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Cast photos appear to only be pulled from The Movie Database, no images are showing from the TVDB Since these 2 sources have very different standards on what type of image to use it should really be one or the other. I have unselected the movie database in every location I can find it but the option to completely block it in all shows would be a big plus.
We no longer use TVDB for cast images in the new TV agent.
Ouch! That really sucks. How about the option to just add our own images and bypass the issue completely? As a whole, the movie database really sucks for images for shows. If we can’t add our own how about the option to just hide them completely? As it stands, the new scanner is a step backwards and I will absolutely NOT use it until you force it on us. Not happy guys…
There seems to be a feature request here for that: Ability to set TV Cast to a specific online source
You can vote there.
IMO the legacy (old) scanner was absolutely rubbish when it came to cast avatars. Even if you had it set to TVDB it would only display the avatar for whatever was refreshed last which the cast member was in. That could be any show or even a movie.
The new generic avatars is by far a million times better. I hope the old one dies a death. I’ll never use it again anyhow.
What do you mean generic? All I got was the ones from the movie database which can be rubbish in many cases. You have a user who has the hots for some 2 bit star who appeared in a single episode and suddenly they are listed as the star of the series with cheese cake photo. In many cases I would much rather just have the initials show then the photos others have chosen. and yes, I do have an account and have tried to update with better images when possible, but some times it’s a waste of time as it is simply changed back again.
Thanks! Just voted and replied to kick it up. I am a plex pass holder, and I would gladly pay extra for a + subscription that offered more customization options. The software is fantastic, I love it and don’t know how I ever got along without it, (that’s one of the main reasons I purchased a pass, to help support it and make sure it stays around) but there is always room for improvement and everyone likes a little extra customization. 
You have my curiosity, would you be able to give an example?
Example of what, the show that are pulling from movie database? 3 series I know off the top of my head are dennis the menace from 1959, adventures of superman 1951 and the avengers 1961.
Mmmm, checked dennis the menace on TVDB and TMDB and they look to me very similar to me regarding casts and they look to both have good avatars.
https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/9985-dennis-the-menace/cast
https://thetvdb.com/series/dennis-the-menace/people
Maybe I’m missing something in what you are seeing in plex which is why I was asking about examples on how they look in plex itself.
?? Do not know what you are seeing when you visit, but when I visit each page they look very different. The movie database actually had a few main people missing and they are only there now because I added them myself. Big difference in a lot of the images between the 2 sites is the tvdb usually uses character shots (not all users who add photos follow the guidelines). The movie database o the other hand asks for recent headshots, not in character. Since for many of the older actors there are no decent photos outside of character that can be difficult. If it was all of one or the other, that would be fine, but having a mix is just jarring.
At least for me I support TMDB’s view of the world when it comes to avatars. In character avatars are crazy and having generic clean, high quality head shots for cast members is the way to go.
With the old agent avatars for animated series, anime and sci-fi was just wrong (IMO) as plex shares these images across all libraries which means you just ended up with a mismatch depending what show/movie you where reviewing and what was metadata refreshed last.
In the new plex world with the new scanner/agent these have been replaced with generic ones. I believe the default is to use avatars from TMDB if they exist but if they don’t it would fall back to other sources like TVDB if one exists there.
While the new scanner is not perfect as the cast lists themselves need some work the avatars themselves are a huge step forward.
IF, and that’s a big IF, the photos on the movie database where consistent, that would be great but they are not. There are a huge number that do not follow the simple guidelines. You have actors that are are still working in their 70s, yet the picture is from their 20s or 30s. Actors in costume from a single movie they did, which is not appropriate for anything else they have done. (check Christopher Lee, Shirley Eaton and Hugh O’Brian, all in 1 single movie together) It’s a mess. You can spend weeks “correcting” things, but since it’s community driven all it takes is 1 clueless user to destroy your work, so why go through all the effort? What we need is the ability to choose our own images, overriding the defaults just like we can choose our own posters.
I totally agree the current system is and has been broken and was just poorly implemented from the start. (The Joker from Batman appearing as Gomez Addams, LOL!) It just boggles my mind that since they are redoing it from scratch, why they do not actually fix it instead of moving from one flawed source to another?
100% agree with you there. If there was a way to set cast avatars locally in plex like posters, fanart etc… I’d be on that in a flash.
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