Media Management Scripts

This is a collection of command line tools for managing media files such as movies or TV shows.

It also simplifies some common tasks such as converting files by wrapping complex ffmpeg commands.

For example, to convert a file to H.265/HEVC with GPU acceleration and AAC audio, plus scale it down to 480p, you would normally have to run a command like:

ffmpeg -hwaccel cuda -hwaccel_output_format cuda -i test.mp4 -vf scale=-1:480 -c:v hevc_nvenc -preset fast -c:a aac -c:s copy -map 0:v -map 0:a -map 0:s out.mp4

Using this toolkit, it would be this instead:

manage-media convert --hw-nv --scale 480 --vc h265 test.mp4 out.mp4

Installation

Install the tools:

pip install media_management_scripts

You also need to install ffmpeg (for most commands) and dialog (for a few commands).

MacOS

brew install ffmpeg dialog

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt update && sudo apt install ffmpeg dialog

Most distros have an older version of ffmpeg (which should still work!). You can install a newer version by following the instructions here.

TVDB

If you want to use TVDB for some commands, create an account on https://www.thetvdb.com and create a legacy API key here

Create a file ~/.config/tvdb/tvdb.ini with contents:

[tvdb]
username = <your_user_name>
userkey = <your_user_key>
apikey = <your_api_key>

Usage

Pass --help to the subcommands for detailed help. Major features are explained in detail below.

Most commands that rename or move files have a dry-run mode (-n or --dry-run) which will output the actions without executing so you can verify the plan.

Main tools

convert

metadata

rename

search

tv-rename

Help output

usage: manage-media [-h] [-v]

Sub commands
    create-test-video   Create a test video file with the specified definitions
    combine-subtitles   Combine a video files with subtitle file
    combine-all         Combine a directory tree of video files with subtitle file
    concat-mp4          Concat multiple mp4 files together
    convert             Convert a file
    executables         Print the executables that will be used in other commands
    find-episodes       Find Season/Episode/Part using file names
    itunes              Attempts to rename iTunes episodes to the standard Plex format.
    metadata            Show metadata for a file
    compare             Compare metadata between files
    compare-directory   Compare metadata for files in a directory
    movie-rename        Renames a file based on TheMovieDB
    rename              Renames a set of files to the specified template
    search              Search for video files matching the specified parameters
    select-streams      Extract specific streams in a video file to a new file
    subtitles           Convert subtitles to SRT
    thumbnail           Extract a number of thumbnails from a video
    tv-rename           Renames files in a directory to sXXeYY. Can also use TVDB to name files (<show> - SxxeYY - <episode_name>)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --version         Display version

convert

manage-media convert <input> <output>

Convert a video file to different video or audio codecs. By default if no codecs are given, the file will be converted to H.264 with AAC audio.

The source file is left intact.

Examples:

• Convert to H.264
  • manage-media convert --video-codec h264 <input> <output>
• Convert to HEVC/H.265:
  • manage-media convert --video-codec hevc <input> <output>
• Convert to HEVC with AC3 audio:
  • manage-media convert --video-codec hevc --audio-codec ac3 <input> <output>
• Convert to HEVC, but don't convert audio:
  • manage-media convert --vc hevc --ac copy <input> <output>
• Scale to 480p
  • manage-media convert --scale 480 <input> <output>
• Convert to H.264 and remove interlacing (such as on mpeg2 DVDs)
  • manage-media convert --vc h264 --deinterlace <input> <output>
• Convert a whole directory of files
  • manage-media convert --vc h264 --bulk <input dir> <output dir>
• Extract a portion of the video
  • manage-media convert --vc copy --ac copy --start 3m45s --end 10m00s <input> <output>

Hardware Acceleration

Your ffmpeg must support the hardware acceleration you want to use. You can check this with ffmpeg -hwaccels. If you see cuda or videotoolbox, then you can use the hardware acceleration below.

Using this can speed up the conversion process significantly!

NVIDIA (cuda)

If your ffmpeg supports it and you have an NVIDIA GPU, you can use hardware acceleration to speed up the conversion. You can see the supported codecs for decoding & encoding for each GPU here.

To use this, just add --hardware-nvidia or --hw-nv to the manage-media convert command.

manage-media convert --hw-nv --video-codec hevc --audio-codec ac3 <input> <output>

Apple (videotoolbox)

If your ffmpeg supports it and you are using a Mac with Apple Silicon, you can use hardware acceleration for encoding by adding --hardware-apple or --hw-apple to the manage-media convert command.

manage-media convert --hw-apple --video-codec h264 --audio-codec copy <input> <output>

Note: this might also work onn Intel Macs, but it is untested.

metadata

Get a simple output of metadata for a file. Or get lots of metadata in json format

Simple output

manage-media metadata <input>

Battlestar Galatica (2003) - s00e01 - Battlestar Galactica The Miniseries (1).mkv
   Directory: /Volumes/Media/TV Shows/Battlestar Galactica/Season 0/
   Title: Battlestar Galactica: Season 1 (Disc 1)
   Size: 6.8GB
   Format: matroska,webm
   Duration: 1h34m39s
   Bitrate: 10117 Kbps
   Video: h264 8 bit (1920x1080)
   Audio:
     aac (eng, 5.1)
   Subtitles: eng, spa, fra
   Ripped: True

Json

manage-media metadata --json <input>

{
  "file": "/Volumes/Media/TV Shows/Battlestar Galactica/Season 0/Battlestar Galatica (2003) - s00e01 - Battlestar Galactica The Miniseries (1).mkv",
  "title": "Battlestar Galactica: Season 1 (Disc 1)",
  "duration": 5679.362,
  "duration_str": "1h34m39s",
  "size": 7354722701,
  "size_str": "6.8GB",
  "resolution": "HIGH_DEF",
  "bit_rate": 10359928,
  "bit_rate_str": "10117 Kbps",
  "ripped": true,
  "format": "matroska,webm",
  "format_long_name": "Matroska / WebM",
  "mime_type": "video/x-matroska",
  "tags": {
    "title": "Battlestar Galactica: Season 1 (Disc 1)",
    "RIPPED": "true",
    "ENCODER": "Lavf57.56.100"
  },
  "video_streams": [ ... ],
  "audio_streams": [ ... ],
  "subtitle_streams": [ ... ],
  "other_streams": [ ... ],
  "chapters": [ ... ],
  "interlace": null
}

rename

manage-media rename <template> <input file> or manage-media rename --recursive <template> <input directory>

A flexible tool to rename files based on a template.

Templates can include variables or expressions by surrounding with ${...}. Functions can be called like ${upper(i)} or ${i | upper}.

The following variables are available:

• i/index - The index of the current file being renamed
• wo_ext - The file name basename without the extension
• ext - The file extension of the current file (without '.')
• filename - The filename of the current file (basename)
• re/regex - A list of regex match groups (use re[0], re[1], etc)

The following functions are available:

• upper - Upper cases the input
• lower - Lower cases the input
• ifempty(a, b, c) - If a is empty or null, then b, otherwise c
• lpad(a, b:int) - Left pads a to length b (defaults to 2+) with spaces
• zpad(a, b:int) - Left pads a to length b (defaults to 2+) with zeros

lpad/zpad - By default pads to at least 2 characters. If there are 100+ files, then 3 characters, 1000+ files, then 4 characters, etc.

Regular Expressions: If a regex is included, the match groups (0=whole match, >0=match group) are available in a list 're' or 'regex'. Each match group is converted to an int if possible, so a zero padded int will lose the zeros.

Example Templates:

Input: S02E04.mp4
Regex: S(\d+)E(\d+)

Template: 'Season ${re[1]} Episode ${re[2]}.{ext}'
Result: 'Season 2 Episode 4.mp4'

Template: 'Season ${re[1] | zpad} Episode ${zpad(re[2], 3)}.{ext}'
Results: 'Season 02 Episode 004.mp4'

Input: whatever.mp4
Regex: S(\d+)E(\d)
Template: 'Season ${ifempty(re[1], 'unknown', re[1])} Episode ${re[2]}.{ext}'
Result: 'Season unknown Episode .mp4'

search

manage-media search <input directory> <query>

Searches a directory for video files matching parameters. Note: this can take a LONG time as it has to read the metadata for each file. You can speed up multiple searches in the same directory with --db <file which caches the metadata.

If a video has multiple streams, comparisons mean at least one stream matches.

Available parameters:

Video:

• v.codec - The video codec (h264, h265, mpeg2, etc)
• v.width - The video pixel width
• v.height - The video pixel height

Audio:

• a.codec - The audio codec (aac, ac3)
• a.channels - The number of audio channels (stereo=2, 5.1=6, etc)
• a.lang - The language of the audio track

Subtitles:

• s.codec - The subtitle codec (srt, hdmv_pgs, mov_text, etc)
• s.lang - The language of the subtitle track

Others:

• ripped - Whether the video is marked as ripped or not
• bit_rate - The overall average bitrate
• resolution - The resolution name (LOW_DEF, HIGH_DEF, etc)

Metadata:

• meta.xyz - Follows the basic JSON metadata output (e.g. meta.title or meta.video_streams[0].codec)

Functions:

• isNull(xyz) - Returns true if the value is null
• all(xyz) - Instead of one stream matching, check all of them

Example Queries:

• Find all videos that are H264
  • v.codec = h264
• Find all videos that are H264 with stereo AAC
  • v.codec = h264 and a.codec = aac and a.channels = 2
• Find all videos that are H265 or H264 and AAC
  • a.codec = aac and (v.codec = h265 or v.codec = h264)
  • a.codec = aac and v.codec in [h265, h264]
• Find all videos without English Subtitles
  • s.lang != eng
• Find videos that are lower resolution than 1080
  • v.height < 1080
• Find all videos that have ONLY AAC audio
  • all(a.codec) = aac

tv-rename

Renames files in a directory to sXXeYY

For example, if you ripped some Battlestar Galactica blurays, you might have a file structure like:

• BSG_Season1_Disc1
  • BSG_Season1_Disc1_t00.mkv
  • BSG_Season1_Disc1_t01.mkv
  • BSG_Season1_Disc1_t02.mkv
  • BSG_Season1_Disc1_t03.mkv
• BSG_Season1_Disc2
  • BSG_Season1_Disc2_t00.mkv
  • BSG_Season1_Disc2_t01.mkv
  • BSG_Season1_Disc2_t02.mkv
  • BSG_Season1_Disc2_t03.mkv

manage-media tv-rename -s 1 -e 1 --tvdb --show "Battlestar Galactica" --output "BSG/Season 1" BSG_Season1_Disc*

Result

• BSG
  • Season 1
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E01 - 33.mkv
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E02 - Water.mkv
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E03 - Bastille Day.mkv
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E04 - Act of Contrition.mkv
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E05 - You Can't Go Home Again.mkv
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E06 - Litmus.mkv
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E07 - Six Degrees of Separation.mkv
    • Battlestar Galatica (2003) - S01E08 - Flesh and Bone.mkv

Configuration

You can configuration where to find various executables by creating a file ~/.config/mms/config.ini. By default, commands will use the executables found in your path.

You can see which tools are being used with manage-media executables

Config File Example

[main]
ffmpeg = /path/to/ffmpeg