MotorSort

Are you a motorsport fan who uses PLEX Personal Media Server to host your historical content? Frustrated with empty poster images and how often PLEX will auto-parse file names incorrectly? Wish you didn't have to do all that manual work?

MotorSort is a stateless, self contained Docker app that:

• Sorts motorsport files by race series, weekend, and session (including sprint weekends).
• Reformats file names to the PLEX compatible, Absolute-Series-Scanner convention.
• Hardlinks source files into race series, race weekend directories to save drive space (with an option to copy if you prefer).
• Generates dynamic poster images with event name, country flag, track map, and season event number.

MotorSort was created to automate my least favorite part of curating a Plex media library.

Uses:

• Python
• ImageMagick
• Docker
• Pytest

Usage:

docker run \
    -d \
    --name motorsort \
    -e MEDIA_SOURCE_PATH=/mnt/media/downloads/complete \
    -e MEDIA_DESTINATION_PATH=/mnt/media/motorsort \
    -v /mnt/my_files:/mnt/media \
    ghcr.io/ianhaddock/motorsort:latest

Required Parameters:

• -v <your_media_path>:/mnt/media This mounts your media to the container at /mnt/media.
• -e MEDIA_SOURCE_PATH This is the path mounted at /mnt/media the container will search for source files.
• -e MEDIA_DESTINATION_PATH This is the path mounted at /mnt/media the container will output files.

Both source and destination need to be on the same mount point (drive) to allow hardlinks. If you want to source from one drive (mountpoint) and output to another drive, use COPY_FILES='True' (see below).

Optional Parameters:

• -e SLEEP_SECONDS=n check for new files every n seconds. Defaults to 300 seconds (5 minutes).
• -e SLEEP_SECONDS=0 will set the container to run once and quit.
• -e COPY_FILES='True' will copy files instead of hardlinking them.
• -e CONFIG_PATH='path/to/config' to change config directory path.

Custom Images:

All images can be customized. To access them, create a local directory and add it as the /custom mountpoint on the container:

docker run \
    -d \
    --name motorsort \
    -e MEDIA_SOURCE_PATH=/mnt/media/downloads/complete \
    -e MEDIA_DESTINATION_PATH=/mnt/media/motorsort \
    -v /mnt/my_files:/mnt/media \
    -v /mnt/my_files/custom:/custom \
    ghcr.io/ianhaddock/motorsort:latest

• When the container starts the custom folder will be populated with image, flag, and track files.
• Any updates made in this directory will be used on the next run.
• To start over: stop the container, erase the local custom folder contents, and start the container again.
• Generated images on the destination path are not overwritten, remove existing show.png and background.jpg images to generate new versions with your changes.

For the best results:

• Poster art should be 600x900 .jpg files and will be reformatted (squished) to fit 600x900 otherwise.
• Background art should be 1920x1080 .jpg files and will be reformatted to fit 1920x1080 otherwise.
• Poster art is selected in order of track name, season, or default. e.g. COTA-poster.jpg, 2022-poster.jpg, poster.jpg.
• Background art is selected in order of track name, season, or default. E.g. COTA-background.jpg, 2022-background.jpg, background.jpg

Example Logs Output:

$ docker logs motorsort
Mon Jun 10 18:20:55 UTC 2024: Starting
Found 166 items to process.
Found 17 sprint weekends.
Creating files.
Background: 2022-00 - Example GP
Poster: 2022-00 - Example GP
Linked: Example GP - S00E01 - Free Practice 1 [FastChannelHD 1080p].mkv
Linked: Example GP - S00E06 - Free Practice 2 [FastChannelHD 1080p].mkv
...
Mon Jun 10 18:20:55 UTC 2024: Sleeping 300 seconds

Example Source Files:

/mnt/my_files/downloads/complete/
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.FP1.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.FP2.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.FP3.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Onboard.Channel.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Quali.Analysis.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Qualifying.Buildup.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Qualifying.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Qualifying.Teds.Notebook.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Race.Analysis.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Race.Buildup.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Race.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Sprint.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Sprint.Shootout.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
├── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Teds.Race.Notebook.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv
└── Formula1.2022.Round00.Example.Teds.Sprint.Notebook.FastChannelHD.1080p.50fps.X264.Multi-AOA11.mkv

Example Resulting Structure:

/mnt/my_files/motorsort/Formula 1/
└── 2022-00 - Example GP
    ├── Example GP - S00E01 - Free Practice 1 [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E02 - Quali Buildup [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E03 - Qualifying [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E04 - Quali Analysis [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E05 - Quali Notebook [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E06 - Free Practice 2 [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E07 - Sprint Shootout [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E08 - Sprint [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E10 - Sprint Notebook [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E11 - Free Practice 3 [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E12 - Race Buildup [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E13 - Race [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E14 - Race Analysis [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E15 - Race Notebook [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── Example GP - S00E16 - Onboard Channel [FastChannelHD 1080p 50fps X264 Multi-AOA11].mkv
    ├── background.jpg
    └── show.png

Plex Absolute Series Scanner settings:

Plex Media Server users should install Absolute Series Scanner. This will keep Plex from incorrectly sorting files and applying medatata from online sources.

When creating the library:

• select 'TV Shows' as the library type
• use the 'Personal Media Shows' Agent

Sources:

• Track SVGs from Wikimedia commons.
• flag images from lipis.dev.
• Poster and Background images created in Assetto Corsa.
• Car models from Race Sim Studios, skins found on overtake.gg.
• Motion Control Neue font from ffonts.net.
• Titillium Web from Google Fonts.
• Racing font set from Smithographic free font collection.
• Chavelite and AliciOne Demo from ffonts.net.

Support:

If you found this useful or would like to support projects like this you can buy me a coffee: