Hi folks,
update: 3rd of July, 2023 - OFDB bundle works for TV shows as well as movies again
I changed to OFDB.bundle scanner to stay compatible with the v2 release of the ofdb.de web site and to work again for TV shows as well as for movies.
Download:
What is the OFDB.bundle?
The bundle pulls German metadata for movies and TV shows. It pulls German titles, German movie/show descriptions (not episode descriptions), German age ratings and German genre tags.
There are some prerequisites for using this scraper:
a) Classic “Movie” or “TV show” Plex Library (not upgraded)
b) Use of classic agent “Plex Movie (Legacy)” for movies and/or “TheTVDB” for TV shows to get metadata
c) OFDB.bundle put on-top in the order of agents (see images below how it should look like).
d) For use with TV shows: You need to register a free account on themoviedb.org and apply for an API (v3) key (free of charge).
Why do I need an API key from TheTVDB.com for an OFDB metadata agent?
The search on OFDB.de needs an IMDB id to work properly.
With the “Plex Movie (Legacy)” agent, that works usually fine as that ID is the primary ID of any identified movie.
For TV show though, the primary ID is usually the TVDB ID.
Unfortunately, there’s no free service to directly convert any TVDB ID to the corresponding IMDB ID. In addition, applying for an API call for TheTVDB.com is not free.
Applying for a non-commercial API v3 key on TheMovieDB.org is free of charge.
With such an API key - which allows for 500 API calls per day - the OFDB.agent (which works as supplemental agent for the TVDB agent) eats up 2 calls per TV show (one to get the TMDB ID from the TVDB ID, and the second call to get the corresponding IMDB ID from the movie/TV show details record.
To work properly, both TVDB and IMDB IDs have to be saved on TheMovieDB.org as external source IDs.
How many TV shows can I grab metadata for with the current bundle?
That is directly related to the allowed number of API calls per day that is bound to your API key. As far as I know, the limit for free, non-commercial API keys is 500 calls per day. The ODFB.bundle uses two calls per show.
I only want to use the agent for movie libraries. Do I still need the API key?
No - only for TV show libraries.
I have an older version of the ODFB bundle already installed. Which files do I need to replace?
Two files need to be replaced:
- __init__.py (in the Contents/Code sub-directory)
- DefaultPrefs.json (in the Contents sub-directory)
I am using the new Plex Movie and Plex TV show agents. Is the OFDB.bundle for me?
No. Currently, no third-party-agents are accepted for these agents. When introducing those new agents, rumours had it that they would think of new ways of allowing tihrd-party content, but all those years later, nothing has happened, so don’t hold your breath.
Most of my content’s metadata is already in German? Why adding another metadata source?
- While movie/TV show titles and descriptions are available in German language in most cases on international sources like TheTVDB.com, TheMovieDB.org or IMDB.com, age ratings and genre tags usually are NOT.
- OFDB.de has a German (or German speaking) user base. This means, that most content ratings done by users are given with the German sychronization of the movie or TV show in mind. We all know that voices can destroy or hype a movie, so content ratings on OFDB are often a little bit different from IMDB or other sources.
- Age ratings in Germany have been “FSK …” for ages. The rating code “de/…” may or may not nice for calculation purpose, but for every German movie lover, the colored “FSK” logos are just part of the game. With the OFDB bundle, these ratings are back again.
- metadata for German productions - is more often than not - more complete on OFDB than it is on international sources.
- Because you can
I added OFDB.bundle to my Plex agent configuration and it works - but not for all entries. Why’s that?
There’s more than one possible reason for that.
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OFDB has a rule to handle the episodes of certain TV show as MOVIES if those TV show’s episodes have a length of more than 60 minutes (like Tatort or Donna Leon and many others) - no matter what the categorization of these shows is on other sources. At the moment, OFDB is missing the the show level, the season level and all structural info on TV shows alltogether and handles the more than 1200 Tatort episodes as individual movies instead, because of their “home rule” of episode length.
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OFDB may have no entry for the show/movie itself or no reference to the IMDB ID which is used to search for it. A new movie or TV show entry can be done by every user via the main page, a missing or wrong IMDB reference has to be reported in their forum.
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For TV shows to work at all, you must add an API key to the settings (that you can get on TheMovieDB.org).
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TheMovieDB.org is not having both TheTVDB.com and IMBD.com IDs added to the metadata external sources field - or handles a TVDB series as a movie (in which case, no TVDB ID can even be added).
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A Plex movie or TV show has been added by using Plex’ TheMovieDB agent. Please re-assing this entry using the Legacy movie agent or the Legacy TVDB agent.
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Not all data is present on OFDB… Plex then uses the “old” data from TVDB legacy or Plex Movie agent.
I analyzed the code and I found the call of “a strange URL”. What is this doing?
In my own library, I had some TV shows (most of them mini-series), where TVDB and IMDB are showing them as “series” while TheMovieDB.org treats them as a (very long) movie. In such cases, the API calls to get the IMDB ID (using the TVDB ID) from TheMovieDB.org fails, although both TVDB and IMDB IDs are present. To get the OFDB info for these shows, too, I added a JSON list of my own to the agent. The agent calls the list and checks if it finds the TVDB ID in it, then converts it directly to the IMDB ID used for search on OFDB.
If you find any such a TV show, then please PM me AFTER you checked the following conditions:
- in your Plex library, the TV show is identified using the TheTVDB ID (check XML of any episode).
- On TheTVDB.com, the same ID is still used to identify the show (if not, please re-identify the TV show within Plex).
- There’s a TV show entry for the series on IMDB.com
- There’s a movie entry for the same show on TheMovieDB.org (if it’s a TV show entry on TheMovieDB.org, too, then please check if both IMDB and TVDB identifiers are given in the TMDB metadata. Please only report, if the show is handled as a movie on TMDB).
- OFDB treats the same TV show as a TV show (and not as a list of movies) and has an entry of the TV show.
- The TV show can be found by using the IMDB ID in the quicksearch field.
- You do not get OFDB data already from the agent
Then please send me: title of TV show, IMDB ID, TheTVDB.com and I will add the TV show to the list of entries.
In general, the following web page has some instructions on how to install and configure OFDB.bundle:
List of Changes / History:
v2.0 - 06/26/2023
- changed OFDB.bundle to work again with the new web site design of ofdb.de (movies only)
v2.1 - 07/03/2023
- NEW: TV show library metadata fetching working again (TMDB v3 API key needed)
v2.1.1 - 07/03/2023
- BUGFIX: user ratings were picked up as 0% for movies and TV shows without any user ratings. This had the effect that some movies or TV shows were missing any rating - even from the main agent (TVDB or TMDB or IMDB or Rotten Tomatoe).
- added a private small private conversion table for TV shows that get treated by TheMovieDB.org as movies. You cannot add TVDB entries for movies at TheMovieDB.org - therefore, for such TV shows, a direct conversion from TVDB to IMDB is needed.
