With TVDB going to paid subscriptions will there be any move to alternative TV metadata sites.
Like: The Movie DB .com
1 Like
I hope so, MovieDB works so much better than TVDB anyway.
2 Likes
There is already a thread about this, but in my book there honestly can’t be enough input on something like this. I’m also onboard with using TheMovieDB over TheTVDB or other services.
1 Like
The only problem with moviedb is there tv catalogue is smaller. I tried using kodi with moviedb and a number of shows could not be found and a few of those that did scan had missing episodes. Personally I would rather pay $12 a year to keep using tvdb that has a much better library.
1 Like
They really need to work on not screwing up shows and air dates before even thinking about charging.
2 Likes
I use MovieDB for my Plex library and have never had a problem with it. No way am I forking out money for something that has been free since forever.
2 Likes
moviedb is awful with tvshows, i will not even do the change for free.
tvmaze is the best alternative.
But if it comes down to compatibility, and things get too complicated with sonarr, radarr, trakt etc , i will gladly pay 10€ per year for a piece of mind. it is per year guys. i get the principle ones about free data and free of the internet but again, for my piece of mind is PER YEAR. it is practically nothing.
2 Likes
Hopefully there would be an option, to ignore tvdb etc, and allow on regex/allow shows on pr show basis to download, regardless if the episode is on tvdb or new source, so at least when transition from one to another we can still download.
else i imagne a million shows being marked as attention needed, since it does not match on whatever new site is chosen
1 Like
i think most peoples issue will be that the data was user created. its not like the admins did this all themselves. plus the site already has ads.
ultimately the best option would be if we were allowed to chose whichever source we wanted (plugin?), or sonarr could work without a source by granting us access to update the internal database, or to curate their own source (which currently exists as their skyhook cache server) allowing sonarr users to update it (via sonarr)
as far as im aware we dont access tvdb directly when adding or getting our data updated, that comes from the skyhook cache server (whic reduces the amount of traffic to tvdb massively, and protects us from their stupid deletions) - so if they ended up paying the 10 euro per year fee for the cache server to access tvdb would that not cover all sonarr users anyway? (i presume the license/terms of use probably wont allow for that though)
2 Likes
so , how this will affect sonarr and his brother ?
No it’s not. TOOOOO many times when editing the metadata in Emby or in the past in Plex the name of the show wouldn’t work, entering TheTVDB number wouldn’t work but TheMovieDB number worked every time.
1 Like
That is a huge reason why TheTVDB should remain free cause almost all the info there is input by the members, NOT the staff. Charging for others work without compensating them is simply wrong.
2 Likes
Is Trakt a feasible alternative, or it doesn’t have an accessible API?
Trakt uses TheTVDB
Quite. I can imagine lots of contributors deciding they can’t be bothered any more if the site is making money off their work.
I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is happening so soon after they retired their forums (or “deprecated” as their email today describes it, which I think gives a good idea of the level of regard they have for their users’ opinions). Imagine the blowback they’d have had to deal with if they still had public forums for users to post their reactions to this.
2 Likes
No it’s not by chance that they chose to close the forums. It’s just like when Manjario “just” happened to have a issue with their old forum where the data “just” happened to be unrecoverable right after those now in charge forced out those on the donation side of things. The ones that made sure the donations weren’t used for corporate expenses.
Apparently they’re asking open source projects to pay thousands of dollars a month for a license now
This seems like a braindead move to me. They’re tightening their grip on user-generated content that can easily be replicated on TMDB or TVMaze with a bit of effort. Hell, there’s probably people right now scraping the entire site through the API in preparation to do just that. If you’re running a site that 100% relies on the community, you go down with the ship if the community doesn’t provide you with enough resources to sustain the operation. If there’s some scummy purpose to all this, TVDB wants to commercialize, hire full-time employees so they can provide rapid updates, and sell their data to the abundance of IPTV services out there
I’ve heard nothing but complaints about TVDB, and I hope this is the final straw.
1 Like
AMEN to that,
2 Likes
TVDB has been nothing be a headache for me, I’m really hoping it gets dropped soon.
1 Like
any news on sonarr what they plan to do 