Use Earliest Release date for movies

[paulcolucci_gmail_com]

There are a lot of movies that use release dates that are not the earliest. This results in odd / incorrect years being used for movies quite frequently.

[Volts]

Can you give some examples?

Plex takes data from multiple sources; I’m not sure which source has the priority for release dates, but I think it’s TMDB. Their rubric for dates is quite comprehensive and subtle:

• Release Dates - Movie Bible — The Movie Database (TMDB)

[OttoKerner]

The earliest release date is very often not the correct one.
Plex uses the date of first “general availability” for a movie. Which means that a preview of the movie at a film festival doesn’t count.
Only a regular theatrical release (or release on disc, or release for streaming) does.

[anon5074910]

The Originally Available date is also tied to your libraries language settings and Certification Country within the advanced settings of your library.

I’ve mine set to language English UK and Ireland certification and for years have been adding the release information for movies on TMDB so that the correct metadata gets populated into plex.

Plex will fall back to the US release information if for any given movie this does not exist.

I don’t believe plex auto picks the earliest (nor should it) but I’m certainly open to correction on that.

[JaysPlex]

I was recently upgrading some SD content and I’m finding a lot of dates Plex is showing are different than the TVDB, TMDB and IMDB

TVDB

TMDB

IMDB

Plex

If all of these sources and every Google result shows a date of 2010, Plex should not be showing 2012

This is not just one movie that needs to be fixed. There seems to be a fundamental inconsistency

Extracted (2012) Plex shows 2013
In Love and War (1996) Plex shows 1997

I started making a list but there were so many I just gave up

[anon5074910]

See → https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/47607-tiny-furniture/edit?active_nav_item=release_information

Plex is most likely pulling the UK date for that movie. Maybe plex does not see Premiere or Theatrical (limited) as general availability like otto mentioned above or you have UK set for your certification/language.

Regardless, if you add the correct release information for the movie and your country to TMDB and then wait 48/72 hours for it to populate into plex then it will be correct. I do this a lot

[paulcolucci_gmail_com]

I would like Gone with the Wind to be Dec 15 1939 for example. Not Jan 5 1940. Samurai Cop I would like to see show up as 1991 not 2016. I have over 1,000 examples like this. Sometimes its fine, but other times it puts movies in the complete wrong year or decade because some films don’t get wide release for a long time.

I understand HOW plex is pulling the dates. What I am requesting is an OPTION to change how they are pulled. “Earliest Date” vs How it pulls now.

Is there somewhere to make a feature request?

[paulcolucci_gmail_com]

Same. I have 1,000+ “wrong” dates. They are not technically “wrong” it is just that I prefer the earliest date, regardless of release type or country, etc

[Volts]

@paulcolucci_gmail_com

Is there somewhere to make a feature request?

You created this post in the right place.

(I haven’t looked for duplicates - did you check first? If not, sometimes the forum mods will do cleanup.)

@paulcolucci_gmail_com

They are not technically “wrong” it is just that I prefer the earliest date, regardless of release type or country, etc

Makes sense to me. Thanks for the additional info.

[SWUNURFUL]

This is definitely a big issue in my library, and not just minor one year differences, which I comprehend and don’t bother me really. It’s the many-years-off differences, of which I have many, that drive me nuts. For example, Fassbinder’s Love is Colder Than Death (which is 1969 for premiere and 1970 for West German general release) shows up as 1/22/1979 (based on imdb’s dating of its Danish release?!). Several other Fassbinder films (for example) are the same, with release dates supplied by the Plex Movie agent that are sometimes many years later, several even dating to well after his death! I somewhat get the logic of using a so-called “general release” date, but not really - why would you disregard the year of a film’s proper release in its country of origin? I’m not talking about a preview or festival run, but its regular release date in cinemas. In the above example, why is the Danish release date (the earliest non West German release date on imdb) given precedence, especially when it’s literally a decade later than the film was legitimately released in cinemas in its home country…?

[paulcolucci_gmail_com]

You have to fix it manually, or write a python script to go through your library and use the earliest date in IMDB.

You can edit this script with your keys and urls if you would like:

import requests
from plexapi.server import PlexServer

TMDB_APIKEY = ‘YOUR_KEY_HERE’
PLEX_URL = ‘YOUR_URL_HERE’
PLEX_TOKEN = ‘YOUR_TOKEN_HERE’
LIBRARY_NAME = ‘YOUR_LIBRARY_NAME_HERE’

plex = PlexServer(PLEX_URL, token=PLEX_TOKEN)
for movie in plex.library.section(LIBRARY_NAME).all():
try:
PLEX_OG_DATE = movie.originallyAvailableAt.strftime(“%Y-%m-%d”)
PLEX_SUBS = len(movie.subtitleStreams())
print(f’“{movie.title}”,“{PLEX_OG_DATE}”,{PLEX_SUBS}')

except Exception as e:
    print("An exception occurred", e)