Welcome to TheTVDB.com! We are the world’s largest metadata solution for TV and Films. All of our information comes from fans like you, and is shared with many other sites, mobile apps, and devices. We are an open-source community and are always thrilled to see the site grow. In turn, we’d love to invite you to create a free account and help your favorite shows and movies thrive!
As a general rule (and to keep the database in order) we do request that you read the following rules and guidelines first, before you start contributing to the site. They’ll enlighten you on how to navigate the site & the forums, address FAQs, and ensure that TheTVDB is always populated with the most accurate, up-to-date information available.
While our rules below aim to be very comprehensive, you can also refer to our Wiki for use cases, artwork examples, and more specific questions. Taking the time to read over the Wiki will make your time as a part of our community more worthwhile!
A good rule of thumb: If you have any questions, concerns, or requests about anything related to TheTVDB, please post in the forums (if a similar topic hasn’t already been started), or email us at support@thetvdb.com.
Additionally, please take a moment to read our updated terms of service.
Community Ground Rules
We’re a small team here at TheTVDB, and as such we’ve done our best to put in place a set of rules/guidelines to allow for the smoothest operation of the site. While there may be exceptions to these rules, we’ve tried our best to set the most comprehensive guidelines possible. So, without further ado, some ground rules for TheTVDB.com:
General guidelines:
- You should always search TheTVDB & forums before adding a new series or movie. Search in this version of the site has been vastly improved, but the site has hundreds of thousands of records so a thorough search is worth your while.
- You should always provide a link to the series or film in the database when requesting anything. Your research will expedite requests to the mods.
- Please refrain from emailing or PMing an Admin or Mod unless your question has gone unanswered for some time on the forums.
- Do not remove any information or blank out episodes, series, or movies you think are incorrect or have incorrect information, this creates major downflow problems in the data, instead post your request in the Series Change Requests forum thread.
- Stick to image guidelines, do not upload poor quality images, or images with logos, profanity, or any nudity whatsoever.
- Seek out our Preferred Sources of Truth to support your case for changes. If you can’t find evidence in our Preferred list, please attempt to provide two “Acceptable” sources that confirm your changes.
POLICY UPDATES 2020
Highlights of new/amended policies. Search the Bible below for full policy explanations.
- OVAs should always be entered in as a movie, no matter if they're related to a series, or a standalone series of OVAs.
- For Scripps series (Food Network, HGTV, etc.) we are going to use the "watch.network.com" sites (i.e. watch.foodnetwork.com instead of foodnetwork.com) for the Aired Order.
- Character photos for animated characters should still be headshots (chest-up), unless they are an oddly-shaped character (like Klaus from American Dad).
- For co-pros, any episodes beyond the initial season will use the Original Network for the air-dates, regardless of which production partner airs those seasons first.
- Dead pilots can now be added as movies, as long as they actually aired. These should be tagged as "Dead Pilot" in the taxonomy.
- Educational content is allowed to be added, with some structural requirements — see section below for details.
- Certified Records — Moderators and admins now have the ability to Certify a record at the Series, Season, Episode, and Movie level. A Certified Record means that all of the data for that specific record has been manually vetted and approved, and prevents users from editing/adding any more info to the record. While it is rare, if you do see any errors or missing info on a record that has been Certified, please let us know.
- We have vastly expanded the amount of tags that can be applied to a Movie, Series, Actors, Characters, etc. Tags are a series of keywords or metadata descriptors that define factual and plot-based characteristics or traits of a particular entity, intended to provide both users and moderators with more of the descriptive tools they need to categorize content. You can see all of our newly added Tags & Tag Options, as well as suggest a new tag, here.
- You are now able to select "No Studio" for a movie in the Studio dropdown menu. For a movie that isn't attached to a studio, instead of leaving this field blank, you should instead select "No Studio" from the dropdown menu.
Navigating the site
To use TheTVDB, you’ll actually have to create accounts on two websites — first on TheTVDB.com, and then on our forums. You don’t have to use the same username on both, but it is preferred that you do.
We’ve recently made some major improvements to the site as well. If you haven’t been back in a while, please find new feature adds and forthcoming improvements here.
Adding new content
In order to add new content to TheTVDB, you must make sure you’ve taken any and all measures to confirm that the content does not already exist on the site. This will prevent duplicate entries, and continue to keep the site organized and clean. To confirm, you must:
- Search the TVDB: We’ve made vast improvements to our search engine in this update and we now support an aliases system that has been optimized. Please search for your records before creation, they may already exist!
- Search the forums: If you have a specific question related to a show or film it is important that you search the forums thoroughly before modifications are made. Some of our content has old historical references that are defined in the forums. We even have a list of known problematic series that may just answer your question.
- Search any other titles/aliases that may have been associated with the content: a quick Google search can help you find alternate titles that a piece of content may have been called in the past, including foreign titles (e.g. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aka Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone)
- If possible, try searching for the title you are looking for in both the series/film’s native language, as well as in English — the content may just be missing a translation.
TV
Adding a TV Series
What Qualifies as a Series
A series is exactly what it sounds like — a program with a defined sequence of episodes.
In the new site, we allow series adds that do not yet have a premiere date. These should be listed as “Upcoming” in the status field until their premiere date when they should be moved to “Continuing.” That being said, we only allow for new programs that have been “ordered to series.” The one exception to this is if a stand-alone pilot aired on a television network — in this case, they should be added as a Series record and tagged with the "Dead Pilot" tag option under the TV Types & Formats tags.
Pilots that do not fit the above criteria will be deleted by a moderator. If you are unsure of the status of your series, please submit documentation to the forums.
Other than these stand-alone pilots, if the program is a one-time airing then it should be considered a movie and entered as such. The exception, for now, is our historical listing of documentaries and collections — see "Documentaries" and “Collections” in this post. Specials also have their own guidelines for being added to the site, see “Specials Guidelines” below.
Made-for-TV movies should be added as movies. If in doubt, post in the forums before adding a series. Web series fall under a different set of rules which can be found here.
We do not allow adult content of any kind on the site. Pornographic films, series, etc. should not be added.
Continuations, Revivals, & Reboots
Everyone is rebooting IP these days, but it can sometimes be hard to understand if you should continue a show with a new season, years later, or start an entirely new entry. From a content perspective, if it's the same cast as the original (or mostly the same cast), we should consider it a continuation of the original show rather than a new, separate show.
Here are some examples of various pieces of content and how they are listed:
CONTINUATIONS/REVIVALS (Same series record on TVDB)
24 -- however, 24: Legacy (sans Jack Bauer) is its own series
Veronica Mars
Prison Break
Mad About You
Will & Grace
Tales of the City
American Idol
Roseanne
The X-Files
Arrested Development
Twin Peaks
In Search Of …
Murphy Brown
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life [our
REMAKES for Series with the same name (New series record on TVDB)
For remakes with new series entries please append the year of the remake to the end of the series to differentiate it from the original.
MacGyver
Charlie's Angels
Charmed
Melrose Place
Dynasty
Dallas
Battlestar Galactica
One Day at a Time
REMAKES with a Different title (New series record on TVDB)
90210 (The CW, 2008)
BH90210 (FOX, 2019)
Fuller House (Netflix, 2016)
Hawaii Five-0 (as opposed to the original Hawaii Five-O)
Magnum P.I. (as opposed to the original Magnum, P.I.)
Reality/Non-Scripted Series
For the most part, reality and non-scripted series that are coming back, getting "rebooted," etc, should be considered continuations, and new seasons should be added to the original record. There may be a few exceptions to this rule. An example of this is Ripley's Believe It or Not!. It is not an exception because the rule does not apply. But rather Ripley's remains an exception because the revival from 2000 was mistakenly allowed as its own entry at the time. When the 2019 revival occurred and that mistake was realized. Rather than break existing libraries by deleting the 2000 record and incorporating it and the 2019 edition into the original we left it be. Clearly it would not have made sense to then fold the 2019 episodes into the original while leaving the batch from 2000 stand-alone.
ONGOING NEWS AND TALK SHOWS
For ongoing news and talk shows, a new show record should NOT be created when the host of the program changes. If the name of the program changes, the new name should be added as the title of the series, and the old name(s) should be added as aliases of that series. Example: The Morning Show, currently known as Live with Kelly and Ryan.
Web Series
In this updated version of TheTVDB, we will continue to allow for internet-based web series (within reason). These programs should be listed under their network/content distributor (e.g. YouTube, Twitch) and marked as a Web Series under TV Type/Format. If the program’s network is not available, you must make a request first to the forums that it be added before you enter your series. Additionally, web series should still follow TheTVDB series guidelines, with overviews, and air dates. That being said, things you should not include in web series episode orders are fan videos such as remixes, or replies/complaints about episodes, as they do not represent original pieces of content.
Examples include Hot Ones, Yes Theory
These are allowed on the site, but make sure you follow these rules:
- For series with an average episode length of under 10 minutes, there must be at least 10 episodes to be added.
- For series with an average episode length of at least 10 minutes, there must be at least 5 episodes to be added.
- These first 5 or 10 episodes MUST be added immediately after the series record is created.
- Series with an average episode length of under two minutes are not allowed. Example: failblog videos.
- There must be an official order for the clips available, generally listed by the upload date.
Generally, sports are not allowed on the site. However, in the most recent update we are allowing for all professional wrestling (WWE) and professional MMA (UFC). Moving forward, we will review/discuss hosting other sports on a case-by-case basis and as we identify those users who are interested in being regular contributors to these events..
Anime
That's right, there's a specific section in the rules for anime. The reason is that we run into so many different issues with this specific genre.
First off, there are tons of inappropriate images uploaded to anime series all the time, mainly nudity. Please refer to the "Uploading Images" section below. Nudity of any sort is not allowed!
Second, make sure the series you are about to enter is not already in the database. Head over to AnimeNewsNetwork.com and look at the alternative titles for your series.
Third, do not create separate series for seasons. Anime series' like to give subtitles to each story arc in a lot of cases, but they are simply seasons when it boils down to it. In the new site, you have the option to name seasons. A great example of this is Sailor Moon with Seasons 1 through 5 named "Sailor Moon", "Sailor Moon: R", "Sailor Moon: S", "Sailor Moon: Super S", and "Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars" respectively. When in doubt, ask on the forums.
Lastly, we do not list anime movies in the TV section, even if there are sequels. An example of this would be Urotsukidoji. There are currently a total of four (4) movies in the series. Even though they are a series, they are still MOVIES and need to be entered into the movies section of the site.
OVAs (Anime or Not):
OVAs (Original Video Animations) should be added as individual movies, no matter if they are associated with an existing series, or if there is a standalone group of OVAs that are related/connected in some way. In the near future, we will be able to group these related records together so that users can have a full and complete experience.
Multi-Segment Episode Splitting:
This mostly applies to cartoons. When a cartoon has multiple storylines in a single episode, the standard guideline for TheTVDB is to enter each story as a separate episode. This is because it's quite common for networks to release them separately, especially when broadcast in different countries. Also, episodes have been known to be recombined in different pairings for DVD releases and in syndication. Splitting the segments allows for alternate orders to be created that may combine multiple episodes into one episode so that you can choose to store your files either by storyline or as complete episodes.
An example is the series Timon & Pumbaa. Two different seasons aired simultaneously on two different channels. One set in syndication another on CBS. We do not combine the seasons from the two channels into one.
DVD Orders:
When a DVD combines 2 episodes from the original aired order into one, you should create a new episode in the DVD Order and move the other episodes into the DVD Order's Unassigned season.
Multiple Episodes Airing Back-to-Back:
Sometimes, a show will air episodes in two parts, back-to-back. Examples of this includes The Good Place, Season 3, as well as SEAL Team, Season 3.
Currently, the rule is to add these episodes as separate entries, so that the number of episodes matches up with the episode order from the network. Additionally, if the episodes have different writing credits and/or production codes, they should be listed as separate episodes.
In SEAL Team's case, even though CBS lists the back-to-back episodes as one long episode on their official site, the episodes each have different production codes and writing credits, so we made the decision to list these episodes separately.
We’re not going to touch legacy content right now, because it will mess up people’s libraries. Moving forward, however, this will be our policy for episodes aired back-to-back. If you think that a series should have an alternate order where the two episodes should be listed together as one, please suggest this to a moderator. Once approved, you’ll be able to add your proposed order as an alternate order in the system using the flexible season feature.
Documentaries/Collections
Of course, one-off feature-length documentaries should be added as Movies. However, there are some documentary series (i.e. a 10-part documentary series on the rain forest or the great pyramids) that can be added as a TV series. The whole concept of "series" implies that there is more than one episode, so in these cases, it would make sense for there to be a series entry for it.
Below is a historical listing of many docu-series that users have entered over the years. Moving forward, we would ideally like these series to be entered as films; however, if you would like to continue to add to these Collections we will allow for it:
- BBC Documentaries
- PBS Documentaries
- SBS Documentaries
- History Channel Documentaries
- National Geographic Documentaries
Additionally, compilations of documentaries that have been released to DVD DO NOT get their own series. Examples of this were the recently added "Unsolved Mysteries: Ghosts" and "National Geographic: National Parks Collection" which have been deleted. These are not true series but rather collections of episodes that have been put together strictly for DVD sale. On most occasions, these episodes already exist as part of their original series. If they appear in a series, they should be listed under the DVD flexible season format.
Specials
TV Specials
In order to qualify for addition to the Specials section of a television series, the video in question must have either aired on television or have been streamed on the official series website or network website. The only exceptions to this are pilots and episodes that weren't aired for various reasons, including but not limited to: series cancellation, being banned due to content.
As a general rule we don't allow related movies to be listed in the specials — these should be listed separately as Movies. In future iterations of this site, we will be able to link all of this content together. A good example of this is the Firefly movie, Serenity. This film is a direct continuation of the series and has aired on television a number of times, so it has been entered in as a Special. All other content such as extras on DVDs which are not part of the storyline (bloopers, makings of, deleted scenes, cast interviews, etc.) DO NOT belong on here UNLESS they aired on television or were streamed on the official series website. Director’s cuts of individual episodes are also not allowed, however, exceptions may be made in strange cases.
Allowed: Aired or officially streamed special content (such as webisodes), pilots, unaired episodes. This included OVAs/ONAs/omakes/side stories/re-tellings/recap episodes (if unnumbered or numbered with a decimal such as 4.5)/etc. for anime.
Not Allowed: Director's/Extended Cuts and DVD extras such as: bloopers, making-ofs, deleted scenes, cast interviews (unless streamed or aired). Also not permitted are compilations of seasons merging every episode into one long video featuring little to no changes (i.e. 2003’s Star Wars: Clone Wars).
Movies that continue the arc of a show CAN be added as Specials for now, but they should also be added into our new movies section.
**Additionally, we encourage everyone to use the “Before” and “After” fields for each special episode to denote where a special falls chronologically and story-wise. This can be found after you create a special, and then click "Edit Episode."
NEW MAY 2020 — You are now able to denote whether a special falls within a series storyline or not. When editing a Special, look for the section called Special is Critical to Show's Story — then select Yes or No from the drop-down menu.
Movie Specials
We have not currently built out the section for Movie Specials yet, but it is on the roadmap and we will set guidelines for Movie Specials when it arrives.
Stand-up Specials
Stand-up specials should no longer be added in a collection under the comedian's name. These should be entered as separate movies, with the "Stand-Up Comedy Special" tag option suggested under the Movie Type or Format tag options. We will soon be deprecating records like this one so please start adding them appropriately.
Other things to note:
DVD Extras:
DVD extras are not allowed, for movies or for TV series. Do not add cast interviews, behind the scenes footage, etc.
Educational Content:
Educational content has come up many times, especially recently. With the wider release of more educational content throughout the era of COVID-19, we've decided to update our policy. Educational content should only be added if it was originally released as a series with structured episodes. One rule of thumb is that if it's pay-per-video content, or if the content is promotional in any way, it is not allowed.
Educational Content should always be added as Series, with the company/provider of the content in the Network field. We've added The Great Courses and MaterClass as Networks to enable tagging to start. If you need another course provider added as a Network, please let us know. Educational content should also be tagged with the "Educational Content" Sub-genre tag.
The waters get muddy when educational content originally airs on YouTube. Because at that point the series would be considered a Web Series. Please check the Web Series guidelines for adding these.
Some guidelines for our current Educational Course providers:
MasterClass:
- Since individuals may host more than one MasterClass, we would prefer that all of a single person's MasterClasses are grouped into one Series record, and titled "Person Name MasterClass." An example is Gordon Ramsay, who offers two cooking courses. In this case, we'd name the Series "Gordon Ramsay MasterClass" and each Season would represent each course.
- Seasons should be named as the course is named on the MasterClass site. For the Gordon Ramsay example, the seasons would be:
- Season 1: "Gordon Ramsay Teaches Cooking I"
- Season 2: "Gordon Ramsay Teaches Cooking II"
- Episodes should correspond to each video lesson in the course. Special videos that aren't specific lectures should be added to the Specials Season.
- Courses on The Great Courses should be added as Series, with the Series Title being the title of the course.
- Within the aired order, each video lesson should be considered one episode and titled to match The Great Courses website.
We’ve become aware that some users are adding podcasts into the database. We’ve decided to allow for it, but the podcasts must have the newly added genre tag of “podcasts,” as well as have the Network designated as "Podcast (All Platforms)." While this is a catch-all for podcasts at the moment, we will allow for the request of a podcast network only if it offers exclusive podcasts that aren't available anywhere else.
Sources of Truth for TV
Preferred Sources
- Official Websites — The official listing for a series in its country of origin. Usually manifests itself as a page on a series' original network's website. Unless the listing is a mess (i.e. Discovery, other Scripps networks — see below) or conflicts with an existing site rule (i.e. splitting of multipart episodes in animated series or discrepancies with the aired ordering), the official listing will be considered gospel.
- Scripps Networks exception: as mentioned above, Scripps networks are notoriously bad at keeping their episodes in the order in which they are aired — mainly since they often will air episodes in a different order than they were produced. And to make things more confusing, Scripps networks often have two sites — the main network site (foodnetwork.com) and the "watch" site, where you can actually view episodes (watch.foodnetwork.com). To alleviate issues with the numbering of such Scripps series, we are going to begin using the watch.network listing as a Source of Truth for Scripps series from the following networks:
- Cooking Channel
- DIY Network
- Food Network
- Great American Country
- HGTV
- Travel Channel
- Asian Food Channel
- Fine Living (Europe)
- Fine Living (Italy) (defunct)
- TVN Group
- In the event neither site honors the aired order, that air date will still take precedent.
- Scripps Networks exception: as mentioned above, Scripps networks are notoriously bad at keeping their episodes in the order in which they are aired — mainly since they often will air episodes in a different order than they were produced. And to make things more confusing, Scripps networks often have two sites — the main network site (foodnetwork.com) and the "watch" site, where you can actually view episodes (watch.foodnetwork.com). To alleviate issues with the numbering of such Scripps series, we are going to begin using the watch.network listing as a Source of Truth for Scripps series from the following networks:
- BBC iPlayer
- BBC Genome
- StudioSystem
- Gracenote
- BFI.org.uk — British Film Institute database is particularly good for British/UK shows. There is little addition of "current" shows but the archive is usually good.
- Interbridge — This one’s good for talk shows. As a note: reruns are not original episodes, so look out for these — they should not be entered into the system as new episodes.
- AnimeNewsNetwork — When it comes to anime info, this site is generally your best bet. The listings are almost always complete and very accurate, even for the most obscure or old titles.
- MyAnimeList — Second only to ANN, MAL features some of the most up-to-date and accurate anime info.
Please reference two acceptable sources of truth to back up your change request.
- TheFutonCritic — This is fairly accurate, but please double-check their data against another source as they often will not update older data.
- IMDb — A great database for movie info, but can be lacklustre when it comes to television series.
- aniDB — An acceptable but often incomplete anime source. Series often lack season info and listings include non-episodes such as OP, ED, DVD extras, etc. A decent supplementary source for episode titles or release dates, but not much else.
- Shobo Calendar — a community driven anime calendar that is also very up to date.
- Fan Sites – In rare cases, if you can show us that either no other approved source exists or that said sources are completely inaccurate or incomplete, we will consider the use of fan sites for listings. In these cases, you must link us to any incomplete/inaccurate trusted sources as well as the fan site source you intend to have us review along with any further information you have on the topic. At this point, the decision will require the complete agreement of at least two moderators or one administrator. And said decision will be final.
- TV.com – While generally accurate to a degree, TV.com is often missing required details such as airdates to back up their listings which limits reliability. Good for comparison to other listings and often to fill in blanks, but a preferred source it is not.
- TVGuide — TVGuide sources their data from the same place as TV.com, so again, take their info with a grain of salt.
- Wikis/Wikipedia – Generally the same requirements as with the above-mentioned fan sites, however, to stress this further — this is to be an absolutely last resort request. Do not link us to Wikipedia or any other Wiki if a trusted and seemingly valid source exists. In fact, consider Wikis to be even a rank below fan sites.
- Online VOD storefronts such as Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, Playstation Store, etc. are not a valid source for series info. This is unless, of course, they actually are the "network" of origin, which is becoming more common but does not replace the original airing network/country rules previously established.
- If we have a listing that is based on an official site, and that site becomes defunct, we will not simply change said listing based on the insistence of members who have not seen said website. Classic series will continue to be listed as they were, when these sites were available.
Adding & Editing a Series
Adding & Editing a Season
Adding & Editing an Episode
CO-PRODUCTIONS — In the event that two or more networks are associated with the production of the same series — i.e. Chernobyl (HBO & Sky 1); His Dark Materials (HBO & BBC One) — the rule will be that we will list the network with the first air date to be the network of record, or Original Network. So, in the His Dark Materials example, the UK (BBC One) has a premiere date of Nov. 3, and the US (HBO) has an air date of Nov. 4. So, BBC One would be the Original Network.
Beyond the initial season the Original Network will be used for the air-dates of any subsequent season. Regardless of which production partner airs those seasons first.
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN — In most cases, the Country of Origin for a series should be the country that the network is headquartered in (e.g. a series originally broadcast on Channel 4 would have a country of Great Britain). But with the rise of global streaming networks, this isn't always the case. For example, take the series DARK. It's a German series, but Netflix (headquartered in the US) is the Original Network. In cases like these, we should take a common-sense approach and list the Country of Origin for dark as Germany. If you're unsure of what you should list as the Country of Origin for a series, please use the Series Change Requests forum to ask a mod.
PREMIERE TIMES – In an effort to standardize premiere dates, we would like to start using the US EST premiere date time on all US series and for all other non-US series, the time of the show’s country capital or most populous city. With the introduction of streaming services that drop all of their episodes at once, we've seen differing release times for each of them. The official list is below:
- Netflix — 3 a.m.
- Disney+ — 3 a.m.
- CBS All Access — 3 a.m.
- Hulu — 12 a.m.
- Apple TV+ — 12 a.m.
- HBO Max — 12 a.m.
- Amazon Prime — this one has proved to be tricky, since Amazon releases their episodes at 12 a.m. GMT (which is 8 p.m. EST, the day before). For now, we are going to keep the original air date/day as it is in GMT when the series are released, and we'll keep the air time as 12 a.m.
RUNTIME — In general, the runtime of an episode should be the approximate total runtime of the episode, not including commercials. For example, when looking at a series on cable or network television, the approximate runtime for a many episodes with an hour-long time slot is about 42 minutes, while half-hour episodes normally have a runtime of around 22 minutes. Of course, many streaming services don't have commercials, so the runtime there will be more straightforward. Our runtimes should now be entered as integers, and rounded to the closest minute — so, if an episode is 42:08 for example, round that down to 42. But with a 42:44 runtime, that will round up to 43.
PLACEHOLDERS FOR EPISODE DROPS – We have decided to relax the policy of allowing for placeholders on series that drop all at once (i.e. streaming series). For now, please use TBA or “Episode #” for the placeholder. That being said, users must produce documentation of the season order from a reputable source.
Editing existing content
Often, you’ll find content that already exists on TheTVDB that may need to be updated, edited, or in very rare cases, removed from the site.
Editing unlocked content
A good portion of TV content on TheTVDB is unlocked, which means that any user can add, edit, or change any info associated with the series.
If you feel any unlocked series, season, episode, or any other information needs editing, we urge you to search the forums first before making the edits. There’s a very good chance someone else has thought of making the same edits before, which means there’s likely an Admin/Mod response to the edits already in the forums. Failure to do this may make an admin “lock” a series, to prevent fighting over changes.
Under no circumstances should you blank out episodes you feel need deleting. Users work hard to enter information into the database, and deleting episodes will negate their efforts.
Requesting an edit to locked content (using the forums)
At times, you’ll come across a TV series, season, episode, or movie that has been locked. This can only be done by an Administrator or Moderator, and it almost always has been done for a very good reason and it is for the protection of the content.
Some reasons that come to mind are:
- Users are constantly incorrectly editing the data
- Users are fighting over edits & overwriting others
- The data is being reviewed to make sure it is correct
- The series has been Certified by an administrator/mod
- The data should not be listed on TheTVDB
- The entry is a duplicate of an already existing entry
- Vandalism has occurred
- For requests to edit existing TV series, use Series Change Requests
- For requests to edit existing Movies, use Movie Change Requests
- For questions about editing unlocked content or anything else, use Members Helping Members
- The URL of the content in question on TheTVDB.com
- Valid Sources of Truth
Subject: S05 Our School - Move to Specials
Hi there,
Please move the episodes in S05 of Our School to be Specials. These were indexed on iPlayer as S05 episodes when released but now there are new weekly episodes that are indexed as S05 also. The episode names have been updated to reflect they are 'Summer Camp' specials.
Season 5 - https://www.thetvdb.com/series/our-school/seasons/5
iPlayer Source - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/ ... our-school
Cheers…
Translations
If a series/season/episode is locked and you need to translate it, please create a thread for it with the info you need to be added. We will probably not unlock it unless it's an incredibly massive undertaking as far as the number of episodes is concerned.
Please copy and paste this format (subject & body) for submitting translation requests:
Subject: [LANGUAGE] Series Name - Season #
Body:
Code: Select all
#EpNumber
[b]Title[/b]
[code]OverviewHere’s an example of a well-formatted request for the show Superstore:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=59037
Each Season should have its own Post in the thread. Specials should be listed as their own season as well.
Of course, with each request you should also include a link to the series/season in the TVDB & the series ID just like all other posts here. This is especially important with translation requests due to the language ID.
Example of a series link with language ID:
http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=73244&lid=11
Example of a season link with language ID:
http://thetvdb.com/?tab=season&seriesid ... 312&lid=11
If you’re translating a full season or a large chunk of episodes in one season, no need to include a link to every episode — the link to the season will do. We do ask that you please list the episodes you’re translating in aired order.
Other guidelines:
- All translations should be in your own words.
- Series and movie title translations should be what the series or movie is best known as in the countries where this language is spoken, and NOT the direct translation. For example, Game of Thrones is known as Game of Thrones in French as well, so the French translation should be Game of Thrones rather than Le Trône de Fer.
- In your overviews, please do not include any unusual formatting — things like line breaks after every sentence, html/bb code, urls, unnecessary capitalization, etc. are not accepted.
- As a note, there will be a four space indent before all overview text due to copy paste issues with the code/quote box — this is a known issue.
- Series that are currently under major reworking or in the process of being disputed over ordering, number of episodes, seasons, etc; may not get translated for some time. If you're unsure about the status of one of these series’, please feel free to ask here and one of us will let you know if it's worth your time to lay out translations.
- After a translation request has been fulfilled the thread will be moved to Completed requests, which means they most likely won’t be looked at again, and we will not continue to use them to import translation information. Instead, feel free to make a new thread right here where we can see it.
What is a movie?
A movie is a program that exists as a single entry and does not have multiple episodes or seasons.
A movie usually will fall into at least one of the below criteria:
- Received a theatrical release
- In the U.S., has an MPAA rating instead of an FTC one
- Examples of "movies" include the following:
- HBO Films (Fahrenheit 451, Behind the Candelabra, The Normal Heart, etc.)
- Lifetime movies of the week (Flint, Death of a Vegas Showgirl, 15 and Pregnant, etc.)
- Hallmark Movies (Home by Spring, The Beach House)
- Netflix SVOD releases (Triple Frontier, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Roma, Wine Country)
- Single stand-alone documentaries (Minding the Gap, Fyre Festival)
- Holiday movies that aren't attached to a show (Freeform's “25 Days of Christmas“ movies)
- Single stand-alone comedy stand-ups (Nanette, Amy Schumer: Growing, Ali Wong: Baby Cobra, Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady). However, Comedy Central Roasts are considered a TV series as it has multiple episodes.
- Additionally, we will allow for stand-alone taped concerts.
Adding a Movie
You’ll find the movie pages to be pretty straightforward and similar to our TV show pages for now, but we will add more to them throughout the year.
When adding movies, please use exact names (i.e. Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond). With our new search, there should be no need to append the year to a movie. For TV, we will continue to keep it consistent with years appended to their series, given all of the reboots. At some point we will begin phasing out the year for series as well, but based on how many sites and apps rely on it, we feel it is best to leave it as is for now.
Metadata fields in the first version will include:
- Logline – should be no longer than a sentence or two
- Overview – can be longer than logline, but please keep it concise
- Runtime
- Status
- Production Budget
- Worldwide Box Office
- Ratings — We have both MPAA ratings, as well as TV parental guidelines for movies, since many made-for-TV movies and Netflix films use the US parental guidelines system.
- Release Date
- Studio – we only have 1 studio dropdown for now, please pick the lead studio. If a movie is not attached to a specific studio, please select "No Studio" instead of leaving the field blank.
- Genre
- External Links
- Spoken Language native to film
- Production Countries
- Trailers
- Artwork
- Talent – Directors, Writers, and actors are editable in the cast and crew area of movie pages. Please make sure you “sort” actors as dictated by importance.
We are open to more “sources of truth” to validate movie data, but would also like to hear from you if you feel a source is highly reputable. Users should also be encouraged to provide supporting links to any of the major trades.
Preferred Sources:
- IMDb
- StudioSystem
- Gracenote
- Box Office Mojo
- Variety Insight
- Studio sites/official movie websites
- All Cinema — You’ll have to translate from Japanese, but a good resource for anime, Japanese movies, and many Asian movies in general.
Editing a Movie
Similar to TV content on the site, you’ll sometimes come across a movie entry with information that needs to be updated or changed. You can proceed with the same process as listed above in TV for any changes that need to be made.
Adding Cast & Crew
TV
Currently, you’re able to add all sorts of talent to a TV series — Actors, Guest Stars, Writers, Directors, Showrunners, Creators, etc.
To add an Actor to a series, click on the “Add Actor” button in the right hand menu. Search for the actor you’d like to add and select them. Enter the name of the character they portray, the gender of their character (if known), the character's main occupation (if known), and upload an image of the actor in character. If you don’t have an image of the actor in character, leave blank — it will automatically populate the person's generic headshot. Only actors who are series regulars should be added this way. All other recurring characters should be added as guest stars at the episode level.
If you can’t find the person you're looking to add, you can add them by using the drop down menu in the upper right hand corner of the site — just select Add Person. Be sure to check for all variations/languages of a person's name before creating a new person record. If you find two or more people that you think need to be merged into one record, please post that in the forums and we can take care of it.
When creating a new person record, you’ll want to add an image of them in real life, out of character. Follow the image guidelines below for specific guidelines on adding a person image.
Even if you’re creating an episode of a late night or talk show where the episode title is the name of an actor or actors appearing on the episode, you’ll still need to add the actor(s) as a guest star for that episode in order to have them listed.
SEASON-BY-SEASON CHARACTERS
In some seasonal anthology series (e.g. American Horror Story), the same actor plays a different character each season. In this case, until we are able to handle actors with more granularity, you should add the same actor multiple times, one entry for each character they play. You MAY add the season number to the ROLE field in parentheses after the character's name in order to identify which season the character is from.
Movies
To add cast or crew members to a movie, click on the “Add Actor” button in the right hand menu. Select the type of talent you’re adding from the dropdown menu — Director, Writer, Actor, Crew, & Producer all apply to movies.
Search for the talent you want to add, and select them. If it’s an actor, enter the name of the role they portray and upload an image of the actor in character. If you don’t have an image of the actor in character, leave blank — it will automatically populate the person's generic headshot.
If you can’t find them, use the drop down menu in the upper right and select “Add Person.” Search for the talent again just to double check that they don’t exist. If they truly don’t, then select “Person Not Found” and add them.
When creating a new person, you’ll want to add an image of them in real life, out of character. Follow the image guidelines below for specific guidelines on adding an actor image.
Artwork Instructions
As a general note, any uploaded image must be free of spoilers, nudity, or vulgarity. Please ensure images are of high quality with no watermarks or unrelated logos, and that they don't appear stretched.
Images should not be scaled to get to the correct resolution or to fit the required aspect ratio. If they are too big they should be cropped, if they are too small they either shouldn't be used or should be used to make composites. Badly resized images will be deleted.
Posters, Panels, Textual Banners, and Icons (so, artwork that includes text or writing), should always be tagged with the language they're in. You can select a language from the drop down menu when uploading a piece of art.
Posters
- Dimensions: 680x1000 pixels
- Format: JPG
- Maximum size: 800kb
- Guidelines:
- Posters can be used in coverflow applications and in social media applications
- Series & movie posters should include the series/movie name
- For season posters, do not upload variations of the same image. The image must exactly match one of our season image formats.
- Dimensions: 1920x1080 pixels
- Format: JPG
- Maximum size: 800kb
- Guidelines:
- We'd prefer if backgrounds did not include any text, logos, or writing. If a 16:9 image does include an official series/movie logo, it should be added as a Panel.
- Do not include borders in the images, or take a poster and just add a solid background to it to make it into a background. Your image should take up the full image space.
- Do not include any masks, they can be applied automatically, don't assume you know where the menus will go. Different skins and programs use the images in different ways.
- Each background should be unique. Please don't upload the same background many times with minor differences such as slightly different zoom, angles, poses, different color letters or a minor extra image pasted over top, etc.
- Make sure you are uploading the image to the correct show/movie. Some titles do have duplicate or similar names and mistakes do happen, so double-check before you upload.
- If you have a 1920x1080 image that includes the official series/movie logo, it should instead be listed as a Panel (see below).
- Dimensions: 1920x1080 pixels
- Format: JPG
- Maximum size: 800kb
- Guidelines:
- Panels are 16x9 format images that must include the official series/movie logo. That allows them to be used in lieu of background+series title.
- Dimensions: 758x140 pixels
- Format: JPG
- Maximum size: 100kb
- Guidelines:
- Graphical Banners — These are defined as having a graphical/logo version of the series or movie name.
- Text Banners generally use Arial Bold font, 27pt as the text.
- Blank Banners — The main requirement for blank banners is they should be blank on the left side of the banner as that is where the auto-generated text will be placed. Similar to this:
- Graphical Banners — These are defined as having a graphical/logo version of the series or movie name.
Please, upload your custom banners for every series/movie you own, but make sure you're being smart about it. Do not upload images that are blurry, pixelated and/or generally poor quality. Also, do not upload images that contain nudity, including animated nudity.
On a side note: Most HTPC software allows you to customize images using pictures on your PC, so if you want to view that material, please refer to you HTPC software manual/wiki.
Icons
- Dimensions: 1024x1024 pixels
- Format: PNG
- Maximum size: 800kb
- Guidelines:
- Icons are square format, optionally transparent PNG files.
- Dimensions: 640x360 pixels (HD 16:9 episode) or 640x480 pixels (SD 4:3 episode)
- Format: JPG
- Maximum size: 500kb
- Guidelines:
- Each episode is limited to one image.
- Use an official episode image when available. The image should be indicative of the content of the episode without revealing any spoilers.
- Wherever possible, especially for newer series, the image should not contain the network watermark/logo.
- The image should not be a title card, and ideally will have no writing on it whatsoever. The reason for this is that episode images are supposed to be language-agnostic.
- For YouTube series, DO NOT just use the thumbnail image from the episode, unless there is NO writing on it whatsoever.
- Of course, podcasts don't normally have screenshots, in the traditional way that TV series do. It's our preference that podcasts do not have episode images added, unless they have released official episode images, such as in the case of Criminal.
- If an image on the site needs to be replaced, you will have to post a request in the forums for an admin to do so.
- Images should be uploaded in their original aspect ratio if the show is 16:9 then that should be the ratio of the image, even if your local network broadcast it in 4:3.
- Images shouldn't just be a title shot from the episode. We already know the episode's name, we don't need to see it again.
- Dimensions: 300x450 pixels
- Format: JPG
- Maximum size: 500kb
- Guidelines:
- Character images should be an image of the actor in this specific role. If an animated series, this should be a photo of the character they voice, from the chest up — a picture of the voice actor can be added for the Actor Image. If an image is already set for this actor, uploading an image will replace the existing one.
- For animated characters that are human (or at least, shaped like a human), we require their images to be a headshot. If an animated character is not large enough to be able to grab a headshot for (an example is Klaus from American Dad), you can add a photo that shows more of their body, or their entire body where applicable.
- Each actor should also have one official actor image, which will be populated on a series or movie page in the event that there is no character image uploaded for their specific role.
- Images should not be stretched in any way. If you can't find high quality images that meet our requirements, please leave it for someone else to fill in.
- There should be no writing on the actor images.
- Images should ideally be head shots or stay above the waist.
- Actors should not have hats, glasses (unless they wear them full-time), hands, props, or anything else in their photo. It should just be a clear shot of their face and chest, looking at the camera.
- Images must take up the entire canvas; bars on the sides or top are not allowed.
- Character images should be an image of the actor in this specific role. If an animated series, this should be a photo of the character they voice, from the chest up — a picture of the voice actor can be added for the Actor Image. If an image is already set for this actor, uploading an image will replace the existing one.
New Features 10/23/19
- TALENT AT THE EPISODE LEVEL – Writers, Directors, and Actors are now attached at the episode level, providing greater flexibility to show which pieces of talent were responsible for a single episode. To add a person at the episode level, please select the episode, and then hit “Add Person” to search for their profile. If one isn’t available, please create it. From here, please select the type of role the talent is responsible for including “actor, creator, crew, director, producer, writer, guest star.”
- ALIASES – We finally support aliases or akas, which will help search considerably. With known series (i.e. “Mayday” in Canada and “Air Crash Investigations” in the U.S.) please add the searchable aliases in the “edit translations” section under “aliases.”
- Genre – You’ll notice that we’ve added a few new categories in recent months including miniseries, romance, anime, and musical. Now you can filter by these genres.
- Networks – We’ve added the ability to filter by network and to drill down into a network’s programs.
- Countries – You can sort networks by countries using the countries in the drop down.
- NETWORK SEARCH – Users are now able to search by networks to see their programs. Please see the upper right top-hand nav and click on the hyperlink of the network.
- NAMING SEASONS – When a season has a particular name, (i.e. American Horror Story: Apocalypse, The Haunting of Bly Manor) please name it by going to the “edit translations.”