Welcome to the Java Movie Database
latest release: 1.40 FINAL (available shortly - ...which allows to import the IMDb files again (LIST files plus the new TSV files...)
-->
JMDB 2 Development: planning/prototyping (more or less on hold) - extending JMDB 1.x to re-use existing code
Follow JMDB development progress on Twitter or look into the News section...
What is JMDB?
Java Movie Database is a Java-based application to search for information about movies, actors, actresses, producer, director and everything related to those. It's planned that JMDB will become an open source project in future with a JMDB v2.x release but those plans are currently on hold.
The information is basically the same as you can get when using the
IMDb
website.
Currently (22nd December 2017) it counts over 4.725.000 movies (including
TV-Shows with their episodes, video games, etc.) and over 4.170.000 actors/actresses
in total (actors=2.673.784/actresses=1.498.354 to be exact; NOTE: the
actors.list.gz file hasn't been updated since 22nd September 2017).
Back in 1999 we began with a little more than 300.000 movies and 600.000 actors
and actresses in total (see the IMDb data development chart below).
Beside this base data about movies and performer there is a lot of other data available and supported by the Java Movie Database application like plots, biographies, ratings, goofs and much more. A detailed list of supported information can be found below as well as a list of unsupported data.
Here you see a chart showing the increase of movies plus actors and actresses since 1999. Between 2005-11-11 and 2006-02-03 you see a major increase of movies in a very short period of time. This was the time when the Internet Movie Database began to handle episodes of series as movies.
The difference between the IMDb and JMDB is, that the Java Movie Database is an alternative way to navigate through this information. It can be run on a stand-alone PC just as in a network environment. Another advantage is that you can write your own programs and scripts to use the locally installed database (see the cinema program list at my personal website http://www.juergen-ulbts.de/) and with JMDB2 webservices are planned!
The JMDB will import the IMDb textfiles (also called IMDb LIST files)
into the database system for you. In 2017 IMDb introduced a new data
format for the information (called TSV files because they are TAB separated
text files).
Unfortunately with the move to this new data format, most information is no
longer available (full details who played in which movie and which character,
including the plot, release-dates, biographies, etc.). This makes the new data
format actually useless and which resulted in strong complaints as the contributors
and other users delivered the data over two decades for free to the IMDb only to be
left with nothing in return.
There are promises that active contributors might even get more details with the
new data format in the near future but month after this announcement there is still
nothing available. So for now the only option is to use the old LIST files together
with the new TSV files until actually the same information previously provided in
the LIST files is available in the TSV files.
The About JMDB page contains some pictures and the Using JMDB page features even more details (incl. Flash demos).
To use JMDB, you only need a Java Runtime Environment
and the database
PostgreSQL,
MySQL or
MS SQL Server.
For best performance please use PostgreSQL, as it is the fastest of them. While the performance
running the search is not actually that different, importing the data is.
Importing into MySQL is 2-3 times slower compared to PostgreSQL v9.6/v10.1. The MS SQL Server 2014 (worst; does not like BULK-Inserts very much) is 9-10 times slower compared to the very fast PostgreSQL database system.
This means that you can run it on most platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X,
any Unix, ArcaOS,
eComStation (eCS)
or the original OS/2 from IBM.
It is planned to support more databases in the future (e.g. H2).
The code is already there but testing all databases requires some time and the
available options should be enough already.
Here is a complete list of the supported information provided by the Internet Movie Database (sorted by name):
TSV files (*.tsv.gz) - the new format since mid 2017 which is missing almost everything you had before with the LIST files...
Currently the new format is only imported into the database but not yet used for queries.
As most information is only available in the old LIST file format this didn't make sense yet.
- Titles (title.basics.tsv.gz) - (supported since JMDB v1.40 pre-release 4 builds in August 2017)
- AKA-Titles (title.akas.tsv.gz) - (supported since JMDB v1.40 pre-release 4 builds in mid December 2017)
- Episodes (title.episode.tsv.gz) - (supported since JMDB v1.40 pre-release 4 builds in August 2017)
- Ratings (title.ratings.tsv.gz) - (supported since JMDB v1.40 pre-release 4 builds in August 2017)
- Person Names (name.basics.tsv.gz) - (supported since JMDB v1.40 pre-release 4 builds in August 2017)
- Crew (title.crew.tsv.gz) - (supported since JMDB v1.40 pre-release 4 builds in August 2017)
- Principals (title.principals.tsv.gz) - (supported since JMDB v1.40 pre-release 4 builds in August 2017)
- Actors
- Actresses
- AKA-Names
- AKA-Titles
- Alternate-Versions - (will be supported by JMDB v1.40 and later - included in JMDB v1.40 pre-release 1)
- Biographies
- Business
- Certificates
- Cinematographers
- Color-Info
- Composers
- Costume-Designers
- Countries
- Crazy-Credits - (will be supported by JMDB v1.40 and later - included in JMDB v1.40 pre-release 1)
- Directors
- Distributors
- Editors
- Genres
- German-AKA-Titles - (still supported by JMDB but no longer updated or supported by IMDb [since May 2005])
- Goofs
- Italian-AKA-Titles - (still supported by JMDB but no longer updated or supported by IMDb [since Dec. 2000])
- Keywords
- Language
- Literature - (will be supported by JMDB v1.40 and later - included in JMDB v1.40 pre-release 1)
- Locations - (will be supported by JMDB v1.40 and later - included in JMDB v1.40 pre-release 1)
- Miscellaneous
- Movie-Links - (internal references from one movie to another)
- Movies
- MPAA-Ratings-Reasons
- Plot
- Producers
- Production-Companies
- Production-Designers
- Quotes
- Ratings
- Release-Dates
- Running-Times
- Sound-Mix - (will be supported by JMDB v1.40 and later - included in JMDB v1.40 pre-release 2)
- Soundtracks - (will be supported by JMDB v1.40 and later - included in JMDB v1.40 pre-release 2)
- Taglines
- Technical - (details about the movie)
- Trivia
- Writers
There is also an unofficial IMDb MovieId list available that is supported by the Java Movie Database. The last MovieID list has been created end of April 2009 and so far it's not clear when or if there will be an update. I got the tools to update it myself in December 2009 but so far I didn't do it.
Currently available but unsupported LIST file data (sorted by name):
- Complete-Cast - (doesn't make sense to support as it only says if cast of a movie is complete or not)
- Complete-Crew - (doesn't make sense to support as it only says if crew of a movie is complete or not)
- ISO-AKA-Titles - (unsupported by IMDb since 1998)
- Laserdisc - (may have been interesting before the DVD and it's successor Blu-ray [and the discontinued HD-DVD] came up)
- Miscellaneous-Companies - (??? - haven't looked into it)
- Special-Effects-Companies - ...could be useful)
These data files will be added to supported list on user request and if
it does make sense (see "complete-xxx" entries for a negative example).
The more requests I get for one list the faster it will be added.
