Stargate SG-1 pilote episode

Why don't you ask TVDb to renumber their list?
Per TVmaze policy, Rewriting history after an episode has premiered is never accepted.
Since it's premiered as a single feature-length episode, it should stay as such.

I don't care who was right or wrong here. I'm just looking for a way to join data from several sources. The episode number seemed a good way. But apparently it isn't since difference site have different idea of the the numbering scheme.

Any suggestion to "link" tvbd episodes with maze episodes? Using episode's title doesn't seem very robust either. Or is it something I missed in the episode record?

Thanks for the reply.
I was looking at the alternate list policy (https://www.tvmaze.com/faq/40/alternate-episodes). Couldn't such cases be handled using an alternate list? 

@tnt wrote:
The most obvious choice, probably, would be to use the episode ID.

 I'm lost here: isn't the episode ID specific to The Maze? How can I automatically CROSS JOIN data from other sources using that piece of information?

@Sylvain wrote:
Thanks for the reply.
I was looking at the alternate list policy (https://www.tvmaze.com/faq/40/alternate-episodes). Couldn't such cases be handled using an alternate list? 

Yes, I suppose a DVD order list could be a solution, but it won't be applicable to all shows.

 I'm lost here: isn't the episode ID specific to The Maze? How can I automatically CROSS JOIN data from other sources using that piece of information?

Yeah, I misread your question, that's why I deleted my answer. The external IDs are available at the show level only. I suppose a combination of episode name and airdate could be used to cross-link the different databases. But that won't be automatic, you'll need to maintain the logic yourself. 

@tnt wrote:
I suppose a combination of episode name and airdate could be used to cross-link the different databases.

I reached a similar conclusion: it looks like the best way to uniquely identify an episode cross-sites is by combining the initial airdate with some well known key identifying the series (1).

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(1) like the IMDB show ID, which seems to be available on all my data sources

Upon further investigation, I don't see a way to add a DVD order list to SG-1, because the 1st season consists of 21 episodes on DVD, and also on various VOD services where it's still available, for example, Prime Video, Netflix or Stan in Australia. So it seems all 3 kinds of the world premiere, broadcast, streaming and DVD had 21 episodes. So unless there's some country, premiered the show with 22 episodes, nothing could be done at this point.

The short answer is any episode listing that breaks "Children of the Gods" into two episodes is following a syndication order (I think Sci-Fi split it back in the day for editing of the obvious scenes as well as adverts), not the original episode order. The situation is further complicated since there is now a 'final cut' version of that episode floating around as well that is different from the original version in both content and runtime. 

@tnt, @LadyShelley , thanks for your replies.

@tnt wrote:
Upon further investigation, I don't see a way to add a DVD order list to SG-1, because the 1st season consists of 21 episodes on DVD, and also on various VOD services where it's still available, for example, Prime Video, Netflix or Stan in Australia. So it seems all 3 kinds of the world premiere, broadcast, streaming and DVD had 21 episodes. So unless there's some country, premiered the show with 22 episodes, nothing could be done at this point.

I agree. The French DVD edition I own also has 21 episodes. There was a discussion on the related Wikipedia talk page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Stargate_SG-1_(season_1)#Number_of_episodes). From what I understand, the first aired episode had two production numbers assigned (1x01 and 1x02). So, the episode "200" is the 200th episode only if you count the first one for two. When you query the API on the the TVMaze, "200" actually appears as the episode #199: https://api.tvmaze.com/shows/204?embed=episodes

With the TVDB trying to monetize their service, I imagine many API consumers will turn toward alternative data providers. It would be great to have a solution to map TVDB episodes id to our episode ids. Can't we imagine adding a dedicated Alternate List to fix the issues? I think @david  's implementation for alternate lists has provision for "split episodes" as explained in the FAQ:

Split episodes

Even more rare is the opposite of merged episodes. In this scenario, an episode that originally aired as a single continuous episode is split into two separate entries on the alternate source.

For such a case, create two Alternate Episodes. First, season "1", episode number "1" and link it to S01E01. Secondly, season "1", episode number "2" and also link it to S01E01.

@Sylvain wrote:

Can't we imagine adding a dedicated Alternate List to fix the issues? I think @david  's implementation for alternate lists has provision for "split episodes" as explained in the FAQ:

On the second thought, I think the "Verbatim order" alternate list may be a plausible solution. I will create it now.

UPD https://www.tvmaze.com/alternatelists/175/stargate-sg-1-verbatim-order 

@tnt wrote:
On the second thought, I think the "Verbatim order" alternate list may be a plausible solution. I will create it now.

Great! Thanks a lot @tnt .

On my side I discovered a solution based on a combination of the series' id and episode airdate was not viable, since there are occasional inconsistencies between data sources there too. 

Subsidiary question: to query the list of episodes in the verbatim order, I must
1) find the show id: http://api.tvmaze.com/search/shows?q=Stargate+SG1
2) check if the show has a "verbatim" alternate list: http://api.tvmaze.com/shows/204/alternatelists
3) if it does, retrieve the episodes from the alternate list: http://api.tvmaze.com/alternatelists/175?embed=alternateepisodes

Is there a way to reduce the number of queries, say, by embedding some content here or there? FWIW, http://api.tvmaze.com/search/shows?q=Stargate+SG1&embed=alternatelists does not embed the alternate list(s).
UPDATE: ... but http://api.tvmaze.com/singlesearch/shows?q=Stargate+SG1&embed=alternatelists does embed the alternate list(s).

@Sylvain wrote:
 

Is there a way to reduce the number of queries, say, by embedding some content here or there? FWIW, http://api.tvmaze.com/search/shows?q=Stargate+SG1&embed=alternatelists does not embed the alternate list(s).

I suppose that's because a show search will potentially return multiple results, so embedding additional data into all of them will be excessive. 

I believe @david or @gazza911 could give you a more detailed answer, but I think it should be asked in the dedicated API forum.

Actually, I didn't understood how alternate lists are working.
I started another thread to request clarifications.
 

As tnt said, the show multi-result search likely wouldn't be changed to allow embedding.

In terms of getting the list by type, you can't do that currently; it is currently disabled (when you try to access the following, it will return "beta endpoint").

https://api.tvmaze.com/shows/204/alternateepisodes?type=verbatim_release

Only retrieving DVD ordering & episodes was added (as it was to be used for the Kodi add-on).

https://api.tvmaze.com/shows/204/dvdepisodes

@Sylvain I'd suggest posting in this thread: https://www.tvmaze.com/threads/4542/alpha-api-for-alternate-airdates?page=2#65858