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Local Video Files

Iain Smith edited this page Aug 28, 2026 · 1 revision

Local Video Files

URL can also be a local video file, played directly — no playlist/EPG/channel/Plex library involved, just mpv pointed at a file on disk:

tvdinner ~/Videos/'His Girl Friday (1940).webm'

It's told apart from a local M3U playlist by content, not extension (the first few KB are sniffed for #EXTM3U), so a genuine playlist file still loads as one as always.

Title guessing and TMDB metadata

A local video file carries no provider metadata of its own, so tvdinner guesses its movie identity from the filename: a 19xx/20xx year anywhere in it, in parens/brackets/dashes/dots (e.g. Title (Year).ext, Title.Year.1080p.BluRay.x264-GROUP.mkv, or a yt-dlp download's Year - Title - Cast - Tagline [videoID].ext — all naming conventions real tools actually produce), plus whatever text sits on the more informative side of it.

If --tmdb-api-token is given, that guess is looked up on TMDB in the background, trying a couple of candidate search strings the same way a YouTube title does, since a filename can chain the same kind of cast/tagline noise onto the real title. A successful match means i shows the same poster/synopsis/rating/progress overlay as a Plex or Xtream/Stalker VOD item — see TMDB Ratings & Metadata. Without a token, i still shows the guessed title and playback progress, just without the TMDB-sourced fields.

--title/--year override a bad guess without renaming the file.

Resuming and recording

Resuming (--playback-positions-file) and r-key recording (--record-dir) both work the same as anywhere else — see VOD Browsing & Resume.

As a bookmark

A local video file's path also works as a bookmark's URL, complete with its own saved TMDB token — handy for a small, frequently-rewatched local collection (a few favorite movies, a kid's show) you'd rather launch by name than by retyping a path.

Everything else

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