The Movie Database Support
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Using Discover to find all TV shows - something is wrong here
posted by gpvistaSTAFFMOD on August 24, 2016 at 4:13 PM
I'm trying to import all TV shows.
I first tried a date range of 1940-today, but it had more than 1000 pages, which will break when I get past page 1000.
So then I broke up my search, grabbing a year at a time, for example 1940-01-01 to 1941-01-01, which gets about 60 pages per year, which is great.
The problem is, I see duplicates. While paging through the 1990's, simpsons is returned again and again, in different years.
Is there an easy way to construct a series of API calls (with paging) that will get all TV shows in a large date range (like 1940-today), without duplicates?
Reply by Travis Bell
on August 24, 2016 at 9:51 PM
Are you using
air_date.lte/air_date.gteorfirst_air_date.lte/first_air_date.gte?Reply by gpvista
on August 24, 2016 at 10:11 PM
I was using
primary_release_date. But based on your reply, looks likefirst_air_dateis the best solution for TV! I'll use that, thanks.Reply by Travis Bell
on August 24, 2016 at 10:14 PM
No problem! You got it.
primary_release_dateis only supported on movies.Cheers.
Reply by gpvista
on September 1, 2016 at 6:53 PM
New problem: Some shows have a NULL first_air_date, so they never show up in DISCOVER.
How do we handle this?
I tried modifying my API calls to search for TV shows where first_air_date is equal to null, but it didn't work.
Reply by gpvista
on September 6, 2016 at 1:47 PM
(bump)
Reply by Travis Bell
on September 6, 2016 at 3:33 PM
Hi gpvista,
You're right, there's no way to discover these series right now. I am not sure what my solution will be but I've created a new ticket for this here and will look at it when I find some time.
Reply by gpvista
on September 6, 2016 at 4:06 PM
Thanks!
Reply by Travis Bell
on October 18, 2016 at 12:57 PM
Hi @gpvista, I just pushed this live. You can now use a
include_null_first_air_datesfilter alongside any of thefirst_air_datefilters if you want to include TV shows with a null air date. These updates have been reflected in the documentation.Reply by gpvista
on October 18, 2016 at 3:08 PM
Sweet! Will test it soon. Thanks.