YouTube archive library?

[Xoores 3]

Hi,

I'm currently trying out Emby and so far I'm in love - everything works just as expected and without any problems! I have few minor things here and there, but there is one thing that I'm not sure how to do "properly":

I have my own automation around yt-dlp called ArchiveTube and I would love to integrate the output of that to the Emby, so I can play YT videos from my local archive.

How do I handle a Youtube archive library? I cannot use TV series nor Movies, because of the naming scheme, which is something like this:

channel 1/
     Video 1 [abCDefGHQQ].mkv
     Video 1 [abCDefGHQQ].info.json
     Video 1 [abCDefGHQQ].en.srt
     Video 2 [QwERtzUiOP].mkv
     Video 2 [QwERtzUiOP].info.json
     Video 2 [QwERtzUiOP].en.srt
channel 2/
     Video 1 [YxxcvbNNmK].mkv
     Video 1 [YxxcvbNNmK].info.json
     Video 1 [YxxcvbNNmK].en.srt

Right now I have "Home videos & photos" , which gives me the option to see folders like this:

and individual videos inside a channel like this:

 

Which is not bad (it is useable), but I still wonder whether there might be a better way to achieve this. For example, the banners and logo don't show up etc.

I could perhaps extract the YT JSON & convert it into NFO? Is there a documentation for those? I just found something from KODI, but don't know whether the format is the same or not... I could also add info like the chapters, sponsor block segments etc. 

 

Thanks!

Edited August 16, 2025 by Xoores

[Luke 42077]

Quote

I could perhaps extract the YT JSON & convert it into NFO? Is there a documentation for those? I just found something from KODI, but don't know whether the format is the same or not... I could also add info like the chapters, sponsor block segments etc. 

Hi, we don't have documentation about the nfo format, but it pretty much mirrors Kodi so yes you could go by that.

I think home videos is the best option, unless these are intended to be sequential/episodic, then you could use TV, but that would require some changes to file naming.

[Neminem 1518]

@Xooreshave a look at this project.

kieraneglin/pinchflat: Your next YouTube media manager

From what I understand, It can download and name folders, files, and get metadata that can be used in Emby.  

[Xoores 3]

18 hours ago, Luke said:

I think home videos is the best option, unless these are intended to be sequential/episodic, then you could use TV, but that would require some changes to file naming.

Usually they are not Depends on the channel though. I let yt-dlp set mtime of the file to the video file to the upload date/time, so as long as it will sort with that, it should be OK...

Btw is there a way to have "Folders" view default when opening the collection? Or even completely remove the "videos" view as it really does not make any sense...

 

15 hours ago, Neminem said:

@Xooreshave a look at this project. kieraneglin/pinchflat: Your next YouTube media manager

Perfect, will take a look! Thanks!