Hi, for some reason, some movies are not coming up on search results even if their name is correctly listed under "alternative titles",
Here's an example: http://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?api_key=[mykey]&query=Drunken%20Master%20II
Doesn't return "The Legend of Drunken Master" : https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/12207
Even though "Drunken Master II" is listed as an alternative title.
Any ideas?
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Reply by Inmatrix
on November 13, 2017 at 5:40 AM
Another example: http://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?api_key=[mykey]&query=Ying%20xiong
Doesn't bring up: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/79
Even though "Ying xiong" is listed as an alternative title.
Reply by Travis Bell
on November 13, 2017 at 11:09 AM
I'm not sure, I'm seeing your first one in my search: https://gist.github.com/travisbell/49ea8c8e5a71f64f43032a346ab8b72f
Reply by Inmatrix
on November 13, 2017 at 2:45 PM
It's not returning with a title of "Drunken Master II" which is what I'm checking against to make the match, what I'm ending up with is "Drunken Master III" which is the closest name match.
Is there a way to get the search query to return the alternative titles?
Reply by Travis Bell
on November 13, 2017 at 3:17 PM
Isn't the second result the item you're looking for? ID: 49642?
Search does query the alternative titles.
Reply by Inmatrix
on November 14, 2017 at 6:35 AM
No, I'm looking for the first entry, but I need to somehow access the alternative titles. Is it possible to add a field to the search query result to include all alternative titles or at least alternative titles for a specified language (e.g. english)?
Reply by Travis Bell
on November 14, 2017 at 10:22 AM
Gotcha, unfortunately there isn't really going to be a way to fix your particular situation if you are only looking at the first result.
We do search all titles but the fields are all weighted slightly differently. In order of most weight to lowest we search the following fields:
There's also some weighting that is done with things like the popularity.
There is some planned work so be able to search your session language better but this work has not been completed.
Reply by Inmatrix
on November 14, 2017 at 3:28 PM
Hi Travis,
I'm not sure you understood me.
What I meant is something like this: http://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?api_key=[mykey]&query=Ying%20xiong&alttitle=true
And the JSON reply would include an additional alt-title array for each movie result.
Or something even better : http://api.themoviedb.org/3/search/movie?api_key=[mykey]&query=Ying%20xiong&alttitle=true&lang=en
To only show alternative titles that are marked as english.
Reply by Travis Bell
on November 14, 2017 at 3:45 PM
Gotcha.
There aren't any plans to allow custom fields to be displayed for search right now.
There's a separate problem which is that our alternative titles are not mapped to languages but rather countries as that is the primary use for them on TMDb (just to know what other titles they might have been released as in a different location, separate of a translation).
Reply by Inmatrix
on November 15, 2017 at 7:59 AM
I would like to add this as a feature request then.
As for language issue, it's not a show-stopper, filter by country should be good. This is something that can be potentially exposed to the end-user to help narrow down results.