The Movie Database Support
Support → API Support
Alternate titles vs Translated titles
posted by john1jacobSTAFFMOD on October 17, 2016 at 7:24 AM
While I was adding a bunch of alternative titles, I came across this thread which took me by surprise. https://www.themoviedb.org/talk/54bd4f929251411d7700b351
I was under the impression that a title of any language is taken from the alternative titles. So, I was adding all the alternative titles for various movies I came across in a few languages. But in the above post. He Travis says that the titles from different language are added while adding a translation for the movie.
Summary:
Is it right to say that adding all the alternative titles as in the AKAs from IMDB for various movies will not be considered at all? If yes, has the API been optimized yet to meet the needs of gathering the title in ALL the languages that the title has been penetrated in? (apart from the alternative title section).
My Opinion:
One of the primary reasons for me working on tmdb is that the titles are all open! And I can access all of them. But knowing that we have a limitation of getting a title from a particular language and alternative title kinda saddens me with no purpose :"(
Reply by Travis Bell
on October 17, 2016 at 10:15 AM
Hi @john1jacob,
Unfortunately, that's not how it works here. Alternative titles are exactly what the name implies, alternatives. They are not discrete translations (hence the lack of a language tag for them).
If a movie doesn't have a translation for the language of the title you are adding, it's fine to add it as an alternative but eventually, when someone else takes the time to add the translation the alternative title will likely be deleted. Our use of the alternative titles is not for translations but for things like mis-spellings, working titles or stylized versions.
If you're taking the time to add some data, I would suggest creating the translations instead so that everyone can benefit with the new data plus you know that the data you're adding will stick around.
Reply by john1jacob
on October 18, 2016 at 1:16 AM
@travisbell Thanks for the clearance. It would really mean a lot to all of you're API users I'm sure and to myself if all the translated titles could be got! Moreover, it would be even better to access API in multiple languages. I'm guessing it puts too much load on your server. But that would just be icing for the TMDb API! :')
Reply by Travis Bell
on October 18, 2016 at 10:01 AM
Just to be clear, you can get all of the translated data via the API. Every single response that supports a translatable field can be queried by specifying the
languageparameter.So on, and so forth. This is all documented here: https://developers.themoviedb.org/3/getting-started/languages
Cheers.
Reply by john1jacob
on October 19, 2016 at 1:54 PM
Yes, but since the limit is already on 40 requeusts. It would take a lot of time to get just 1 movie with all the details in all languages!
Reply by Travis Bell
on October 19, 2016 at 3:06 PM
Gotcha, ya, TMDb is not designed for such a use case. It is designed from a client request model where your end user is only making a single request in the language they are native to, exactly like the TMDb website works. We do not have an easy way to (presumably) scrape the entire DB.