TV Shows & Streaming Database — Deep Research Brief, Part 03: TV Data Model, Identifiers, and Metadata Standards
100 preserved extracts. Research planning document; requested work is not evidence that the work was completed.
- NOTE 3553
TV Shows & Streaming Database — Deep Research Brief, Part 03: TV Data Model, Identifiers, and Metadata Standards
Conduct exhaustive research on how TV data is structured, identified, classified, and matched across the industry and open data projects: entities and relationships, episode ordering schemes, specials and multi-part episodes, localized titles, credits and characters, franchises and format adaptations, status lifecycles, worldwide content ratings, genre and mood taxonomies, external identifiers, schema.org markup, entity resolution, and provenance. The goal is a field-level, source-tested data model and canonical ID strategy that the website can implement directly, with documented edge cases and test sets that prove it handles real shows correctly.
- NOTE 3554
1. How to research this part
Treat named identifiers, standards versions, field names, and example IDs as leads to verify against current documentation.
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1. How to research this part
Minimum coverage: document the TV data model of at least 12 sources (IMDb, TMDB, TheTVDB, TVmaze, Trakt, Wikidata, EIDR, Gracenote, AniDB, AniList, MyAnimeList, MyDramaList); build an edge-case test set of at least 150 shows; collect at least 25 content-rating systems; produce an identifier crosswalk for at least 500 series.
- NOTE 3556
1. How to research this part
Prefer primary documentation: API references (TMDB v3/v4, TheTVDB v4, TVmaze, Trakt), IMDb non-commercial dataset docs, Wikidata property pages, EIDR data-model and registration guides, schema.org type pages, EBU/SMPTE and MovieLabs standards (Media Entertainment Core, MEC; Common Metadata), and national ratings bodies.
- NOTE 3557
1. How to research this part
For each claim about a source's model, record the endpoint or dump field that proves it, and the access date.
- NOTE 3558
1. How to research this part
Do not copy proprietary schemas or data wholesale; describe structure and cite documentation.
- NOTE 3559
2. Core entities and relationships
Research how each source models these, then recommend a canonical model:
- NOTE 3560
2. Core entities and relationships
Series (show), Season (and part/volume/chapter/"book"), Episode, Special, Segment (for anthologies and sketch shows), Edit/Version (broadcast cut, extended cut, censored edit, streaming re-edit).
- NOTE 3561
2. Core entities and relationships
Person, Credit (person × work × role × episode range), Character, CharacterPortrayal (character × person × work × age/era, e.g., young and old versions).
- NOTE 3562
2. Core entities and relationships
Organization: network, platform, production company, distributor, studio, format owner.
- NOTE 3563
2. Core entities and relationships
Franchise/Universe, Relationship (spin-off, sequel, prequel, reboot, revival, remake, format adaptation, crossover, backdoor pilot, companion aftershow).
- NOTE 3564
2. Core entities and relationships
SourceWork (novel, comic, manga, light novel, webtoon, game, podcast, film, format).
- NOTE 3565
2. Core entities and relationships
Award, Nomination, RatingCertificate, Availability, Asset (image, trailer), ChartEntry, StatusEvent.
- NOTE 3566
2. Core entities and relationships
Question: which sources model "part" and "volume" as seasons vs. as sub-season groupings? Worked example (verify): Stranger Things 4 Vol. 1/2, Money Heist Part 1–5 (Netflix parts vs. Antena 3 original two seasons), Better Call Saul S6 split, Attack on Titan Final Season Parts 1–3 plus "The Final Chapters" specials.
- NOTE 3567
3. Episode ordering schemes
Document supported orders per source: TheTVDB (Aired, DVD, Absolute, Alternate, Regional, Alternate DVD; verify list), TMDB (default seasons plus "episode groups" types: original air date, absolute, DVD, digital, story arc, production, TV; verify), TVmaze (single order), Trakt (follows TMDB since 2024 migration; verify), IMDb (season/episode numbers only), AniDB (per-cour entries with specials "S", credits "C", trailers "T", parodies "P", other "O").
- NOTE 3568
3. Episode ordering schemes
Worked examples to verify and store as tests:
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3. Episode ordering schemes
Firefly — broadcast order (Fox, 2002) vs. intended/DVD order; pilot "Serenity" aired last.
- NOTE 3570
3. Episode ordering schemes
Futurama — production seasons vs. broadcast seasons across Fox, Comedy Central, and Hulu revival (2023).
- NOTE 3571
3. Episode ordering schemes
Doctor Who — 1963 serials, 2005 series, 2023 specials, and 2024 "Season 1" renumbering on Disney+ (verify).
- NOTE 3572
3. Episode ordering schemes
One Piece — absolute episode numbers (1000+) vs. arc seasons on streaming services.
- NOTE 3573
3. Episode ordering schemes
Rick and Morty, The Simpsons — production codes.
- NOTE 3574
3. Episode ordering schemes
Community, Arrested Development S4 remix "Fateful Consequences" (2018) as alternate edit.
- NOTE 3575
3. Episode ordering schemes
Love, Death & Robots — Netflix's per-user episode ordering experiments (verify).
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3. Episode ordering schemes
Produce: an ordering table with scheme, source, mapping to canonical episode IDs, and conflict notes.
- NOTE 3577
4. Specials, pilots, multi-part, and unaired episodes
Specials: holiday specials, reunion specials (Friends: The Reunion), aftershows, recaps, clip shows, behind-the-scenes, webisodes, minisodes. Where do sources place them (Season 0 in TMDB/TheTVDB; separate titles in IMDb)?
- NOTE 3578
4. Specials, pilots, multi-part, and unaired episodes
Multi-part episodes: two-part episodes aired as one on streaming (or the reverse). Test cases (verify): Lost two-hour finales counted as one or two episodes; Sherlock feature-length episodes; broadcast double-episodes split for syndication.
- NOTE 3579
4. Specials, pilots, multi-part, and unaired episodes
Unaired and unreleased: unaired pilots (Game of Thrones original pilot), pulled episodes (Community S2 "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" blackface scene removed; verify), completed seasons shelved or pulled for tax write-offs (e.g., HBO Max removals, 2022–2023; verify titles), banned episodes (Pokémon "Dennō Senshi Porygon").
- NOTE 3580
4. Specials, pilots, multi-part, and unaired episodes
Fields: episodekind (regular, special, pilot, unairedpilot, recap, clip, webisode, minisode, extended, bonus), partsof (for merged), splitinto (for split), releasestatus (aired, released, unaired, withdrawn, lost).
- NOTE 3581
5. Titles and localization
Title types: original title (native script), romanized title (with system, e.g., Revised Romanization, Hepburn, Pinyin), English title, localized titles per territory and language, working titles, alternate/marketing titles, series vs. season subtitles (Cobra Kai, American Horror Story: Coven).
- NOTE 3582
5. Titles and localization
Test cases (verify): La Casa de Papel / Money Heist; Shingeki no Kyojin / Attack on Titan; Bron/Broen / The Bridge (and remakes); Kaun Banega Crorepati; Dark (German); Squid Game / Ojingeo Geim and Korean vs. Netflix romanization; Ted Lasso titles in Latin American Spanish vs. Spain Spanish.
- NOTE 3583
5. Titles and localization
Episode title localization: per-language episode titles, missing translations, and TMDB/TheTVDB translation completeness by language.
- NOTE 3584
5. Titles and localization
Languages: BCP 47 tags (e.g., pt-BR, es-419, zh-Hant-TW), original language(s), spoken languages, dub/subtitle tracks per availability record.
- NOTE 3585
5. Titles and localization
Fields: titleid, text, language, script (ISO 15924), territory, titletype, isprimary, romanizationsystem, source, validfrom, validto.
- NOTE 3586
6. People, characters, and credits
Credit granularity: series-level "starring" vs. per-episode credits vs. "also starring" and guest credits; uncredited roles; voice roles by language (Japanese seiyū vs. English dub cast); crew roles (creator, developer, showrunner, executive producer, writer, story editor, director, composer). Showrunner is often not a formal credit; how do sources record it?
- NOTE 3587
6. People, characters, and credits
Test cases (verify): Doctor Who Doctors as one character with many portrayals; The Crown recasting by era; This Is Us child/teen/adult actors; Bojack Horseman dual role; anime dub cast across Funimation and Crunchyroll releases.
- NOTE 3588
6. People, characters, and credits
Person identity edge cases: stage names, name changes, transgender performers' current names (show current name; do not display deadnames; research how IMDb updated its policy in 2019–2020; verify), people with the same name (IMDb nm disambiguation), deceased persons, privacy requests for birth dates.
- NOTE 3589
6. People, characters, and credits
Credit fields: creditid, personid, workid (series/season/episode), rolecategory (cast, voice, guest, crew), job (controlled vocabulary), characterid, creditedas, billingorder, episodecount (derived), firstepisodeid, lastepisodeid, languageofperformance, isuncredited, source, verifiedby.
- NOTE 3590
6. People, characters, and credits
Controlled job vocabulary: compare TMDB departments/jobs, EIDR contributor roles, MovieLabs roles, and IMDb categories.
- NOTE 3591
7. Franchises, spin-offs, remakes, and format adaptations
Relationship types and direction: spinoffof, sequelto, prequelto, rebootof, revivalof (same continuity, e.g., Twin Peaks: The Return), remakeof, adaptationofformat, crossoverwith, continuationundernewtitle (Sabrina vs. Chilling Adventures; Cobra Kai from films), sharesuniverse (Arrowverse, Chicago franchise, Yellowstone universe, Taylor Sheridan shows, One Chicago, FBI).
- NOTE 3592
7. Franchises, spin-offs, remakes, and format adaptations
Format adaptations (unscripted): Big Brother, Survivor (Expedition Robinson), The Masked Singer (from King of Mask Singer), Love Island, Got Talent, The Office (UK → U.S., India, Germany's Stromberg (verify legal relationship)), Skins, Shameless, The Bridge. Record format owner (Banijay, Fremantle, ITV Studios, BBC Studios, Sony) and local version as separate series linked by format.
- NOTE 3593
7. Franchises, spin-offs, remakes, and format adaptations
Continuations with changed titles and networks: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Fox → NBC; Lucifer Fox → Netflix; The Expanse Syfy → Prime Video; Arrested Development Fox → Netflix; Futurama; Manifest NBC → Netflix; Family Guy. Should these be one series record with networkhistory? Recommend yes, and document how sources differ.
- NOTE 3594
8. Status lifecycle
Statuses: rumored, indevelopment, pilotordered, seriesordered, preproduction, filming, postproduction, scheduled, airing/returning, onhiatus, renewed, ended (planned finale), cancelled, cancelledafterfilming (unaired), revived, inlimbo.
- NOTE 3595
8. Status lifecycle
Store status as dated events with source and confidence, not one mutable field. Test cases (verify): 1899 cancelled after S1; Warrior Nun cancelled then revival announced; Westworld; Mindhunter on indefinite hold; Lockwood & Co.; The OA; Lucifer revived by Netflix; Timeless cancelled, revived, ended with film.
- NOTE 3596
8. Status lifecycle
Map source vocabularies: TMDB (Returning Series, Planned, In Production, Ended, Canceled, Pilot), TVmaze (Running, Ended, To Be Determined, In Development), TheTVDB statuses (verify).
- NOTE 3597
9. Content ratings worldwide
Collect for at least 25 systems: U.S. TV Parental Guidelines (TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-Y7-FV, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14, TV-MA; descriptors D, L, S, V, FV), MPA (for TV movies), BBFC (U, PG, 12, 12A, 15, 18, R18), Ofcom broadcast watershed (not a rating), FSK (0, 6, 12, 16, 18), ACB Australia (G, PG, M, MA15+, R18+), NZ OFLC, CBFC India (U, UA 7+, UA 13+, UA 16+, A; 2024 amendments; verify) and IT Rules OTT categories, Canada (Canadian TV Classification; Québec Régie), France CSA/Arcom (-10, -12, -16, -18), Spain ICAA/CNMC, Italy, Netherlands Kijkwijzer (AL, 6, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18; verify), Nordics (Medietilsynet, Statens medieråd, KAVI), Brazil ClassInd (L, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18), Mexico RTC, Korea KMRB (All, 7, 12, 15, 19), Japan (broadcast self-regulation, EIRIN for film), Singapore IMDA, Philippines MTRCB, Saudi GCAM, UAE, Netflix's own maturity ratings where no local rating exists.
- NOTE 3598
9. Content ratings worldwide
Fields: ratingsystemid, jurisdiction, value, descriptors[], ratedwork (series/season/episode), ratedby (official body, platform self-rating, broadcaster), certificatenumber, date, source.
- NOTE 3599
9. Content ratings worldwide
Question: which platforms apply ratings at episode level (Netflix displays episode-specific advisories in some markets; verify)?
- NOTE 3600
10. Genre, mood, and theme taxonomies
Compare: TMDB TV genres (e.g., Action & Adventure, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Kids, News, Reality, Soap, Talk, War & Politics), TVmaze genres, IMDb genres, TheTVDB genres, Gracenote genre and "Video Descriptors" (mood, theme, setting; verify naming), Netflix internal "altgenres" (reported by The Atlantic, 2014) as a model not a source, EBU ContentCS, Wikidata genre items, AniList tags (with spoiler flags and rank), MyDramaList tags, TV Tropes (as reference; licensing CC BY-NC-SA; verify).
- NOTE 3601
10. Genre, mood, and theme taxonomies
Design facets: format (sitcom, procedural, anthology, docuseries, competition, talk, soap, telenovela, microdrama), genre, subgenre, tone (dark, cozy, satirical), themes (found family, heist), setting (time/place), audience (kids, teens, family), pacing, content advisories (not mood tags), and spoiler-sensitive tags.
- NOTE 3602
10. Genre, mood, and theme taxonomies
Produce: a proposed taxonomy of at least 400 tags with definitions, parent-child relations, mappings to TMDB/TVmaze/AniList genres, and spoiler flags.
- NOTE 3603
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
For each identifier: format, scope (series/season/episode/person), assignment authority, public availability, license, stability, and merge/redirect behavior.
- NOTE 3604
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
IMDb: tt + 7–8 digits for titles and episodes; nm for names; episodes linked via title.episode.tsv (parentTconst, seasonNumber, episodeNumber). Record redirect handling on merges.
- NOTE 3605
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
TMDB: numeric TV series ID; seasons and episodes addressed by seriesid + seasonnumber + episodenumber, plus internal episode IDs; externalids endpoint returns IMDb, TVDB, Wikidata, etc. (verify list).
- NOTE 3606
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
TheTVDB: numeric series IDs (v4 also uses slugs); episode IDs; supports remote IDs.
- NOTE 3607
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
TVmaze: numeric show and episode IDs; lookup by IMDb/TVDB.
- NOTE 3608
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
Trakt: trakt ID, slug, and linked ids (imdb, tmdb, tvdb).
- NOTE 3609
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
Wikidata: QIDs; properties P345 (IMDb ID), P4983 (TMDB TV series ID), P4835 (TheTVDB series ID), P8600 (TVmaze series ID) (verify all property numbers); instance of Q5398426 (television series) (verify).
- NOTE 3610
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
EIDR: DOI-format 10.5240/XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-C; hierarchy Series → Season → Episode → Edit → Manifestation; alternate IDs.
- NOTE 3611
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
Gracenote TMS IDs: prefixes SH (series), EP (episode), MV (movie), SP (sports) with 8-digit root and 4-digit suffix (verify).
- NOTE 3612
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
ISAN: 96-bit with version segment (V-ISAN); root/episode/version structure (verify).
- NOTE 3613
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
Anime: AniDB aid/eid, AniList ID, MyAnimeList ID (per season/cour), Kitsu ID; mapping projects such as anime-offline-database, Fribb anime-lists, and ScudLee's anime-lists (AniDB→TVDB) (verify repos and licenses).
- NOTE 3614
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
Asian drama: MyDramaList IDs; Viki container IDs.
- NOTE 3615
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
Platform-native: Netflix title IDs, Amazon ASINs (by territory), Apple umc.cmc. IDs, Disney+ entity IDs, Roku content IDs, Google Knowledge Graph MIDs (/m/ and /g/).
- NOTE 3616
11. Identifiers and crosswalk
Produce: crosswalk table (canonicalid, idtype, value, scope, sourceofmapping, confidence, firstseen, lastverified, status: active/redirected/deprecated) for at least 500 series with season/episode depth for 100.
- NOTE 3617
12. schema.org and structured data
Types: TVSeries, TVSeason, TVEpisode, CreativeWorkSeason, Person, PerformanceRole, Organization/BroadcastService, BroadcastEvent, WatchAction (potentialAction with target and actionAccessibilityRequirement for availability/offers), AggregateRating, VideoObject, ImageObject.
- NOTE 3618
12. schema.org and structured data
Key properties: partOfSeries, partOfSeason, episodeNumber, seasonNumber, numberOfSeasons, numberOfEpisodes, actor (with PerformanceRole and characterName), director, productionCompany, contentRating, inLanguage, countryOfOrigin, sameAs (link to Wikidata/IMDb), identifier (PropertyValue), startDate/endDate.
- NOTE 3619
12. schema.org and structured data
Question: which properties does Google currently use for TV features, and what did Google deprecate (verify changes to "Media Actions" partner program)?
- NOTE 3620
12. schema.org and structured data
Worked example to produce: a JSON-LD block for one episode of The Bear (verify details) including series, season, credits, identifiers, and a WatchAction.
- NOTE 3621
13. Entity resolution
Signals: exact external-ID matches; normalized title (Unicode NFKC, casefold, punctuation, article stripping, romanization); original title; first-air year ±1; country and network; episode count; creator/lead cast overlap; season/episode date sequences (compare air-date vectors to match orderings).
- NOTE 3622
13. Entity resolution
Methods to research: deterministic rules plus probabilistic scoring (Fellegi–Sunter), blocking (by year and normalized title tokens), embedding similarity for titles across languages, Splink or Dedupe libraries, human review queues for scores in an uncertain band, and graph-based transitive closure with conflict detection.
- NOTE 3623
13. Entity resolution
Hard cases for the test set (verify each): same-title different shows (The Office UK/U.S.; Shameless; House of Cards 1990 vs. 2013; Battlestar Galactica 1978/2004; Doctor Who eras); remakes with same title and year proximity; anime seasons as separate entries vs. one series; K-dramas with multiple English titles; episodes with swapped numbers between sources; shows whose IDs were merged or split upstream.
- NOTE 3624
13. Entity resolution
Produce: gold-standard test set of at least 150 series and 2,000 episode pairs with correct mappings, plus precision/recall targets (e.g., ≥99.5% precision on auto-merge) and an evaluation script plan.
- NOTE 3625
14. Edit history and provenance
Research how IMDb (contribution review), TMDB (edit history per field, locks), TheTVDB (history and moderation), Wikidata (revisions, references with P248 stated in, P813 retrieved), and MusicBrainz (edit voting) track changes.
- NOTE 3626
14. Edit history and provenance
Fields per assertion: value, sourceid, sourceurl, retrievedat, assertedby (user/import/editor), method (import, manual, AIsuggested), confidence, reviewstatus, supersededby, licenseofsource.
- NOTE 3627
14. Edit history and provenance
Recommend field-level provenance for contested facts (air dates, credits, status) and record-level for low-risk fields.
- NOTE 3628
15. Full field-level schema (produce and validate)
series: id, slug, primarytitleid, originallanguage[], origincountries[], format, kind (scripted, unscripted, animated, anime, docuseries, talk, soap, microdrama, web), firstairdate, lastairdate, statuscurrent (derived), episoderuntimeminutes (typical, range), networkhistory[] (orgid, territory, from, to, role: original/continuation), productioncompanies[], createdby[], sourceworkids[], franchiseids[], genres[], tags[], ratings[], externalids[], defaultorderingscheme, islimited, isanthology, totalseasons (derived), totalepisodes (derived), synopsisids[] (original writing, per language), createdat, updatedat.
- NOTE 3629
15. Full field-level schema (produce and validate)
season: id, seriesid, orderingscheme, number, kind (season, part, volume, series, cour, specialgroup), title, airdatefirst, airdatelast, episodecount, releasemodel (weekly, binge, split, batch), externalids[].
- NOTE 3630
15. Full field-level schema (produce and validate)
episode: id, seriesid, primaryseasonid, numberinseason, absolutenumber, productioncode, titleids[], episodekind, runtimeminutes, runtimewithads, releasestatus, airdates[] (territory, network/platform, datetime with time zone, ispremiere), directors/writers via credits, ratingcertificates[], partsof[], splitinto[], externalids[].
- NOTE 3631
15. Full field-level schema (produce and validate)
episodeordermap: episodeid, scheme, seasonnumber, episodenumber, source.
- NOTE 3632
15. Full field-level schema (produce and validate)
person, character, characterportrayal, credit, organization, relationship, title, statusevent, ratingcertificate, externalid, provenance — define each with keys, required fields, cardinality, and indexes.
- NOTE 3633
16. Timeline 2019 – 2026
API/model changes: TheTVDB v4 API (2020–2021), TMDB episode groups expansion, Trakt's move to TMDB metadata (verify date), IMDb dataset field changes, TVmaze license changes, Wikidata property creations, EIDR hierarchy updates, MovieLabs MEC releases.
- NOTE 3634
16. Timeline 2019 – 2026
Ratings system changes: CBFC UA sub-categories (2024), Kijkwijzer updates, India IT Rules (2021), Korean streaming self-rating (2023; verify).
- NOTE 3635
16. Timeline 2019 – 2026
Notable renumbering events: Doctor Who (2024), Disney+ Star Wars/Marvel season labeling (verify), anime re-seasoning on Crunchyroll.
- NOTE 3636
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Full field-level schema (at least 15 entities, 250 fields) with types, constraints, and source mappings.
- NOTE 3637
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Source data-model comparison across at least 12 sources.
- NOTE 3638
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Episode-ordering reference with at least 40 documented shows.
- NOTE 3639
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Edge-case test set: at least 150 series and 2,000 episode pairs with gold mappings.
- NOTE 3640
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Identifier reference for at least 18 ID systems and a crosswalk of at least 500 series.
- NOTE 3641
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Content-rating reference: at least 25 systems with values, descriptors, and authority.
- NOTE 3642
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Genre/tone/theme taxonomy: at least 400 tags with mappings.
- NOTE 3643
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Relationship-type vocabulary with at least 60 worked examples.
- NOTE 3644
17. Deliverables for Part 03
schema.org JSON-LD templates for series, season, episode, person.
- NOTE 3645
17. Deliverables for Part 03
Glossary of at least 80 terms; source list with documentation URLs and access dates.
- NOTE 3646
Research standards
State the research date and cite the documentation version or endpoint for each source-model claim.
- NOTE 3647
Research standards
Verify every identifier format and Wikidata property number against live documentation.
- NOTE 3648
Research standards
Mark example IDs and episode facts as test inputs to verify, not facts.
- NOTE 3649
Research standards
Record the license of every mapping dataset (e.g., CC0, CC BY-SA, ODbL) before recommending reuse.
- NOTE 3650
Research standards
Handle person data with privacy in mind; never recommend displaying deadnames or unverified birth dates.
- NOTE 3651
Research standards
Separate official ratings from platform self-ratings and user-contributed advisories.
- NOTE 3652
Research standards
Note where a lawyer should review database-right or license compatibility when combining sources.