different than the title itself, and add that as the first "Alternate Title", so users would have some entries created by default if they chose to enable the display of those items.  

Hope that makes sense...

 

[crusher11 1101]

But then you need to store both all the alternate titles, and sort titles for each of those titles, and properly connect them to each other...just so you can enable extra UI bloat.