Using XBMC (now Kodi) NFO files with Plex

Still on Plex…. now for Kodi NFO files with Plex

NFO files with XBMC or Kodi

As I stated previously, I do try to maintain local NFO files for use with XBMC media centre. What this means is that I typically do most of the movie/TV serials information manually.

This usually means I use a software (recently I am using this excellent one known as MediaElch Media Manager Software ) to first pull the data from data sources such as theTVDB.com and/or IMDB and/or The Movie DB and then massage them a bit (e.g. add some nicer Poster, Fanart etc) and some media data (type of file, number of channels for the audio) and then save it.

This software will then create a NFO file which XBMC gives priority to when reading meta data to populate its database. This is good especially for CHINESE MOVIES, which require more work to get the correct data/images etc.

You can also read my latest article on using NFO on Kodi 🙂

How to use Kodi NFO files with Plex

For Plex, HOWEVER, they don’t read local NFO files ! They go straight to the internet to pull the data into the Plex media centre. Bad bad bad ! Since that un-necessarily repeats what I do already for XBMC and also open itself to errors especially in Chinese Movies.

So I do want to use the XBMC NFO files I created manually with Plex Media Centre.

Here’s how. The details are in these excellent and nice forum post.

The links to download the meta agents are here:
XBMC Movie Agent
XBMC TV Agent

Once you downloaded (let’s say the XBMC Movie Agent), un-zip it and you will see this file.

In Mac, right click and show Package Contents

For me, I use CODA to make code changes:

And as per the forum postings, make changes to the line to match the file name (which you should change too). Read the nice forum postdetails.

To

Once that’s done, copy the file to the PLEX directory (Synology>Plex>Library>Application Support>Plex Media Server>Plugs In) in the Synology NAS. Take note that you might need to go to Shared Folder configuration in Synology to give yourself access to the Plex Directory.

Now when you set up your MOVIE folder in Plex Media Centre, you can then change the Meta Agent to the new Meta Agent:

And hence when all is done, Plex will now use the NFO file that are already in the movie directory to populate the Plex database rather than using the Internet sources:

Details from NFO are copied to the movies (for both English and Chinese):

How do I know Plex pulled the data from NFO

How do I know that Plex has really pull the data from the NFO file instead of the Internet sources ? A quick careful comparsion between the NFO file I maintained versus the final data in Plex can tell me so.. these are fields that should unique to my NFO file:

Example: