[Sjors125]

When using movie sets, Kodi does not make any difference between a movie released in january, april or december. Movies within a set/collection that are released in the same year, will be sorted in 2 steps: A) by release year and b) alphabetically within that year - instead by release date, as they should have.

For example, this happens on multiple instances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe collection:

* Phase I movies Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk are both from 2008 and Thor and Capt. America were both released in 2011. So Iron Man should be in the list before Hulk and Thor before Cap, and not as they are now.
* Phase 2 movies Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 (both 2013) are in the correct order, as are Cap 2 and Guardians (released in 2014), but only because of the fact that they are chronologically and alphabetically orderded (and not only by release date, as they should). It goes wrong again with MCU movies Avengers 2 and Ant-Man.

It will be a complete sorting chaos when we try to add the Marvel One Shots (short movies) to these Marvel collections. Those short films are released not in cinema's but at the DVD's and Blu-Rays. Those movies should be somewhere in between those main movies.

Another movie collection with this problem is the James Bond collection:

* If you want to include the 2 non-EON movies (Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again) to your 007 collection, you won't have a problem with Casino Royale (april '67) and You Only Live Twice (june '67) because of the alphabetical order for movies released in the same year.
* It is a problem again with Never Say Never Again (october '83) and Octopussy (june '83). Octopussy should be in the list before Never Say Never Again, and not after that.


I know there is a workaround by using the sorttitle tag in the .nfo files, but what if one should decide to not use movie sets anymore? You can't just recreate every nfo file. And thus movies are lost in your database when that happens.

My suggestion for the database order, especially within movie sets, is to use the complete release date and not only the year. This way, we won't have any of these problems. When a movie or short has no cinema release, then the dvd / blu-ray / netflix / etc release date should be used. As both the internationale release dates and the local release dates are already available on IMDB, it should not be difficult to retrieve that data and use it for sorting purposes.

[Fail$tyle420]

As you stated, there are workarounds but I agree 100% +1

[essential]

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=230336

It's been asked before. Doesn't look like it's ever ganna be in the cards.

[Sjors125]

It seems to be a feature that more people want to see in Kodi. Perhaps the devs could look into this so that Kodi uses these complete release dates. In the topic you mentioned, someone said that not all metadata providers / scrapers use the full release date, which could be a problem. It think it shouldn't be, as Kodi is full of fallback/backup options if one source does not have all necessary information.

If the nfo files could have an extra tag for this too, it would just be perfect sorting your movie sets.

[Sjors125]

Is it possible to implement this in the next RC or final version for Jarvis?

[haipa]

Maybe the developers will implement this feature if more people will ask for it in this thread.

[Nelbert]

Absolutely agree with wanting this.

I have similar frustrations with the Marvel movies (I've grouped them all into one MCU set) and with the DC movies starting this year.

I also think it's better to have full dates rather than just years in the database as a whole, it's just gives more options. If a skin still just wants to display a year it's easily done.

As an aside it would also be good to have a "setsorttitle" field or similar which for example ould sort Star Wars in episode order if desired and helpful where prequels are prevalent in a set (if we're asking for DB changes why not do two in one go!).

[jjd-uk]

While a full release date scrapping might be possible it would likely be for one country only, for example themoviedb site only has the US release dates, so it might not match the release for the country you live, in which case is it really of much use?

As an aside it would also be good to have a "setsorttitle" field or similar which for example ould sort Star Wars in episode order if desired and helpful where prequels are prevalent in a set (if we're asking for DB changes why not do two in one go!).

Why can't you do this with the current sorttitle? see an example see http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=115222

[trogggy]

While a full release date scrapping might be possible it would likely be for one country only, for example themoviedb site only has the US release dates, so it might not match the release for the country you live, in which case is it really of much use?

I would think It would be unusual if films (in a set) were released in different orders in different countries. So for sorting purposes surely that would be fine?

[Nelbert]

While a full release date scrapping might be possible it would likely be for one country only, for example themoviedb site only has the US release dates, so it might not match the release for the country you live, in which case is it really of much use?

Why can't you do this with the current sorttitle? see an example see http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=115222

You could the same argument with the release year (Xmas 2015 vs Jan 2016 release in US vs UK for the Revenant for example). Full release date from a US source is fine, don't see why region is an issue in this context.

Is the sort title not the default sorting in many other views? Wouldn't want it affecting main movie library listing for example? Even if not sets is such a great feature expanding it's functionality would surely be a good thing?

[Sjors125]

There are enough things to do, to make sets better.

Setsorttitle that we'll use only if we use sets, is an excellent idea.
For my Pippi Longstocking movies I have sorttitle Pippi 1, Pippi 2, etc.
If I stop using sets, the movies are not found at their respective titles.
So setsorttitle is a good idea.

Another thing that would need extra attention, is setart.
Where to store it, how to show it, make it easier to choose it, etc.

[essential]

While a full release date scrapping might be possible it would likely be for one country only, for example themoviedb site only has the US release dates, so it might not match the release for the country you live, in which case is it really of much use?

Why can't you do this with the current sorttitle? see an example see http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=115222

I don't understand ... doesn't Kodi scrape the movie year it uses to sort from the MovieDB now? If so it's only getting the US release date year anyway ... getting the full date is just a more accurate sort for US users. Am I missing something?

If Kodi went full release date as opposed to year only, people from another country shouldn't notice much difference if they are sorting by year now since they are getting the US release year already anyway.

[phate89]

probably for krypton (v17) kodi will scrape the full date (if the scraper supports it and the provider supports it). For v16 jarvis is definitely too late. Of course all the existing movies will need a fresh scrape..

While a full release date scrapping might be possible it would likely be for one country only, for example themoviedb site only has the US release dates, so it might not match the release for the country you live, in which case is it really of much use?

Themoviedb doesn't use the us date release. Use the original date release and falls back to the us one if it doesn't exists. But now it supports also localized dates.. The problem is handling it in kodi.. Maybe an option in the scraper is enough.

[jjd-uk]

If Kodi went full release date as opposed to year only, people from another country shouldn't notice much difference if they are sorting by year now since they are getting the US release year already anyway.

My concern was if you started showing the US release date you would start to get people whining why it was US only and they weren't given the option of having the release date for their country/region. Anyway seems like this is possible now if the data has been entered in themoviedb and there is preparation being made to make use of the full release date within the core code, however still needs an update of the scrapers as well.

Themoviedb doesn't use the us date release. Use the original date release and falls back to the us one if it doesn't exists. But now it supports also localized dates.. The problem is handling it in kodi.. Maybe an option in the scraper is enough.

Ah ok, they must have changed that then, although looking at the website I can only see US release dates, but guess the movies I've checked haven't had any localised dates added.

[axbmcuser]

Great to see sorting by regional premiered "full date" in the latest nightlies. Many thanks!

As there are and ever will be cases where the original "year-only"-.nfo-value (which could be described as "Original/first premiere year" and is used in any reference you find online (imdb etc.)) is different from the scraped premiered-fulldate-year (which could be described as "regional user premiere date"):

- Is there a way to still access the "year-only" ("Original/first premiere year") value from within a skin?



EDIT1:
Additional Question / bug:

I removed/cleaned my test-movie-library completly (new, clean database files, no old thumbnails or anything)

- Rescaned all test movie folders with existing clean .nfo (local information only) files all in exactly same format (and also all of them have a premiered-date set)

Almost every "Year" entry gets scanned correctly with the full premiere date - as expected.

BUT:
A very few entries fall back to 01.01.XXXX (although they have .nfo-premiered-date correctly set like all other movies - it just gets not scanned)


Debugging tests:

- Looks like these problematic items do not have a "ListItem.premiered" after the scan - so KODI does the fallback to pseudo 01.01.XXXX date.
- It looks like it randomly fails scanning the "premiered"-Attribute for some items (only a few per medium/large scan)
- Rescanning .nfo via refresh-button does almost never fix the missing "premiered"-Item. Only removing the item from db, cleaning db (1-2 times) and retrying to scan helps (but not consistant!) - sometimes you need a final "refresh nfo" via button at the end when it finally gets the "premiered"-date...
- I deleted an item with such a "false/fallback" scanned date. Cleaned DB via internal KODI-function twice. Then scanned library via KODI-function again. Item reappears. Full date is now scanned correctly and ListItem.premiered exists.

Let me know how to futher debug


EDIT2:

Further debugging:
- Looks like the missing "premiered"-item for the random few items always can be fixed the following way (1by1):
1. Open VideoInfoDialog for the item
2. Press GUI Refresh-Button
3. Wait for the quick refresh - VideoInfoDialog opens up again automatically
4. Press Refresh-Button again(!)
5. Wait for the quick refresh - VideoInfoDialog opens up again automatically
6. Close VideoInfoDialog
7. See Year/Date in List view is fixed for the item. "premiered"-now exists

Odd observation:
- it only works when refreshing 2 times in a row without closing the VideoInfoDialog. If you close it after the first refresh it does not work as a fix!

(Everything tested on both Linux/LibreELEC with todays KODI nightly 44b4163a80ba416f53577a3d62eb58ff68c60192 and win32 - also with 44b4163a80ba416f53577a3d62eb58ff68c60192)


EDIT3:
More testing:
- The 1by1 fix (Refresh .nfo via VideoInfoDialog-Button two times in a row without closing VideoInfoDialog between the two refreshs seems to be very reliable! (Tested on Linux/LibreELEC 44b4163a80ba416f53577a3d62eb58ff68c60192 )