Seconded. Actually, I'd really prefer if all the title data possible could be included in the initial data (e.g. for a search, or queue GET). It's cheap to receive a little more data (available formats, synopsis, user rating, etc.) but VERY expensive to make a separate network call for each resource.
Brent, you can get extended title data such as formats and synopsis using the expand parameter. Check out the API Conventions reference.
You'll always have to make an additional call for user data though. Bundling it with the non-personalized data really hurts cache-ability of responses.
Does the expand=cast,synopsis,foobar parameter work with catalog index dumps too? I tried passing the parameter to redownload the catalog index, but cast synopsis etc are not there.
The expansion of params is not supported for the catalog index. You are right, we don't provide the synopsis information in the catalog index, but it does have the cast. You would find them as people links.
With a sample query like
/catalog/titles/movies/70077553?expand=cast,directors,synopsis,awards
i can get the cast and directors name and resource location. But is there a way to get the person's bio in the response, instead of the resource location?
With the Amazon Web Services API I can request details for multiple movies with one request as so (SubscriptionID and AssociateTag removed):
http://webservices.amazon.com/onca/xml?Service=AWSECommerceService&Version=2005-03-23&Operation=ItemLookup&ContentType=text%2Fxml&SubscriptionId=XXXXXXXXXXXX&AssociateTag=XXXXXXXXXX&ItemId=B00004XMVN,0783232047,B000053UIE,B00004Y6B2,B00004CLG2,0783115202,B00000K31Q,B00007GZRK,B0012Q732O,B001B1T7BU&ResponseGroup=Images,ItemAttributes,EditorialReview
This returns an xml file with details for 10 movies (Amazon caps a single request for multiple movies at 10).
Is there an equivalent way to do this with the Netflix API?
Message edited by Bruinor 3 years ago
Michael Hart – 3 years ago
You can't do this yet, but bulk/batch query is something we're definitely considering for our next major release.
Brent – 3 years ago
Seconded. Actually, I'd really prefer if all the title data possible could be included in the initial data (e.g. for a search, or queue GET). It's cheap to receive a little more data (available formats, synopsis, user rating, etc.) but VERY expensive to make a separate network call for each resource.
Michael Hart – 3 years ago
Brent, you can get extended title data such as formats and synopsis using the expand parameter. Check out the API Conventions reference.
You'll always have to make an additional call for user data though. Bundling it with the non-personalized data really hurts cache-ability of responses.
Anurag – 3 years ago
Does the expand=cast,synopsis,foobar parameter work with catalog index dumps too? I tried passing the parameter to redownload the catalog index, but cast synopsis etc are not there.
priya – 3 years ago
The expansion of params is not supported for the catalog index. You are right, we don't provide the synopsis information in the catalog index, but it does have the cast. You would find them as people links.
Anurag – 3 years ago
It would have saved several API calls if catalog/index contained synopsis too :)
Anurag – 3 years ago
With a sample query like
/catalog/titles/movies/70077553?expand=cast,directors,synopsis,awards
i can get the cast and directors name and resource location. But is there a way to get the person's bio in the response, instead of the resource location?
Michael Hart – 3 years ago
No, we've normalized people and movie data requests into different resources/calls.