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Full Version: Limit number of actors (UMS, feature request)
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I'm using TMDB, currently with Universal Movie Scraper, and my library contains just a lot of actors.
For some (or many) movies the list of actors is quite long. Often I don't know this artists and they are often not widely used. There are also often uncredited actors listed.

For me it would be fine to limit the number of actors for movies to e.g. 5 or 10. It should be parametrizable (globally, as scraper setting).


For some of my movies it's fine to have a full list of actors. It would be nice to have a possibility to set individual movies to a different limit or to unlimited, e.g. with the NFO file.

I know, it is basically possible to do all with NFO files but this is a very tortuous way. It would be fine to have this in an easy way.
Thread moved to Feature request.

Do you have an example of such a movie with lots of actors? Or are you just 'complaining' of the total number of actors in the video database?
(2021-01-14, 01:35)Klojum Wrote: [ -> ]Thread moved to Feature request.

Do you have an example of such a movie with lots of actors? Or are you just 'complaining' of the total number of actors in the video database?

Well, I'm more or less complaining in general but it raised with a current movie: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/484641-anna/cast



P.S.: It's basically okay for me to have a full list of all actors in a DB like TMDB, but I'm personally not interested on every background actor. Maybe a limit of 5 or 10 is very small but 75 actors (incl. uncredited) is too much for me.
+1 for better control over this globally.  In PVR I posted this video https://imgur.com/YhI911t and it can get tedious so I don't enable it for users by default.

Paging might improve usability, I can't really imagine many people watch this for a minute.

Martin
(2021-01-14, 01:49)NeroRome Wrote: [ -> ]Well, I'm more or less complaining in general but it raised with a current movie

Yeah, 75 is a bit much. Perhaps they're putting more and more 'extras' in movies these days.
But when they all are credited, they will be processed accordingly.

BTW: do you really want to report yourself as a spammer..? Smile
@NeroRome

Why did you report your post? What do you want me to do with it as it does not look like spam.

What you are asking for with Actors can only ever be a bad hack.

At TheMovieDB, IMDB, TVDB there is no distinction between actors. They are just all listed as actors. You cannot add cast actors to- "Top billed", "Main", "Extras", "Uncredited" etc, etc as that division does not exist.

There is no sort order for actors in the API either. They are just listed as entered. So what happens if Harrison Ford is the 45 actor entered, and the Extras were added first for whatever reason. What happens if the first ten actors are not the ones you want?? What about movies like Avengers Endgame with an all star cast and there are 30+ top billed actors, but you only want ten. How do you control that?

It can quickly become a mess.

So until the provider sites improve their listings, its not something anybody will consider.
No, I don't want to report my post as spam. This was a mistake. Sorry!

I know, there is no sort order in the API (of TMDB).
I know, the sort order is like it is.
I know, there is no role for actors.
However, the order at TMDB for the main/features artists is more or less okay (even if I'm not happy with it in every case).
It's common to have featured actors for movies. Often they are listed on the cover (front or back). I know, there might be differences for different markets.
And yes, it might also be a good idea to have more detailed data in the different databases and more details in the API.
Not everything is perfect on TMDB (e.g. also sort order for production countries).
The data quality on TMDB is typically not as bad but not always perfect. It is not always very clear why they have some date (e.g. often several genres I can't understand).
It is often not so easy to correct data in TMDB (e.g. for already locked fields, or it take sometimes very long to be changed/accepted).
For actors I often don't find a proof-able or trustable reference when it comes to actors at the end of the list, especially if there are uncredited actors listed.
If you look to a move on TMDB you find only the first 9 actors in the main view (only 6 without scrolling) - this may be different for other resolution/devices. Typically the first actors are okay and validated by users. I'm not sure if this also is true for actors at the end of the list.

I know, it might not be a perfect solution to just limit the numbers of actors. With default settings there should be no limiting.

However, I think, it might be a practicable way to limit them. This may help to keep the actors list constrictive. This may help to limit the cache (for pics of actors), especially on low-end systems.
I think it is a technical easy solution to limit them to a specific number. Without setting a limit users will get the full list, like now.

For me it would be fine to have the possibility to limit them.
Maybe also other people like to have such an option.
Maybe I can bring another movie with a quite long cast: Unknown Soldier (2017) has currently 121 actors listed.
It's a Finish movie (maybe my first one), mostly with Finnish actors, I think, and I don't know anybody of them.
I don't need such a huge actors list.
The only practicable way for me now is to create the NFO file manually (maybe with 5 to 10 starring actors).
(2021-01-19, 21:39)NeroRome Wrote: [ -> ]The only practicable way for me now is to create the NFO file manually (maybe with 5 to 10 starring actors).
Yes, that seems to be the only solution at this time. Scrape your movie. Run an Export to Separate Files, edit the log to remove the actors, then Refresh the movie.
(2021-01-19, 22:09)Karellen Wrote: [ -> ]Scrape your movie. Run an Export to Separate Files, edit the log to remove the actors, then Refresh the movie.

I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it. Maybe this will cause the actor still in the DB. It might add the pic (if available) to the cache and not remove it.
The maintenance of the KODI database is somehow not the best, as seen in the past.

P.S.: I've also tried 3rd party tools (TMM and others) for creating NFO files but I'm also not happy with them at all.
(2021-01-19, 22:16)NeroRome Wrote: [ -> ]Maybe this will cause the actor still in the DB.
If you run a Clean Library, unused actors will be removed.

(2021-01-19, 22:16)NeroRome Wrote: [ -> ]It might add the pic (if available) to the cache and not remove it.
Yes, this will happen. The image will remain in the cache.