Re: Remove tv_imdb from upcoming release?

On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:52:24 +0000, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:

> With some recent comments on github, it
> would appear(*) that it may be time to just
> remove the tv_imdb utility (the data is
> old/stale, and will not be being updated).
> 
> Should that happen for the 0.6.2 release?
> 
[...]

It's true the data is stale, but I don't believe it is totally worthless. Sure there are no new films/programmes after Dec 2017, and no fixes/changes, but it does still have value. Things like programme synopsis/MPAA ratings/star ratings are still useful for films which are in the final snapshot.

But I think we need to make people aware that there's no point in recreating their databases once a month/year (as many of us used to do) as the data won't have changed. (You won't see this from using tv_imdb as I don't think it displays any timestamps of the dataset.)  And maybe add a snippet in the pod as to why searches for recent releases won't match even though they can see the film on imdb.com.

In 2017 Amazon were talking about pulling the frozen dataset after a couple of months, but they haven't done this: maybe they've gone back and re-read the agreement they signed when they bought IMDb in 1998.  8-)