Has there ever been consideration to create a MovieBrainz and/or TVBrainz? The online resources for this are fairly poor in my opinion. There is IMDB which does not have an open API, and there is TMDB and TVDB which both are poor in format compared to what I have experienced in MusicBrainz.
It has definitely been considered, yes. But it takes quite a lot of time, and we’re struggling enough with the amount of projects we have, so it’s not in the plans just yet
That is unfortunate. Without naming others as most are good people, so many websites are utilizing the above databases and providing services that use those databases and the quality is just lacking. I understand the time issue, but it would be nice for MetaBrainz to be in there right away instead of after these apps are built.
Well, the way BookBrainz came up is that some volunteer devs took the project on. I imagine if the same happened for MovieBrainz, it’d be fine to go on with it too. So if you’re interested on leading a project, definitely drop by the MetaBrainz IRC meetings and talk about it
IRC meetings…don’t know what those are. I will look.
For what it’s worth, one of my considerations with BookBrainz has been to try to ease the way for other projects of this type to get started. That said, we’re quite a way from realizing that goal and even with the tools in place that I’m trying to create, it would be a non-trivial undertaking to build a new project. If you do end up dropping by IRC, though, I’d love to talk about how it could happen. I go by Leftmost there.
Understood. I am thinking I will check it out. Currently, I am using Track.tv which uses TheMovieDB.org for its movie data and TheTVDB.com for its tv series data. I have given up on TVDB, but I am working on TMDB, it is not too bad. Now if it were in the same format as MB, I would contribute what I all have, rather than what I need to see there for my uses only. I am sure it will not be a light undertaking. Thanks for the info!
I do think MovieBrainz would have been a more useful project than BookBrainz. I think there was some discussion about Musicbrainz doing something with VLC at some point
Yeah? Well… that’s just… like, your opinion, man…
I mean, it is just a matter of taste.
My taste is not more valuable but is different:
- Music
- Book
- VideoGame
- Device (HIFI decks, Walkmans, Vacuum cleaners, Fountain pens, etc.)
- Film
And frankly, music and literature are objectively more important than cinema, which is more of a composite.
So, greetings to those who made BookBrainz. Books are my second important thing but I do not have time after MusicBrainz.
Any Brainz would be welcome but maybe there should be a global system instead of having to develop each Brainz from scratch…
I think I could more easily contribute to a GameBrainz, as it leads to less editing (less items).
Sorry I didnt make my point very clearly, I dont in any way think movies are more important than books.Why I think moviebrainz would be more useful is because movies are usually available in digital form, whereas most books are not so BookBrainz cant be used to automatically identify my books at best have to manually scan the barcode, at worst I have to manually search for it.
Additionally there are already some public systems in many countries that keep a decent record of books, better than movies.
So thats all I meant really
I suggested this as there is a huge community of people worldwide using movie and tv show databases. For movies, we have IMDB which fails most at use of API. There is also TMDB with a good API and is a solid general solution. For tv shows, that is where a lot falls apart. It was my intention on the topic to have tv shows and movies combined but together, as there can be relationships between them. With tv shows, there is a major lacking of quality service. Arguably the best available is TVDB. A bit of experience using the service and any interaction with the moderators will explain quickly why there is a need for something more - this same general opinion can be found throughout the internet, even some that specifically name moderators.
This brought my idea for a Brainz as a solution. The concept here (MusicBrainz for me mostly) is solid and one of the best there is currently. In my opinion, many of the, let’s call them problems, at places like TVDB would be solved simply by putting these policies in place. My suggestion came from a functional need in the global media community, and yes, a bit of personal interest and desire as well – I want something that actually works.
I’ve used the TVDB and TMDB a bit lately to get the movies and series on my computer to show up in Kodi and both are a pain in the butt (mostly TVDB though). I would love to have MetaBrainz solution for that, but someone has to make it and I’d rather not see any resources diverted from MusicBrainz to such a project (development is slow enough already).
What is useful is really much less relevant than whether there’s anyone who wants to work on the project. If someone stepped up and said they wanted to work on “MovieBrainz” or “(Video)GameBrainz” or whatever, we’d be happy to help them. Someone did step up and wanted to make BookBrainz, hence BookBrainz is now a thing. Even though we have big name corporate supporters, MetaBrainz is not itself a big corporate enterprise, so as much as we’d like to be able to direct the future of what projects we have, it really all depends on whether anyone in the community actually steps up to take on the tasks.
I would love to work on MovieBrainz, but my motivation was somewhat crushed by the statements of how much work it is. I am left with the opinion that more than a someone is needed for a project like this. Not to mention the need of editors to add the data. The main reason that one of the prior mentioned resources is the best out there is because of the mass amounts of editors adding data, not by any means is it the brains (no pun intended) behind the operation. In the current community, simplified, you have a choice between a good source of data but a poor operating environment, or a poor source of data with a better environment (commonly lacking API though). Combine the mass editors with the quality community centered environment and it should crush everything out there right now. Just my opinion.
I’m pretty sure the editors for a “MovieBrainz” would be there, but it would require somewhere for them to do their edits. One of the reasons BB isn’t seeing much activity right now (even if it is seeing some!), is that BB is still very(!!) rough around the edges and doesn’t lend itself to a very smooth editing experience. MB certainly also has some rough edges, but it is still possible to do more things more smoothly than what is currently possible with BB. Hopefully BB will eventually trump MB’s editing experience, having learned from MB’s shortcomings, but it is not quite there yet. Maybe if you start a MoB (VideoBrainz? FilmBrainz? There’s probably a better word than “Movie” that would encompass TV series, possibly music videos, and possibly YouTube/Vimeo/Facebook/… videos), other people will join up. I can’t remember who originally started BB (@LordSputnik, maybe?), at one point it was led by @ocharles, and now it has a dual lead in @LordSputnik and @LeftmostCat. But someone needs to actually do the initial spark before a fire can catch on.
Forgive me if Ive missed something but for me I think the problem with BookBrainz is theres no obvious use case for adding data apart from the pleasure derived from contributing to the db in the first place. Add data to MusicBrainz and you can tag your songs, add releases to Discogs and you can sell your records, but what can you use BookBrainz for ?
Some people can be as OCD about the books they have as we are with our music. And of course the number of e-books keeps increasing, and it would be nice if there was a reliable way for Calibre (and similar software) to download data about them.
I see what you mean by your statements here. MovieBrainz is not so good a choice. Maybe Video or Cinema, etc. HollywoodBrainz maybe?!? I would think that only movies and tv shows… music video would make more sense going into MusicBrainz, in my opinion. The artists and copyrights would all be a match there, along with the performed recordings. Unless maybe someone would somehow integrate the two databases.
The use for MusicBrainz and movie/tv Brainz is for sure different. But you could have users scrobble their boook reads to BookBrainz one day too, just like music and movies and tv shows are scrobbled today. Then, books become functional just the same
Some of my friends are having so many books that they need to keep listing their collections to be sure not to buy duplicates. There’s actually a lot of people collecting books. For many of them would be happy to use BookBrainz for listing their collection when the service supports collections. I believe it would be also useful for libraries to have one more service for helping with cataloging (like they already do with worldcat.org). For my studies it would be useful to have a service listing table of contents of books. Databases of local Universities don’t always include this data and I’ve been lately wasting some times with googling it.