Web-Based Movie Browser and mpv Remote Control

Browse your movie collection and control mpv playback on another PC from a web browser.

Overview

This tool:

• Finds local movie files matching a pattern defined by GLOB_MOVIE_FNAMES
• Queries OMDb for matching movies based on their filename and total runtime
• Displays the movie posters on a web page, and allows users to click on them to begin playing them in an external video player (mpv) on the server.
• Allows the mpv instance to be controlled using buttons on the web page or with an infrared remote if mpvremote has been properly configured.

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• mpvremote
• An OMDb API Key

Installation

• Install mpvremote and create an appropriate mpv config with IPC support
• Install mpv-web-catalog (this package) (i.e.: with pip install .)
• Define OMDB_APIKEY and GLOB_MOVIE_FNAMES per this package's configuration instructions
• Run mpv-web-catalog init to create the cache directory, scan for movies, and begin downloading posters and metadata for them
• Install the systemd service OR execute a command like gunicorn mpv_web_catalog.wsgi:app to launch the web server
• Navigate to http://localhost:3239 or whatever URL you've configured

Configuration

Required environment variables:

• OMDB_APIKEY: Free API key generated from http://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx
• GLOB_MOVIE_FNAMES: A glob pattern describing file paths for the movies to be considered

These variables can also be defined in a configuration file. Copy config.env to ~/.config/mpvremote/config.env and modify it as needed.

Autostart

A systemd service file is provided for convenience, and can be used to autostart the web server.

• Copy mpv-web-catalog.service into ~/.config/systemd/user/ and modify it as needed
• Run systemctl --user daemon-reload
• Run systemctl --user enable --now mpv-web-catalog to enable autostart and immediately start the service

If mpvremote and mpv-web-catalog have not been installed globally (i.e.: in a virtualenv), you'll need to modify the path in ExecStart. For example:

ExecStart=%h/.virtualenvs/mpvremote/bin/gunicorn mpv_web_catalog.wsgi:app -b 0.0.0.0:3239