Actor Description / Information

I approve this, but a dev will need to take ownership of this and design it.

How about an EBR plugin special here!

I'm thinking while your in the movie details page and your focus is sitting on an actor in the list you hit *. Your nice little popup menu comes up, and you have a BIO choice on the menu. Click it for a popup window similiar to what vanilla does with the # button giving us scrollable bio info and clickable link to their movies. Wow that sounds so simple… lol.

Nope, I would like this functionality built in to MB, its core to the product. Perhaps the images by name refactor should allow for the metadata.

Wow that would be great if it could be implemented into the core. Hope the ideas are helping Sam.

+1 Like this option hope it will be picked-up soon

Anybody got any design ideas for this, would love to see this implemented.

I too would like to see this as a feature in future MB releases.

I use the Default theme view, so I don’t know how this would play amongst other themes.

Thumbstrip View once you drill down to Actor/Actress information seems to present the best design layout for this. Bio information could be presented/overlayed on top of where the Backdrop image is displayed for the current highlighted movie, that would give you the best real estate on the screen to display the information. Image of the Actor/Actress from IBN can be displayed to the left of the Biography information.

I have a crude mockup of this view, but don’t know how to include an attachment in this reply. The image button is asking for a URL, rather then allowing me to simply display and/or attach the .jpg file. If someone can direct me on how to do this, I will gladly share the display mockup here.

I like Bio information from AllMovie.com link text

Information can be quite extensive, so the window would need to be addressable by remote and then allow you to scroll up/down to view all information.

My thoughts anyway. Anyone and everyone can feel free to jump in with thoughts/comments.

Welcome aboard blade you to need put images in this format for the tracker

<img src="http://link address here"

Make sure you click the design tab at the top of topic and place your pics and more info about your idea there.

Big ArrickSon,

Thanks for the welcome, but I don’t understand the image requirement tag.

I have an image in the following location that I would like to attach.

C:\Public\Pictures\MediaBrowser – Actor Bio Layout Example.jpg

What is the proper tag to include in my reply? Sorry for the newb question.

Where is this BIO going to come from? Is the plan to manually enter BIO’s for each person?

I was looking at themoviedb.org, and they have people in their DB. Why doesn’t MB grab BIO’s and pics from there?

Mockup I was referencing in previous post.

OK… But where is that data going to come from?

Here is an example of the website blade suggested pointing to an actors bio page.

http://www.allmovie.com/artist/brandon-routh-415504

looking themoviedb.org looks like it has a facts section but its very basic, this allmovie.com looks perfect for this, never even heard of this site good find blade.

Nice first mockup, when I get some extra time I will see if i can play. Developers can we add a info screen pop up when your on a actors name / image you hit * media browser recoginizes your focus is on a actors name, since it recognizes this * menu has a new button. Bio, then you click bio and a large pop up scrollable window comes up with actors picture. You can then scroll up and down to read and have a close button to return to previous focus.

Wild dreams of mine… wild dreams.

Does it have an API? And does it cost money?

not finding any info on api on the site unfortunately

i like every single detail of that blade005. well done!

Not sure if this feature is still on the radar – however if it is to be (or is already being) developed then I reckon it would also be a nice addition to not only display the movies that are in your collection but also display all movies that the actor/actress is in (ie have a list of all movies but somehow identify the ones which are included in you own collection).

+1 hope someone picks this up

Using a wish here to make it 9 supporters. Hoping a dev steps in. Actor bios would be fantastic and don’t want to see this idea fade away and forgotton.

I like the pop-up idea which you will get when you are actually focused on an actors image. The mock-up, although good, seems a little complicated to achieve and random. For example would it be a random actor or the first in the list? Who decides which actor would be of interest and how?

Just added my wish to this.

Is there any progress please ??

+1

I would like to see this implimented. Have, as an option in configurator, that when you click on an actor you get 1) Biographpy, or 2) Other movies with the actor (which I really don’t use that much.

added mockup to design tab.

is there still a possibility of this getting done?

I really like the bio idea. I would expand it to include an optional full search of movies the actor is in (beyond the local media library). This is similar to the Actor drill down capability built into Windows Media Center. I find this missing from Media Browser and very useful.

In a perfect world you could flag any movies not already in the library so they could be recorded from the Guide or added to the Netflix queue.

I asked Fatal to add this feature to Metabrowser in anticipation of this feature becoming available in MediaBrowser:

http://v2.themetabrowser.com/issues/273

He is happy to add this such that a biography.xml page can be created for each actor and saved to the pertinent IBN/People/Actor directories but has requested a naming convention for the metadata. If we could get a consensus on a naming convention for the metadata tags then we'd be a little closer to this becoming a reality.

I lifted the example from http://api.themoviedb.org/2.1/methods/Person.getInfo:

  <people>
    <person>
      <popularity>3</popularity>
      <name>Brad Pitt</name>
      <also_known_as>William Bradley</also_known_as>
      <id>287</id>
      <biography>William Bradley &quot;Brad&quot; Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one. He has been described as one of the world's most attractive men, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.</biography>
      <known_movies>40</known_movies>
      <birthday>1963-12-18</birthday>
      <birthplace>Shawnee, Oklahoma, United States</birthplace>
      <url>http://www.themoviedb.org/person/287&lt;;/url&gt;
      <filmography>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/63" name="Twelve Monkeys" department="Actors" character="Jeffrey Goines" job="Actor" id="63"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/107" name="Snatch" department="Actors" character="Mickey O'Neil" job="Actor" id="107"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/161" name="Ocean's Eleven" department="Actors" character="Rusty Ryan" job="Actor" id="161"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/163" name="Ocean's Twelve" department="Actors" character="Rusty Ryan" job="Actor" id="163"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/293" name="A River Runs Throught It" department="Actors" character="     Paul Maclean" job="Actor" id="293"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/297" name="Meet Joe Black" department="Actors" character="Joe Black" job="Actor" id="297"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/298" name="Ocean's Thirteen" department="Actors" character=" Robert &#8220;Rusty&#8221; Charles Ryan" job="Actor" id="298"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/319" name="True Romance" department="Actors" character="Floyd" job="Actor" id="319"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/492" name="Being John Malkovich" department="Actors" character="Himself" job="Actor" id="492"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/550" name="Fight Club" department="Actors" character="Tyler Durden" job="Actor" id="550"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/628" name="Interview with the Vampire" department="Actors" character="Louis de Pointe du Lac" job="Actor" id="628"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/652" name="Troy" department="Actors" character="Achilles" job="Actor" id="652"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/652" name="Troy" department="Production" character="" job="Other" id="652"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/787" name="Mr. &amp; Mrs. Smith " department="Actors" character="John Smith" job="Actor" id="787"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/807" name="Se7en" department="Actors" character="Detective David Mills" job="Actor" id="807"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/819" name="Sleepers" department="Actors" character="Michael Sullivan" job="Actor" id="819"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/978" name="Seven Years in Tibet" department="Actors" character="Heinrich Harrer" job="Actor" id="978"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1164" name="Babel" department="Actors" character="Richard" job="Actor" id="1164"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1422" name="The Departed" department="Production" character="" job="Producer" id="1422"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1535" name="Spy Game" department="Actors" character="Tom Bishop" job="Actor" id="1535"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1541" name="Thelma &amp; Louise " department="Actors" character="J.D." job="Actor" id="1541"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1988" name="A Mighty Heart" department="Production" character="" job="Producer" id="1988"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4476" name="Legends of the Fall " department="Actors" character="Tristan Ludlow" job="Actor" id="4476"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4477" name="The Devil's Own " department="Actors" character="Frankie McGuire" job="Actor" id="4477"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4512" name="The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" department="Actors" character="Jesse James" job="Actor" id="4512"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4512" name="The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" department="Production" character="" job="Producer" id="4512"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4912" name="Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" department="Actors" character="Game Show Kandidat" job="Actor" id="4912"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4922" name="The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" department="Actors" character="Benjamin Button" job="Actor" id="4922"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/4944" name="Burn After Reading" department="Actors" character="Chad Feldheimer" job="Actor" id="4944"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/6073" name="The Mexican" department="Actors" character="Jerry Welbach" job="Actor" id="6073"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/7510" name="Running with Scissors" department="Production" character="" job="Producer" id="7510"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8947" name="Dirty Tricks" department="Actors" character="John Dean" job="Actor" id="8947"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/8967" name="Tree of Life" department="Actors" character="n.a." job="Actor" id="8967"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10504" name="The Killer" department="Production" character="" job="Producer" id="10504"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10909" name="Kalifornia" department="Actors" character="Early Grayce" job="Actor" id="10909"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10917" name="Too Young to Die?" department="Actors" character="  Billy Canton" job="Actor" id="10917"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/14239" name="Cool World" department="Actors" character="Detective Frank Harris" job="Actor" id="14239"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/14411" name="Sinbad - Legend of the Seven Seas" department="Actors" character="Sinbad" job="Actor" id="14411"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/16869" name="Inglourious Basterds" department="Actors" character="Lt. Aldo Raine " job="Actor" id="16869"/>
        <movie url="http://www.themoviedb.org/movie/30565" name="The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys " department="Actors" character="Himself" job="Actor" id="30565"/>
      </filmography>
      <images>
        <image type="profile" url="http://hwcdn.themoviedb.org/profiles/00e/4bc977ad017a3c182400000e/brad-pitt-original.jpg" size="original" id="4bc977ad017a3c182400000e"/>
        <image type="profile" url="http://hwcdn.themoviedb.org/profiles/00e/4bc977ad017a3c182400000e/brad-pitt-profile.jpg" size="profile" id="4bc977ad017a3c182400000e"/>
        <image type="profile" url="http://hwcdn.themoviedb.org/profiles/00e/4bc977ad017a3c182400000e/brad-pitt-thumb.jpg" size="thumb" id="4bc977ad017a3c182400000e"/>
      </images>
      <version>31</version>
      <last_modified_at>2010-04-26 03:26:14</last_modified_at>
    </person>
  </people>

My suggestion would be to change a couple of the tag names and maybe add a Nationality/Country tag:

  <people>
    <person>
      <popularity>3</popularity>
      <actor>Brad Pitt</actor>
      <Nationality>USA</Nationality>
      <BornAs>William Bradley Pitt</BornAs>
      <Alias>Buratto Pitto</Alias>
      <id>287</id>
      <biography>William Bradley &quot;Brad&quot; Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one. He has been described as one of the world's most attractive men, a label for which he has received substantial media attention.</biography>
      <KnownMovies>40</KnownMovies>
      <Birthday>1963-12-18</Birthday>
      <Birthplace>Shawnee, Oklahoma, United States</Birthplace>
      <Filmography>
        <Movie>Twelve Monkeys</Movie>
        <Movie>Snatch</Movie>
        <Movie>Ocean's Eleven</Movie>
        <Movie>Ocean's Twelve</Movie>
        <Movie>A River Runs Throught It</Movie>
        <Movie>.......
      </Filmography>
      <LastModified>2010-04-26 03:26:14</LastModified>
    </person>
  </people>

This info can also be scraped from IMDB as Maximus suggests, IMDB has some info that TMDb does not such as awards/oscars/nominations which could also be incorporated into the metadata structure, something like:

<awards>
   <nominations>20</nominations>
   <Oscars>3</Oscars>
   <GoldenGlobes>2</GoldenGlobes>
   <Emmy>0</Emmy>
   <BAFTA>2</BAFTA>
</awards>

Depending on people’s opinions/thoughts the following could also be scraped for regarding the occupation of each person. Given that some actors branch out into other positions like producing/directing, it would give a brief synopsis of the positions they have held in their career. Whether this information is actually displayed or not would be for the theme developer to decide, but the information could be scraped to be used (or not) and sit in the biography.xml just in case:

<Occupations>
   <Position>Actor</Position>
   <Position>Producer</Position>
   <Position>Executive Producer</Position>
   <Position>Director</Position>
</Occupations>

a small query for the actor on imdb should give all the needed information. parsing the entries on the site is a question of 1-2 seconds.

my actor loaders do this with the name and the location of the actorpicture.

the data can placed in the actor folder.

getting the data is realy not a problem. the only problem is to minimize the traffic, but when arrays are used the site must only be downloaded and compared.

sample (not a programming language ;–) )

value = value in bio.xml  ## number of entries on lokal db file
download actorsite in imdb.com  ## or any other site
check betwen <blub> and <bla> and write to array  ## read the site and put all in a array what meets the rule
do so for any other <blub> and <bla> till eof ## till end of site
get number of lines in array ## read the array 
if number of lines == value then return ## should explain itself
else write array into xml  ## if there is a difference rewrite the local db file

a programm for collecting the data is nearly ready. my loaders need only some modifications like writing these db files and a standart for these files.

a site has round about 100kb and no actor makes every day a movie so there shouldn`t be so much traffic for one user.

a suggestion: automaticly uploading the db files to a MB related server would be the best solution to minimize traffic for the online databases like imdb, tvdb, etc. a check for newest data (timehash)will only acept newest data on the server and local. a button for a manual refresh in MB will help to keep data actual on the server.

you get what i mean?