ytdl-nfo : youtube-dl NFO generator

youtube-dl is an incredibly useful tool for downloading and archiving footage from across the web; however, viewing and organizing these files can be a hassle.

ytdl-nfo automates metadata processing so that media files can be easily imported into media centers such as Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, etc. It does this by parsing each .info.json file created by youtube-dl (using the --write-info-json flag) and generating a Kodi-compatible .nfo file.

While this package was originally built for youtube-dl, the goal is to maintain compatibility with related forks, such as yt-dlp.

⚠️ Warning: This package is still in early stages and breaking changes may be introduced.

Installation

Python 3 pipx (recommended)

pipx is a tool that installs a package and its dependencies in an isolated environment.

1. Install Python 3.8 (or later)
2. Install pipx
3. Run pipx install ytdl-nfo

Python 3 pip

1. Install Python 3.8 (or later)
2. Installed pip
3. Run pip install ytdl-nfo

Package from Source

1. Install Python 3.8 (or later)
2. Install Python Poetry
3. Clone the repo using git clone https://github.com/owdevel/ytdl_nfo.git
4. Create a dev environment with poetry install
5. Build with poetry build
6. Install from the dist directory with pip install ./dist/ytdl_nfo-x.x.x.tar.gz

Usage

youtube-dl uses site-specific extractors to collect technical data about a media file. This metadata, along with the extractor ID, are written to a .info.json file when the --write-info-json flag is used. ytdl-nfo uses a set of YAML configs, located in ytdl_nfo/configs to control how metadata from the JSON file is mapped to NFO tags.

If extractor auto-detection fails or you want to override the default, use the --extractor option to specify a particular template. The template must be located at ytdl_nfo/configs/<EXTRACTOR_TEMPLATE_NAME>.yaml.

python3 -m ytdl_nfo [-h] [--config] [-e EXTRACTOR] [--regex REGEX] [-w] JSON_FILE

positional arguments:
  JSON_FILE             JSON file to convert or directory to process recursively

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --config              Show the path to the config directory
  -e EXTRACTOR, --extractor EXTRACTOR
                        Specify specific extractor
  -r, --regex REGEX     A regular expression used to search for JSON source files
  -w, --overwrite       Overwrite existing NFO files

Examples

# Display the configuration location
ytdl-nfo --config

# Create a single NFO file using metadata from `great_video.info.json`
ytdl-nfo great_video.info.json

# Create an NFO file for each `.info.json` file located in the `video_folder` directory
# (provided a matching extractor template exists in the `ytdl_nfo/configs` directory)
ytdl-nfo video_folder

# Create a single NFO file using metadata from `great_video.info.json` and the `custom_extractor_name` template
ytdl-nfo --extractor custom_extractor_name great_video.info.json

Contributing

This is a small project I started to learn how to use the Python packaging system whilst providing some useful functionality for my home server setup. Issues/Pull Requests and constructive criticism are welcome.

Development Environment

1. Install Python 3.8 (or later)

2. Install Python Poetry

3. Create a fork of this repo

4. Clone your fork using git clone [email protected]:<YOUR_USERNAME>/ytdl-nfo.git

5. Change to the project directory and initialize the environment using poetry

   cd ytdl-nfo
   poetry install

6. Run the application using poetry run ytdl-nfo, or use poetry shell to enter the virtual env

Todo

• Add try catches to pretty print errors
• Documentation and templates for creating custom extractors
• Documentation of CLI arguments
• Recursive folder searching
• Add package to pypi