how long would it take for a movie to be added to plex after its released?
If you mean the free streaming service, I’d expect years unless it’s a small production company. And don’t wait up for anything by a major movie company.
If you mean their metadata database so you can add one to your personal library, it’s usually in their site within days of the announcement of production. So potentially years before it’s even out.
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Do you mean available for streaming or rental?
It really is up to the rights holders/studios.
After a movie has done it’s theater run the creating studio like Disney or Warner Bros or whomever would then put on their own streaming service. Then after a time possibly for rental on other services (like our rentals).
After that initial process often services bid for exclusive streaming rights. So Tubi might be the only place to watch The Matrix Trilogy. it is all a crazy web of contracts and such. often limited runs. like @Divideby0 mentioned it could be years before we get it.
As far as just metadata that is usually pretty quick. as long as it is a major movie and the online Databases like the Move Database have been updated
When new content is added or edited on TMDB, the modification typically takes about 1-3 days to sync to Plex Movie or Plex Series. However, using The Movie Database agent can obtain real-time data without waiting.
In my opinion, a delay of 1-3 days is not fast—even somewhat slow. Compared to other servers and players that scrape metadata directly from TMDB, this delay needs optimization.
This causes users to fail to obtain metadata when adding currently airing or updating content to their media library, or within a day or two after adding it, resulting in a poor experience.
The OP was asking about after a movie is released, not from the time the metadata is added to TMDB.
The metadata is usually added to the TMDB long before the movie is even released and updated with more current metadata when actually released, Usually both those things happen long before anyone would have a file to need metadata for their server.
Okay, I might have gone off-topic a bit, but I also want to take this opportunity to provide some feedback on this situation. Most movies do have their information edited on TMDB before their release, but there may be individual cases where editing happens after the release, though this is relatively rare.
The situation I mentioned above is more common in TV shows. For example, information such as episode titles and episode posters often needs to wait until the episode airs before being updated on TMDB, which can lead to the delay I mentioned.
If I’m straying too far from the topic, I’ll stop replying here.
They are good points, and it is possible the OP might have been referring to TV Show metadata for newly-added episodes. It wouldn’t be the first time someone said “movie” and meant “video” or “episode”.
I do notice the issue with new shows and/or episodes not having complete info. I believe the Plex server itself does one of two things when something is added. It either:
- Detects the lack of info and schedules a metadata refresh for a few days or a week. This should fix the Plex delay, but it can be ugly for us servers in the meantime where we have incomplete data.
- Or Plex simply schedules a few extra metadata updates for new content regardless, just in case new info comes out.
I suspect the latter. Any show can have spelling errors or changes in the first few days of a shows release, so it knows recently added material may not be accurate anyway.
Edit: The OP hasn’t replied by now. With such a username name, I have a hunch on what they were really referring to, but I’ll wait on that for now.
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