Ah yes, I understand what you mean, but I still always assumed that the example given was normalisation, albeit only first normal form. Whereas the example you gave is classed as third normal form. Both examples are normalisation, they are just different levels of it.

* Edit *

I've been doing some reading and I think I finally understand what you mean. The example given isn't a true example of normalisation because the new table (the lookup table) doesn't provide anything other than a name related to an id. To be true normalisation (and not just a look up table) the table must also extend the data which has been extracted (in this case, the genre) by adding additional fields.

Have I got that right?

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