I some times find it hard to see the space between initials.

<Sigh>

I have to admit I used "credited as" in a similar way on the Buffy boxsets, as often intials would be put together with no stops (ie. "J. C." would be displayed as "JC").
I don't know if this is a similar situation or not.

If we insist on deviating from "as credited" with a set of parsing rules like the decision that we enter both J.C. Cunningham and J. C. Cunningham the same way in DVD Profiler, then I feel it's perfectly appropriate to use the "credited as" feature to show that the name appears in different formats in various film credits. DVD Profiler shows J./C./Cunningham as J. C. Cunningham, so if that's in the credits, there's no need to do anything. But if he's credited as J.C. Cunningham without the space between the initials, I'd like to show that in DVD Profiler by using the "credited as" field. This may seem like a trivial thing to some of you, but to me it's part of "as credited". If I do it this way, my cast list in DVD Profiler stays an exact replica of what I see on screen. If he's credited as J.C. Cunninham without the space, then he also appears as such in my cast list. The use of "credited as" makes sure that I don't end up with double entries for the same guy.

While this may seem trivial, it's just about transferring what we see on screen into DVD Profiler. Imagine this wasn't about actor names, but about role names. For example, if an actor is credited with playing the role of J.C., then I enter that as J.C. - but if he's credited with playing J. C., then that's what I enter. Seems logical: "as credited", right? So if I do that for role names, then why not for actor names?

Another example: this is just about a space, but how about commas? Another forum consensus is that prefixes are always preceded by a comma. So we've all decided that it's Robert Downey, Jr." instead of "Robert Downey Jr.". But what happens when he's credited as the latter, without the comma (for instance in 'Wonder Boys')? I use "credited as". I wonder if the users that want to disregard the spacing thing also want to disregard this? Again: I just want my cast list to reflect what's on screen - "credited as" seems like an appropriate way to handle these things. It doesn't "hurt" anybody: I do use the formatting standards that we've agreed on, but I just want to have my cast list in DVD Profiler reflect it when the actual credits show it in a (even slightly) other way.

Quoting Kevin:

Quote:
One problem I have is that this whole "spacing issue" is based on (mostly) the credits of a film. But not the actual credits, per se, but the way the certain font is utilized.

That I agree with. But that problem goes further than just spaces or comma's - that also often results in problems with accents or capitals. Even then (for example), Penélope Cruz credited as Penelope Cruz seems like an appropriate use of "credited as" to me. To me, these are all fine examples of what the "credited as" field is a great solution for. How many of you have separate entries in your database for both a Robert Downey, Jr. and a Robert Downey Jr., both a Penélope Cruz and a Penelope Cruz, both a J.C. Cunningham and a J. C. Cunningham? While I agree that there are bound to be lots of problems with "credited as", it does also have a lot of merits. I don't understand why some of us want to cast these aside by saying: "adds redundant data". Again, I try to achieve an exact replica of the on-screen credit in DVD Profiler, while at the same time using the standards that we've agreed on.

Well what Ken has up his sleeve is slightly diffrent than this topic.  This has to do with should we be using the credited as feature to make the credited cast list look closely as possible to what is actually seen on the screen.

So actor J. / C. / Cunningham is shown on the credits as J.C. Cunningham without the space between the J. and C.

Because of the way the program works if you don't use the credited as feature, it will appear in DVD profiler as J. C. Cunningham instead of J.C. Cunningham.

I'm still running into profiles from the old 2.X days where contributors put in J.C. in the first name field to make it look like what was in the credits.