3 ms·

Ah. Didn’t know IMDB was owned by Amazon. Put’s all ratings on Prime in a different perspective.

sofixa 4y ago
> Didn’t know IMDB was owned by Amazon Yep. That's what enables Prime Video's X-Ray where you can see details about the actors and music of a particular scene while watching, and what also makes it impossible for competitors such as Netflix to have a similar feature. If IMDB were separate, the data would probably be accessible to anyone.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  IMDB is the only provider of this type of data?
  - subsistence234 4y ago
  - dewey 4y ago
    No, there's a bunch of other companies doing that but they are not as consumer facing as IMDb. One would be: https://www.gracenote.com/tv-and-movie-data/ https://www.gracenote.com/tv-and-movie-data/
- wodenokoto 4y ago
  C-more use IMDb ratings in their streaming app. So it is possible for competitors to buy access to this data. I also think that minute to minute music and actor info is not sourced from IMDb. And I’d be surprised if Netflix couldn’t at least to it for their own properties. I think there is a fundamental difference in how the two services go about things. On Netflix it can be quite the challenge to even see cast and director and it is difficult to browse by such categories. Netflix sees themselves as the purveyor of advanced recommendations.
- hobofan 4y ago
  The data that X-Ray builds on is an additional proprietary dataset built via manual data annotation. It would be entirely possible for Netflix to build a similar dataset, and Amazon Prime Video doesn't have any significant advantage here by its association to IMDB (as would be the case if e.g. all production companies would be required to deposit X-Ray data themselves to IMDB to be eligible for major awards). Given that Prime Video seems to base its user-facing catalog organisation on IMDB, and that that one is probably the most convoluted of all the streaming providers, I'd argue the are even shooting themselves in the foot by being too closely aligned.
- burntsushi 4y ago
  Not sure about that. IMDb has always (and still does) make their movie database available via a dump. But there are pretty severe restrictions on how you can use that data. Basically personal use only. I've been downloading those dumps for years. Long before Amazon bought them. And their usage policy has always been incredibly restrictive. Now maybe if Amazon dodn't buy them IMDb would be more willing to sell that data somehow. But, they have always been very very stingy with it. So it's not just Amazon coming in and locking things down. (Shortly after Amazon bought IMDb, they retired their old whacky dump format and converted to CSV instead. Of which I am thankful.)
shever73 4y ago
I didn't either. That's just put IMDB off my list.
stevehawk 4y ago
They bought IMDB like twenty years ago. It's how they originally knew which DVDs to stock in warehouses - by knowing which actors and films were researched by end users
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

> Didn’t know IMDB was owned by Amazon Yep. That's what enables Prime Video's X-Ray where you can see details about the actors and music of a particular scene while watching, and what also makes it impossible for competitors such as Netflix to have a similar feature. If IMDB were separate, the data would probably be accessible to anyone.

stingraycharles 4y ago
IMDB is the only provider of this type of data?
- subsistence234 4y ago
- dewey 4y ago
  No, there's a bunch of other companies doing that but they are not as consumer facing as IMDb. One would be: https://www.gracenote.com/tv-and-movie-data/ https://www.gracenote.com/tv-and-movie-data/
wodenokoto 4y ago
C-more use IMDb ratings in their streaming app. So it is possible for competitors to buy access to this data. I also think that minute to minute music and actor info is not sourced from IMDb. And I’d be surprised if Netflix couldn’t at least to it for their own properties. I think there is a fundamental difference in how the two services go about things. On Netflix it can be quite the challenge to even see cast and director and it is difficult to browse by such categories. Netflix sees themselves as the purveyor of advanced recommendations.
hobofan 4y ago
The data that X-Ray builds on is an additional proprietary dataset built via manual data annotation. It would be entirely possible for Netflix to build a similar dataset, and Amazon Prime Video doesn't have any significant advantage here by its association to IMDB (as would be the case if e.g. all production companies would be required to deposit X-Ray data themselves to IMDB to be eligible for major awards). Given that Prime Video seems to base its user-facing catalog organisation on IMDB, and that that one is probably the most convoluted of all the streaming providers, I'd argue the are even shooting themselves in the foot by being too closely aligned.
burntsushi 4y ago
Not sure about that. IMDb has always (and still does) make their movie database available via a dump. But there are pretty severe restrictions on how you can use that data. Basically personal use only. I've been downloading those dumps for years. Long before Amazon bought them. And their usage policy has always been incredibly restrictive. Now maybe if Amazon dodn't buy them IMDb would be more willing to sell that data somehow. But, they have always been very very stingy with it. So it's not just Amazon coming in and locking things down. (Shortly after Amazon bought IMDb, they retired their old whacky dump format and converted to CSV instead. Of which I am thankful.)

shever73 4y ago

I didn't either. That's just put IMDB off my list.

stevehawk 4y ago

They bought IMDB like twenty years ago. It's how they originally knew which DVDs to stock in warehouses - by knowing which actors and films were researched by end users

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]