Trailerr is a program for snatching the latest cinema trailers and integrating into your Plex media server.
Clone this git repository and install the following Python libraries using pip or conda.
youtube-dlffmpeg-pythonyaml
Update your configuration in the included config.yaml file, then run
python trailerr.py --config /path/to/config.yaml
Update the trailer_dir: field of config.yaml to the directory where you will store your trailers.
By default, the program is configured to grab the latest 10 videos from each of the genre-specific trailer playlists from the Fandango Movieclips channel. Playlist URLs are specified under the pl_urls: field. Comment out any genres you don't want to see.
The number of videos per playlist can be changed in the ntrailers_dl: field. For initial setup, you will probably want to use the default (10). Depending on how frequently the playlist is updated (and how often you are running the script), it might make sense to lower this value.
Filename parsing is currently configured specifically for the Movieclips playlists--as of 2017, most titles uploaded by Movieclips are something like "Movie Title Trailer #1 (YEAR) | Movieclips Trailers". For better integration with the Plex metadata agents, Trailerr will attempt to name the downloaded files in the following format: "Movie Title (YEAR).mp4"
You can specify the video and audio quality of the downloaded trailers using the standard youtube-dl quality codes, as specified in the format: field of the config file. The default is "137+140" which grabs videos encoded in mp4 at 1920x1080 resolution with a 128kbps mp3 audio stream. Note that if you are using a different playlist, the default quality code may not be available.
The trailers uploaded by the Movieclips YouTUbe channel include a 10-second bumper at the end so they can flash a bunch of ads/links. The trim_secs: N option will force the script to run ffmpeg (using the ffmpeg-python library) on the downloaded trailer and remove the last 10 seconds, sending output to something like "Movie Title (YEAR).mp4". Once complete, the temporary video file [youtubeID.mp4] will be deleted.
If you are using other playlists with their own bumpers, just change the time accordingly.
Note that trimming video with ffmpeg is a processor-intensive task and requires the video to be re-encoded, so this can take a while depending on how many trailers you are downloading and how powerful your server is. If for any reason you want to disable the truncation, simply set trim_secs: 0 in the config.
Although you can use this script to hoard as many trailers as you want, in most cases you will want to delete trailers as they age. Set the number of days you wish to keep trailers using the timelim: field. Set to 0 to never auto-delete downloaded trailers.
You will probably want automate this script to regularly grab new trailers and delete those that have come and gone. The simplest solution is to set up a cron job running this script every day or so to check for new trailers and see if there are any old ones to delete.
Once trailers have been downloaded to your specified directory, the script will randomly create symlinks to 3 trailers. Set up a cron job to run this script every hour or so to rotate the linked trailers (use the --skipdownloads option to skip the playlist checking/downloading and just refresh the symlinks).
Change the number of trailers to link in the ntrailers_ln: field.
You can also change the prefix of the symlinks to something other than trailerN using the ln_prefix: field.
Once the symlinks have been created, you can simply add them to your Plex pre-roll list, effectively replicating the Plex Pass Cinema Trailers feature, but using only the trailers that you've downloaded.
To do so, go to Settings >> Server >> Extras and put the paths to the symlinks (separated by commas) in the "Cinema Trailers pre-roll video" field:
/path/to/trailer1.mp4,/path/to/trailer2.mp4,/path/to/trailer3.mp4
Note that if you wish to include other custom pre-roll videos, they should be placed after the list of trailer paths.
If you have automated the script to reshuffle the symlinks, the next time you start a movie, you should be greeted with 3 new trailers from your trailer library.
Another perk of downloading trailers locally is that you can create a Plex video library and browse through them as you would any other media collection.
Simply create a new library and point it to the directory on your server where you store the trailers. The Plex Movie and Movie Database metadata agents should be able to pull in metadata for most trailers, provided the filenames are properly formatted (YMMV if you want to use unsupported playlists).
Note that because trailers grabbed from YouTube have no embedded metadata, the metadata agents may not always work.
Also, make sure to disable the "Enable Cinema Trailers" option under Library >> Edit >> Advanced, otherwise your server-wide pre-roll will run before every trailer.
Why would I possibly want to download trailers for upcoming movies when Plex has this function built in?
The Plex Pass cinema trailers feature is awesome in principle, but has some pretty serious flaws, IMHO. While Plex excells at streaming local media, it's still rather buggy at streaming from the internet. Moreover, users get no control over the content and quality of trailers.
This script should be useful for anyone who wants more control over the genre and quality of trailers shown, doesn't have a Plex Pass subscription, has Plex clients on a local network without external internet access, or wants to create a browsable and constantly-up-to-date Plex library of movie trailers.
Yep, as long as the pre-roll remains a free feature, you can watch trailers without paying a dime to the Plex developers.
I only want to view trailers from my favorite independent Bollywood anime studio, can I still use this?
As long as they make a YouTube playlist.
- webUI for managing source playlists, trailer libraries, and recurring jobs (a la Sonarr/Radarr/Headphones)
- support for non-YouTube sources