IMDb identifiers
IMDb identifiers distinguish catalogue title and person records, with published dataset fields preserving the keys as strings and recording entity relationships separately.
IMDb uses identifiers for catalogue entities rather than relying on display titles as unique keys. Its published datasets expose title keys as tconst and person keys as nconst.
A title key does not determine the title type
Title identifiers commonly have a tt prefix; person identifiers have nm. Those are different reference roles.
| Published field/context | What it represents |
|---|---|
| tconst | A title's identifier |
| titleType | The title's category, such as film, series or episode |
| nconst | A person identifier |
| Episode parentTconst | Reference from an episode to its parent series |
The tt prefix alone does not distinguish a movie from a series or episode. That meaning is supplied by the record and its relationships.
An episode's identifier and its series identifier are not interchangeable, even when the library normally displays the series title first.
Preserve the complete string
Treat the identifier as a string. Removing its prefix or leading zeroes changes the textual key; assuming every identifier has one permanent numeric width can also make a parser reject later records.
An original shape illustration is tt followed by digits, not a claim that those digits encode year, genre or popularity.
The identifier can anchor a selected match while the record's primary and original titles provide different descriptive labels. A localized display name need not change the associated title entity.
Reference the intended library entity
For an Emby movie, series or episode, a provider key should describe the entity being edited. Attaching a parent series key to an episode as if it were the episode's own identity collapses that relationship.
Provider identifiers explains why the provider namespace still accompanies the string. Metadata Manager documents the product's matching/editing context.