kodigcs

Kodigcs - Serve video files for Kodi from a Google Cloud Storage bucket

This is kodigcs, a server that supplies an HTTP or HTTPS “web directory source” to Kodi containing files that live in a Google Cloud Storage bucket.

In addition to presenting GCS objects as video files to Kodi, kodigcs also synthesizes matching “.nfo” files for each object, containing metadata such as title, director and actor names, release year, and so on. This data is supplied in a Google Drive spreadsheet.

To use kodigcs, you’ll need:

1. Video files in a Google Cloud Storage bucket;
2. “Service account” credentials for accessing the bucket, in the form of a JSON file;
3. A server host with a public URL on which to run kodigcs;
4. (Optional) A spreadsheet in Google Drive containing metadata for the objects in your GCS bucket.

Note: be mindful of the costs involved in storing and serving data from Google Cloud Storage.

Note: if you have a server host without a public URL, you might be able to give it one by using ngrok.

For more background about this project, see this Medium article.

Installing kodigcs

Run:

go install github.com/bobg/kodigcs@latest

Running kodigcs in server mode

kodigcs [-creds CREDS] serve -bucket BUCKETNAME [-sheet SHEET_ID] [-listen ADDR] [-cert CERT] [-key KEY] [-username USERNAME] [-password PASSWORD]

• CREDS is the name of the JSON file containing credentials for accessing the bucket (default is creds.json). Note that it precedes the serve subcommand.
• BUCKETNAME is the name of the GCS bucket and is required
• SHEET_ID is the Google Drive spreadsheet ID of the metadata spreadsheet (see below)
• ADDR is the address on which the server will listen for requests (default :1549)
• CERT is the name of the TLS certificate file, if operating in TLS (i.e., HTTPS) mode
• KEY is the name of the TLS private key file, if operating in TLS (i.e., HTTPS) mode
• USERNAME is a username string that requests must supply, if using HTTP “basic authentication”
• PASSWORD is a password string that requests must supply, if using HTTP “basic authentication”

Running kodigcs to update a metadata spreadsheet

kodigcs [-creds CREDS] ssupdate -sheet SHEET_ID [-htmldir DIR]

CREDS and SHEET_ID are as described above.

In this mode, kodigcs will inspect each row of the given spreadsheet, looking for values in an IMDbID column. These are the keys that the Internet Movie Database uses for each title. For example, the main info page for The Matrix is https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/, so the IMDb key is tt0133093. (Either value works in the IMDbID column: the full URL or just the IMDb key.)

If a metadata spreadsheet has an IMDbID column, and a row has a value in it, and that same row is missing some other detail, such as release year, directors, actors, etc., then ssupdate will scrape the IMDb for that info and add it to the spreadsheet. Update Feb 2023: the IMDb now prohibits this scraping. As an alternative, you can use your browser to download the HTML for the desired IMDb page into a file named Foo.iso.html (for a row with a filename of Foo.iso) in the directory named by the -htmldir option.

For this to work, the spreadsheet must be writable by the “service account” associated with the supplied credentials.

For more about the metadata spreadsheet see “The metadata spreadsheet” below.

Adding your kodigcs source to Kodi

Under Settings, go to Media, then Videos. Select “Add videos.”

In the “add video source” dialog, select “Browse” to browse for video sources.

In the “Browse for new share” dialog, select “Add network location.”

In the “Add network location” dialog, use the following settings:

• for Protocol, use “Web server directory” (either HTTPS, if kodigcs is running with -cert and -key, otherwise HTTP);
• for Server address, use the IP address or hostname of the server’s public URL
• leave Remote path blank
• for Port, use the kodigcs default of 1549, or whatever other port number you chose with -listen
• for Username and Password, use strings that match the -username and -password arguments, if any, otherwise leave blank

After confirming this dialog, you’ll be back in the “Browse for new share” dialog. Select the newly added source and confirm this dialog. That will return you to the “add video source” dialog, where you must now give this new source a name.

The metadata spreadsheet

You may specify metadata for the files in your GCS bucket in a Google Drive spreadsheet.

Row 1 of the spreadsheet must have column headings. One of these must be Filename. Each value in this column is the name of an object in your GCS bucket.

Remaining columns may have these headings:

• Title: this is the title that will be shown for the object. (The default is to infer the title from Filename.)
• Year: this is the release year for the title.
• Directors: this is a semicolon-separated list of directors for the title.
• Actors: this is a semicolon-separated list of actors for the title.
• Runtime: this is the running time, in minutes, of the title.
• Trailer: this is a YouTube URL of a trailer for the title.
• Poster: this is the URL of poster art for the title.
• Tagline: this is a short line of text, the title’s tag line.
• Outline: this is a short line of text, a summary of the title.
• Plot: this is a longer description of the title’s plot.
• Genre: this is the title’s genre.
• Subdir: related objects may be grouped in a synthesized subdirectory by giving them identical Subdir names. This feature is of limited usefulness, as the Kodi user interface does not present these groupings, and it may change in future versions.
• IMDbID: this is the Internet Movie Database’s ID for the title.

You must make your spreadsheet readable to at least the “service account” whose credentials kodigcs is using (with -creds). You must specify the ID of the spreadsheet to kodigcs with -sheet. The ID is the portion of the URL after docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ and before the next /.