CineSync Documentation

CineSync is a media library management system designed to organize Movies and TV shows. It serves as an alternative to Sonarr and Radarr by automating the organization of media libraries.

Core Mechanism: CineSync uses symbolic links to create connections from source directories to destination directories based on metadata from TMDb, IMDb, or TVDB. This allows for a structured library without duplicating files or consuming extra disk space.

Key Capabilities:

• Automation: Auto-processing of discovered media files.
• Debrid Integration: Optimized for debrid platforms (Real-Debrid, TorBox) with features like instant RD mounts and integrated repair flows.
• Content Separation: Automatic categorization for Kids content, 4K media, and Anime.
• Media Server Integration: Real-time updates for Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby.

The CineSync web interface provides a real-time dashboard to track automation activities:

• Live Statistics: View processing progress and library statistics as they happen.
• Recent Media Tracking: Automatically tracks and displays recently added content.
• Processing Queue: Visually monitor current and pending file operations.

CineSync uses an intelligent monitoring system to automate media library organization. It utilizes filesystem events for Smart File Detection to identify new media instantly and supports an Auto-Processing Mode that can be toggled via the web interface.

Key automation behaviors include:

• Initial Smart Scan: Performs a comprehensive library analysis upon startup.
• Continuous Monitoring: Detects new files using configurable monitoring intervals.
• Batch Processing: Handles multiple files using parallel processing.
• Error Recovery: Implements automatic retries with exponential backoff for failed operations.
• Duplicate Prevention: Uses intelligent deduplication to avoid re-processing the same content.

Instead of physically moving or duplicating files, CineSync organizes your library by creating symbolic links from your source directories to your destination directories.

This approach relies on metadata from providers like TMDb, IMDb, and TVDB to determine the correct structure. This method preserves disk space while enabling advanced organization and metadata-driven library management.

CineSync operates using a single-service architecture across all platforms, consisting of three main components:

1. Main Process: WebDavHub (a Go server) which serves the embedded React frontend.
2. Subprocess: MediaHub (a Python backend) for media processing.
3. Frontend: An embedded React application.

Service Management by Platform

When running CineSync on Windows, keep the following in mind:

• Web Interface Port: The default port is 8082. This can be changed using environment variables.
• Data Storage: The database and log files are stored directly within the installation directory.
• Process Model: MediaHub operates as a subprocess of the main CineSync service.

CineSync requires macFUSE to support rclone mounting. You can install it via Homebrew or by downloading it directly from the official website.

brew install --cask macfuse

CineSync can automatically categorize and sort your media based on specific metadata and quality attributes:

Content Classification

• Kids Content: Automatically separates family-friendly content based on TMDB ratings (G, PG, TV-Y, TV-G, TV-PG) and family genres.
• Anime: Specialized handling for anime, separating anime movies from TV shows.
• 4K/UHD: Automatically detects and separates 4K content into dedicated folders.
• Resolution-Based Sorting: Sorts content by video quality (e.g., 720p, 1080p, 4K).

Organization Layouts

• CineSync Layout: A simplified structure using Movies and Shows directories.
• Source Structure Preservation: Option to maintain the original folder structures.
• Custom Folder Naming: Configure specific names for different content types.
• Collection-Based Grouping: Groups movie franchises and collections together.

CineSync integrates with major media servers to ensure your library stays updated as files are organized:

• Jellyfin/Emby: Uses inotify-compatible symlinks to trigger instant library refreshes.
• Plex: Uses the Plex API to trigger automatic library scanning and updates.
• Direct Streaming: Organized content becomes available in real-time through these access methods.

To create a Linux installation package, you can build directly on Linux or cross-compile from Windows. The build process compiles the Go WebDAV server, the React frontend, packages the MediaHub Python source via PyInstaller, and downloads the Linux version of rclone.

Prerequisites:

• Python 3.8 or higher
• Go 1.21 or higher
• Node.js and npm
• systemd (for service management)
• fuse3 or fuse (for rclone mounting)

### On Linux
```bash
python3 build_installer.py

Cross-compile from Windows

python build_installer.py

After building the package, you will find the installation files in the build/ directory. To install, extract the .tar.gz package and run the install.sh script with root privileges. The installer installs the application to /opt/cinesync/, creates a cinesync.service systemd unit, and enables/starts the service.

# Extract package
tar -xzf cinesync-linux-amd64.tar.gz
cd cinesync-linux-amd64

# Run installer (requires root/sudo)
sudo bash install.sh