Python script: Emby MDBList Collection Creator

[Neminem 1516]

I used some of these videos to show up coming movies or tv shows.
And would love this "a custom "Coming soon" overlay on the poster." 
People got disappointed seeing only the coming soon video, thinking I had the movie
So stopped doing this.

 

[rbjtech 5282]

8 hours ago, Amything said:

You are a wealth of information!  The script is taking a backseat to plugin work at the moment but I have been meaning to add description support. I could add something like {month} {day} {time} as variables in the description.

For the plugin I was thinking that it would report back the missing media and be able to show those on the plugin web page at least. But maybe there are better ideas like using the trailer along with a custom "Coming soon" overlay on the poster. I have not looked into STRM files at all, can these be Youtube urls perhaps? MDBList includes trailer information so it would be somewhat straight forward.

Understood.  I may have a look myself as while I'm used to c# - Python can't be that different... 

Nice idea on the missing items - yes strm files can be URL's to anything BUT youtube blocks requests from non-browsers - so you need to be a little creative or download the trailer and then point to that.

I'm looking forward to the Plugin - let me know if you need any help testing etc.

[coreyh74 0]

Forgive me if this is answered somewhere, I did not check it. Is there a way to specify a certain category the movies/shows are pulled from (such as regular Movies library, or 4K movies library) etc if that makes sense?

[rbjtech 5282]

25 minutes ago, coreyh74 said:

Forgive me if this is answered somewhere, I did not check it. Is there a way to specify a certain category the movies/shows are pulled from (such as regular Movies library, or 4K movies library) etc if that makes sense?

Not that I'm aware of - it will pull from all movie libraries (I believe it uses media type, rather than media library) - but it's a good idea for a feature request or the Plugin which is being put together. @Amything

[Amything 122]

2 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Not that I'm aware of - it will pull from all movie libraries (I believe it uses media type, rather than media library) - but it's a good idea for a feature request or the Plugin which is being put together. @Amything

Yeah that sounds useful for the plugin. Not something I would consider for the script right now at least.

[coreyh74 0]

54 minutes ago, Amything said:

Yeah that sounds useful for the plugin. Not something I would consider for the script right now at least.

No problem! I actually found a way around it anyways, lol. I just created a new user on the server that didnt have access to the 4K libraries. And used that user as the user in the script. So that way it didn't yank from the 4K folders, only the 1080. However yes, definitely would be useful! Thank you!

[Amything 122]

17 minutes ago, coreyh74 said:

No problem! I actually found a way around it anyways, lol. I just created a new user on the server that didnt have access to the 4K libraries. And used that user as the user in the script. So that way it didn't yank from the 4K folders, only the 1080. However yes, definitely would be useful! Thank you!

Ah nice one!

[sh0rty 714]

@AmythingThe Collection Description feature is a really nice idea! Thanks!

[Amything 122]

3 hours ago, shorty1483 said:

The Collection Description feature is a really nice idea! Thanks!

Glad you like it. 

I meant to post about it but added these 2 features a couple of days ago:

[rbjtech 5282]

On 11/01/2025 at 21:50, shorty1483 said:

@AmythingThe Collection Description feature is a really nice idea! Thanks!

I missed this - nice !   Thanks for adding this functionality.

How is the plugin going ?

[rbjtech 5282]

I noticed the description field was almost exclusively empty in mdb - so I've added some other useful info in there now you have kindly added the function to add to the 'Overview'

For example in app.py -

import datetime # RBJ
..
description =  "Updated : " + datetime.date.today().strftime("%B %d, %Y") + "<br/>Source : " + mdblist_list.get("source", None) # RBJ
..

I'll get around to adding the URL as a proper emby 'link' but that needs more coding to add the functionality - so in the description will do for now ..

Edited January 13, 2025 by rbjtech

[Amything 122]

That is a nice way to do it! 

Plugin is going well! The basic functionality is done, but still too rough to start hosting it.  Biggest chunk left is making the website presentable.  Then I can take on some test users, hopefully not more than a couple of weeks.  There will be some features missing to begin with but once it's running they will get added quickly.

[madgino 3]

Hello, I love your work.

I was wondering if it's possible to do similar to the Top Picks plugin and have these collections automatically appear at the top of every user's page.

That way we don't have to rely on every user to update their settings, plus it will work on AndroidTV which currently does not have a way to show collections on the home page.

[Amything 122]

3 hours ago, madgino said:

I was wondering if it's possible to do similar to the Top Picks plugin and have these collections automatically appear at the top of every user's page.

Hey, that is very interesting! It's super annoying that collections cant be on Android home screen!

That plugin seems to be creating a custom home screen section and then re-ordering the sections. I have to look into if re-ordering sections is something that the Rest API can do. I'm working on a plugin version, having a move to top function there would be great.

[Neminem 1516]

Top pick uses stem files and that gives duplicates in continue watching and other placed.

Just something to look out for please, or make that a on / off switch

[rbjtech 5282]

13 hours ago, Neminem said:

Top pick uses stem files and that gives duplicates in continue watching and other placed.

Just something to look out for please, or make that a on / off switch

Agreed.   This is currently the only way to reference the items and it's frankly a bit of a hack as you are not supposed to reference items within the same emby library/channel - thus the duplicates.

A few of my scripts (recommendations etc) did the same thing - but they all fall foul of the same issue - duplicate items in search/continue watching etc as you have highlighted.

I'm very much hoping that a new 'reference/pointer' method without duplicate problems is being created for the 'smart views' that is coming in this release - otherwise smart views is going to have the same issues .. making it no better than 3rd party efforts.

Fingers crossed..

 

[Amything 122]

Yeah that is definitely out of my scope.

I really really hope we will be able to have "flat" collections on the home screen. 

[bakes82 167]

5 hours ago, rbjtech said:

I'm very much hoping that a new 'reference/pointer' method without duplicate problems is being created for the 'smart views' that is coming in this release

It has to already exist as there are options on the Home Screen for continue watching, recently added etc. all the stock views they have must be using some kind of point otherwise you would have all those dupes.

[rbjtech 5282]

17 hours ago, bakes82 said:

It has to already exist as there are options on the Home Screen for continue watching, recently added etc. all the stock views they have must be using some kind of point otherwise you would have all those dupes.

Very true - then maybe they just need to release how this is done and allow the same lists to be created via the API. 

[eMoOak 7]

Hi!

How to deal with special characters in french?
Like "Films inspirés de faits réels" to avoid "Films inspirés de faits réels"

[hmsya27 7]

Anyone know if you can disable to the delete portion of the script where it removes the content from the collections if it doesn't match with the list. Just want to keep the manually added stuff  in collections  and have the script add any new things that gets added in mdblist

[rbjtech 5282]

12 hours ago, hmsya27 said:

Anyone know if you can disable to the delete portion of the script where it removes the content from the collections if it doesn't match with the list. Just want to keep the manually added stuff  in collections  and have the script add any new things that gets added in mdblist

I don't believe the collections API works like that in the python code, it creates/recreates the entire collection based on the mdb collection vs what you have available in your library.   It doesn't retrieve the local collection (and anything you may have added to it) and then compare to what is in mdb.

Some options are to maybe create your own list (based off an mdb) list/collection - and then you have control over the list/collection in mdb. 

Edited March 2, 2025 by rbjtech

[Amything 122]

20 hours ago, hmsya27 said:

Anyone know if you can disable to the delete portion of the script where it removes the content from the collections if it doesn't match with the list. Just want to keep the manually added stuff  in collections  and have the script add any new things that gets added in mdblist

If you just want to prevent the script from deleting items from collections I guess you could just comment out line 202 in app.py (put a # in front of the line) 

[Amything 122]

On 28/02/2025 at 14:48, eMoOak said:

Hi!

How to deal with special characters in french?
Like "Films inspirés de faits réels" to avoid "Films inspirés de faits réels"

Hey, do you definitely have the latest version? I ran into this problem so in the last update I added utf-8 encoding for the config file (which fixed it for me).

[hmsya27 7]

1 hour ago, Amything said:

If you just want to prevent the script from deleting items from collections I guess you could just comment out line 202 in app.py (put a # in front of the line) 

I will give this a try thanks. It’s what I was looking for