Media "watch folder" on server as an alternative to client upload

[gpatkinson]

I have been experimenting with MediaCMS and really like the software. Thank you for all your hard work on this project.

As far as I can tell, the only way to add media is by uploading from a client. This works, but in my case, I have other server-side software pulling video files. So what would really be helpful is being able to assign a "watch folder" where all files within this folder are processed and auto-added to the database, preferably without needing to duplicate the files.

If this type of feature (or a work-around) exists currently, I would appreciate a quick note about it in the docs.

[mgogoulos]

Hello, thanks for your kind words. Besides the uploader, there's also an API that can be used to send new media. Plus there is also a command line client that utilizes this API but is on a separate branch/PR.

What you describe seems like a specialized scenario but I think you can easily implement a solution by creating a script that will monitor the folder and POST new media on the 'Add new media' URL (See what it expects on https://demo.mediacms.io/swagger/). Hope this helps

[srvprivate]

@tabilzad @mgogoulos Can either of you shed more light on this situation? I'm a video producer -- got this up and working via docker compose, but my issue is that all my files live on the server itself. I do not and refuse however to upload duplicate media when it's already sitting in its home. Is there a way to get these directories talking to each other for a 'scan'? API of some sort? I'm novice, but know enough to be efficient. Any help would be much appreciated. This is by far the best video hosting platform I've run across. kudos on such great work. I am ditching vimeo and youtube because of this. That means as a professional, I'm taking this CMS very seriously!

[mgogoulos]

Video files have to be properly imported by MediaCMS because it performs a number of actions (create preview gif file, poster/thumbnail of different dimensions, encodings for different dimensions/bitrates, HLS files for adaptive streaming). So even if there was a page where you said "my directory is x/y/z, take videos from this and bring them to the system" which is what I am assuming others here are doing, it would still have to get these videos and bring it to media_files/ directory that it is using to server original videos and produced files.

[srvprivate]

Yes, you can look at this more like a MaM too. I have used one called Flow by EditShare where they allow mounting of SMB shares (et al) and will scan the directory and import into the database, making proxies, etc. That is all done in python, so I know it's possible!

[srvprivate]

Any new news on this? a year later?

[thomisus]

I ended up creating another endpoint to trigger local file scan and auto create media from those files.

Could you share your solution?

[ttkrpink]

I am in the same situation where the media files are uploaded to a folder by another program. So, the suggested method will be to upload the files to MediaCMS again using the APIs so MediaCMS can process the files.

Is that correct?

[thomisus]

Same situation here. Media/Videos are on an external server/share that I'd like to not touch because is ready to be edited or archived but I'd like to index and categorize it.
What would be great is a way to recursively scan a "watch folder" ( or trigger with inotify ) then import metadata and create low res previews and assign it to a default user, leaving original files in the starting location.