Multiple Actors With The Same Names

[kbeck 64]

I have ran into this before but skipped it...... Have 2 actors, Don Wilson (radio announcer on the Jack Benny Show 1900-1982) and Don Wilson (The Dragon 1954- ). Both have IMDB #s. But when you add an Actor you only add the name not the IMDB or TMDB ID#. Emby attached that movie to one or the other person. Problem is when I looked I have 3 Don Wilsons (I've done no editing on any of them). 1 from the old Don and 2 from The Dragon. 1 of the Dragon's profiles seems to have the right movies but 1 has some of the movies from both. I don't see any way to fix it other than choosing one of the profiles and deleting all the names from the actors list. But then when I add them back there's no way to make sure the correct one is picked???? Rename both profiles and make sure they are separated?? But then any new movies I would have to remember to manually edit that actor. 

[Luke 42078]

Hi, we can look at adding this to the metadata editor. What I would suggest though is refresh the metadata on the movies or series that the actors belong to and see if that helps.

[kbeck 64]

17 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, we can look at adding this to the metadata editor. What I would suggest though is refresh the metadata on the movies or series that the actors belong to and see if that helps.

Thx. I think I've got mine straightened out but might be a problem for someone in the future. 

[visproduction 315]

imdb assigns the most famous and youngest actor as the main name and all others get John Smith II, John Smith III, etc.  You can separate actors this way and assign them to the imdb identity number in their imdb page link.  This will separate all actors with the same name.  I don't see an automated way to do this.

Hope that helps.

[kbeck 64]

19 hours ago, visproduction said:

imdb assigns the most famous and youngest actor as the main name and all others get John Smith II, John Smith III, etc.  You can separate actors this way and assign them to the imdb identity number in their imdb page link.  This will separate all actors with the same name.  I don't see an automated way to do this.

Hope that helps.

Check imdb for Don Wilson. One is born 1900. One 1954. Not related. Neither marked II or III. Now add one to a People list in a movie in Emby. Your only option is to enter a name no ID. You enter Don Wilson. Almost guaranteed it will not return the right one. Then the movies they are in gets all screwed up. You have no way to make Emby pull the right one from imdb or tmdb because you can't see or edit the id#. 

[visproduction 315]

Kbeck.  If you go to each actor / artists page in Imdb, they all have a number or birth - death dates in parenthesis after their name.  Each has a different imdb name number in the URL.  You can adjust each actor / artist in the movie or TV libraries to change identity to a different Don Wilson by selecting identity and entering either the URL nm number or the complet name with the parenthetical references.

I find:
Don Wilson (XXXVII)

Don Wilson (III)

Don Wilson (IV)

Don Wilson (1932-2022)

Don Wilson (1900-1982)

Don Wilson (IX)

 

Also, if you add in one of the above with the extra parenthetical reference as a new actor in a film, Emby should pick up the right person.  The fact that it doesn't do everything automatically is sort of the bug to see if it can be fixed.  I suspect that the amount of time to look up everyone for a new incoming film or TV show, might have limits and even time out.  If the answers are not found within X number of seconds, because the server is slow to access this service, it probably defaults to either an actor's name with no references and can be wrong or perhaps just leave the image blank, because there just wasn't enough Internet speed or demand was high on the imdb or other server at that moment.  Maybe some VPN, firewall or remote location, slower Internet  combined to cause some lookups to fail.  How do you fix that?  Some might be part of Internet speed, some part of this could be the identity server putting limits on how many lookups are allowed.  I don't know exactly what causes this.  I just want to point out that many times a remote lookup does not have anything really to do with the server sending the request, so if that is true, there is no fix, until the remote server offering the content  gets more efficient.  From Emby's side, perhaps refresh metadata might help, but not if the issue is on the other server.

I hope that makes some sense.

 

[kbeck 64]

@visproduction

I get it now. Thanks. Didn't realize you could add the parenthesis part within Emby.