Projections

Projections are why TVDB and TMDB can disagree about the same show and still translate correctly. New terms are in the glossary.

A projection says where a range of a work’s canonical episodes lands in a season-based provider: which season, and which episode numbers. TVDB and TMDB need projections; AniDB, AniList, MAL and Kitsu do not, because they number episodes the way the work does.

projections:
  tvdb_show:
    - { season: 2, episodes: 1-24 }             # canonical 1-24 are S02E01-E24
  tmdb_show:
    - { season: 1, episodes: 1-24, start: 25 }  # canonical 1-24 are S01E25-E48

• episodes is a range of the work’s own episodes (1-24, S1-S2 for specials, 892- while a long-runner airs).
• season is the provider’s season; start is the provider episode the range starts at (it defaults to the first canonical number).
• target handles splits: one canonical episode that a provider shows as two ({ episodes: 12, target: 12-13 }), or two that it merges into one.
• Ranges never overlap, and a projection that stops before the last episode must say why (coverage: partial with notes).

Worked example: The Apothecary Diaries, season 2

TVDB and TMDB disagree about the second season of Kusuriya no Hitorigoto. TVDB gives it season 2; TMDB continues season 1.

Works

kusuriya-no-hitorigoto 1-242nd-season 1-24

TVDB 431162

S01E01-E24S02E01-E24

TMDB 220542

S01E01-E48

kusuriya-no-hitorigoto-2nd-season episode 5 is TVDB S02E05 and TMDB S01E29.

Because both are written as projections of the same work, translating between them needs no TVDB-to-TMDB table: TVDB S02E05 goes to the work (episode 5), and the work goes to TMDB (S01E29).

Specials

Specials have their own canonical kind (S1, S2, following AniDB) and usually land in TVDB season 0:

projections:
  tvdb_show:
    - { season: 1, episodes: 1-25 }
    - { kind: special, season: 0, episodes: S1-S6 }
    - { kind: special, season: 0, episodes: S7-S10, start: 8 }

That is Attack on Titan’s first season (shingeki-no-kyojin): its specials S1 to S6 are TVDB S00E01 to E06, and S7 to S10 are S00E08 to E11: TVDB’s S00E07 is not one of AniDB’s specials, so the second range skips it.