Cyrillic titles (UTF-8)

When IMDb began 8-bit code was the only option - in fact parts of the internet still could only handle 7-bit transmissions properly. Over the following years, the system sort of 'just growed' and it used some characters as controls. Now the problem is that the expanded characters of UTF-8 might be seen as controls and cause significant processing problems, so IMDb did not move toward supporting Unicode.

The (relatively) recently began rewriting the full Update system, and are still in the middle of this. I believe the main reasons are to improve the processing for the Data Managers and to enable IMDb to implement changes such as moving more areas out of Miscellaneous Crew more easily, one of the effects will be to allow them to support Unicode.

I expect that once the new system is fully iimplemented IMDb will move to implement Unicode in some form (probably UTF-8). However, this will probably not occur soon.

Note: I am not staff, and this is what I have gathered over several years as a contributor, so I might be wrong and nothing in this post should be taken as official.