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Are you a motorsport fan who uses PLEX Personal Media Server to host your historical content?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

Usage:

In this example source media is located on the host computer at /mnt/my_files/downloads/complete/ and sorted files will be created in /mnt/my_files/motorsort/:

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

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.

NOTE: Both MEDIA_SOURCE_PATH and MEDIA_DESTINATION_PATH must be on the mount point.

Optional Parameters:

• -e SLEEP_SECONDS Motorsort will check for new files every 5 minutes by default unless changed here. Set to -e SLEEP_SECONDS=0 if you want the container to run once and quit.
• -e COPY_FILES Set to -e COPY_FILES='True' to copy files instead of hardlinking them. This will take longer and consume more drive space.
• -e CONFIG_PATH 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

Notes:

• Track SVGs are from Wikimedia commons
• Posters and Backgrounds were created in Assetto Corsa using Race Sim Studios cars with skins from various authors found on overtake.gg.
• Formula 1 style fonts Motion Control Neue from ffonts.net, Titillium Web from Google Fonts, and set from Smithographic free font collection.
• WEC style font files Chavelite and AliciOne Demo from ffonts.net.
• flag icons from lipis.dev.

Support:

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