Include itunes movies in library

General Discussions
1

I use plex to stream ripped movies and DVR recorded movies to my Apple TV (4K).
I am also increasingly purchasing movies on apple iTunes (quality is great, prices are reasonable and quality is automatically upgraded for free when Apple upgrade a movie to 4K/HDR)
Is there a way to include iTunes movies in my library and have plex launch itunes in context to play the selected movie? This makes plex the overall master library where I can see all my movies.

iTunes has a link maker to get direct link to movie:
e.g.

https://linkmaker.itunes.apple.com/en-us/details/1354248992?country=gb&mediaType=movies&term=ready+player+one&type=movie

So it would be great if I can add such URLs to my movie library.

2

BTW I tried adding a new folder in my movies dir, with the itunes movie URL within the folder, but its not working. I’m guessing this is not supported…

3

iTunes movies are not playing in Plex (neither do DRM protected movies from other platforms):
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201128288-why-don-t-videos-from-itunes-amazon-etc-play/

If you used iTunes for your home videos, Plex would also have trouble to deal with iTunes’ folder structure and file naming.

4

Hi @tom80H
Thanks for the reply.
I know that itunes movies are not supported directly in plex.
What I want is to have a pointer from my library to launch itunes movies on the apple tv to stream the movie (I dont want the files to be kept locally)
i…e plex acts as the library and then launches itunes to play itunes movies.

Actually I see someone else also suggested this as a feature:

5

no… that doesn’t work.

6

Its a shame that this is not possible, where the external applications would allow.

8

I was not asking to import the itunes files into my library. I was asking about including them in the library as links toopen itunes movies app to play the video.

9

This would be hugely helpful.

Currently there’s no unified interface for itunes/plex movies.

Apple’s never going to do it, but I’d think that plex could add a non-video ‘external link’, which simply redirects the user to the iTunes page.

Currently the only real option I’ve hit upon is to add a ‘stub’ video file which displays text/graphic directing the user to open iTunes. Something like “Ask Siri, to play this video in iTunes.”

You can simply duplicate this ‘video’ in your Plex library, renaming it to match the actual video so it gets matched for the appropriate metadata. Pretty simple task to automate as well.

Not very elegant, but at least there’s a unified interface containing all your movies.

1 Like
10

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