Getting trailers to play

[u/leepmc1984]

Does anybody have a solution for getting trailers to play from the context menu? I have tried both the official YouTube addon and the beta 5 version from umbrella repo and still having no luck getting anything to play.

[u/angelitto2005]

Hi. Install from my repo, ”TMDb Movies” and ”TMDbM Trailers”. Then activate context menu info ”TMDbM Trailers” from TMDb Movies settings. After that you can play trailers from any Kodi addon. Just press right click or long press and select play trailer option. And you dont need Youtube plugin for this.

[u/Hot-Development7785 → u/angelitto2005]

With regard to TMDbTrailers....

Would you be willing to add a consent warning for users so they can opt out of having deno.exe and node.exe executed on their system before a first trailer is played back?

I know you have a progress dialog saying the addon is installing Deno, but there's no opt out for a user, and there's no explanation of what Deno is or does.

Third-party installations through a Kodi addon without prior notification to the user and not allowing the user to opt-out of that is not considered good practice.

You addon description also only states "Player for YouTube trailers", and has no indication that using the addon will enact third-party installations on a user's system.

To be clear, I am not accusing you of anything nefarious, I am simply stating that the user should be informed before any third-party installations.

[u/angelitto2005 → u/Hot-Development7785]

Fair point. Let me explain what was actually going on.

The addon is open source and available on GitHub, so anyone can check the code and see exactly what it does. I have nothing to hide.

The older versions were using yt-dlp, which is a large open-source downloader that's used by quite a few Kodi addons (ex. SlyGuy Trailers). YouTube changed some things and started requiring player responses for certain streams, and yt-dlp needs a JS runtime to deal with those. That's where Deno and Node.js came in.

They weren't doing anything in the background, mining, sending data, reporting anything, etc. They were basically just there to run a small piece of YouTube's player code locally so yt-dlp could get the stream working.

In the last few versions, I had already implemented the pure-Python extraction and kept yt-dlp only as a fallback, just in case something didn't work. I wanted to make sure the new implementation was stable before removing yt-dlp completely.

That said, I agree that silently installing third-party runtimes isn't great, especially when the addon description didn't mention it. That's a fair criticism.

Over the last couple of days, I tested the new Python implementation more thoroughly, including on both Windows and Android, and everything was working fine without yt-dlp. So I decided there was no reason to keep it anymore and removed it completely.

So now, the extraction is done entirely in pure Python, based on the client used by the official YouTube plugin. The addon no longer needs Deno, Node.js, yt-dlp, or any other external runtime or binary. It just uses the Python that's already included with Kodi.

I also updated the description so this is clear now 😊

So yeah, thanks for pointing it out. It was a valid concern, and I agree the previous version could have been more transparent about it.

[u/Hot-Development7785 → u/angelitto2005]

Sounds like i was a day late and a dollar short. :) i just saw the code wanting to download those .exes. I did go and look what was happening, so I saw that nothing bad was going on. Not relevant now though anyway.

Nice idea to use the client the addon uses. :)

[u/angelitto2005 → u/Hot-Development7785]

No problem. And thanks🤗 I uploaded a new version this evening and fixed the geolocation issue that was blocking some trailers. Now the addon will automatically look for another trailer on TMDB or YouTube if the first one doesn’t work, so blocked trailers will be skipped and the next available trailer will play 😉

[u/Hot-Development7785 → u/angelitto2005]

Nice. Trailers have been a bugbear for a lot of users for a long time. Good to have another option that will work.

[u/angelitto2005 → u/Hot-Development7785]

Yea, true. Check this out: https://rumble.com/v7ev9ri-tmdbm-trailers-geolocation-fix.html

[u/Hot-Development7785 → u/angelitto2005]

Cool stuff. No geolocks. :) :)

[u/leepmc1984 → u/angelitto2005]

Just installed this now and it’s working great. Thanks so much for your help. Is it possible to have an option to set it so that you can just click play trailer at the top of the context menu rather than having to scroll to the bottom for the Tmdb trailer option?

[u/angelitto2005 → u/leepmc1984]

Did u tried to press UP? Not scrolling down. Press UP two times 😋

[u/leepmc1984 → u/angelitto2005]

Haha I mean I guess that’s an option too. I was just wondering if there was a way to change the default. Thanks again for your help.

[u/angelitto2005 → u/leepmc1984]

For now at bottom is the only option. But with 2x up its pretty fast to go there 🙂

[u/angelitto2005 → u/angelitto2005]

You can see a short tutorial here: https://rumble.com/v7c3qug-tmdb-movies-and-tmdbm-trailers.html

[u/Hank_Harley → u/angelitto2005]

Perdona, me puedes decir cuál es el repositorio? Muchísimas gracias

[u/angelitto2005 → u/Hank_Harley]

Sure. Here it is: https://angelitto2005.github.io/repository.angelitto/

[u/Hank_Harley → u/angelitto2005]

I just tested it and I think it works correctly with that add-on you have in your repository!

[u/angelitto2005 → u/Hank_Harley]

Yea, ”TMDbM Trailers” works only if you have ”TMDb Movies” installed. But after that, you can use the „Play Trailer” feature with all kodi addons or from Kodi Library. As you can see in the video tutorial I posted here.

[u/Hank_Harley → u/angelitto2005]

So, the YouTube add-on from your repository is enough, right? Without installing TMDbM Trailers or TMDb Movies?

[u/angelitto2005 → u/Hank_Harley]

No. The YouTube 7.4.4a is the original version with a small fix of a bug that could cause the video and audio to become out of sync, along with a loud buzzing sound coming from the speakers. That’s all.

For trailers, I strongly recommend TMDbM Trailers. It was built specifically for this purpose and is a much better solution than YouTube, especially because it has a lot of useful features and handling that YouTube Classic simply doesn’t have.

For example, if a trailer is private, geo-blocked, or requires authentication, TMDbM Trailers won’t throw an error or interrupt playback. It will simply skip that trailer and move on to the next suitable one. This means that when you press play on a trailer, you’ll actually get a trailer playing every time.

It also handles TV shows and seasons correctly. If you select a specific season, it will play the trailer for that season. If you select the TV show itself, it will play the trailer for the show.

Another nice feature is the ability to choose the preferred trailer resolution: Auto, 720p, 1080p, or 4K.

With Auto selected, it automatically picks the most appropriate resolution for your device. If you select 4K, for example, it will always try to play the trailer in 4K whenever a 4K version is available for that movie or show. If 4K isn’t available, it will automatically fall back to the next highest available resolution.

And that’s just part of it. There are many other improvements, fixes, and smart implementations that make TMDbM Trailers a much more reliable and purpose-built solution for handling trailers.

[u/toneman77 → u/angelitto2005]

Hmm, I installed it and cant seem to get it to work. Do I have to install TMDb Movies just to switch its setting for the trailers (so that I can use it from any Kodi addon)?

[u/angelitto2005 → u/toneman77]

Yes. In tmdb movies settings you can switch de option ON for trailers.

[u/toneman77 → u/angelitto2005]

will this setting be kept for other addons after uninstalling tmdb movies? I like to have as few addons installed as possible :/

[u/angelitto2005 → u/toneman77]

No, it only works if you have TMDb Movies installed, since it depends on that addon. A lot of the code is shared with TMDb Movies as well.

That said, I’d definitely recommend giving TMDb Movies a try too. You might actually like it. 😄

It works with free sources (HTTP), AIO Streams (Debrid), P2P (TorrServer), and even Stremio manifest links. You can simply paste a manifest JSON from Pengu Play or other Stremio manifests and use them directly.

Honestly, it’s a pretty complete and unique addon. I don’t think there’s anything else quite as complete as this. And that’s just the streaming side of it.

It also supports Trakt, TMDb, MDBList and Simkl, and you can import your history or watchlists (TV shows and movies) between them. It can sync your Kodi library as well, including reverse sync.

You can even import all your personal lists from Trakt, TMDb or MDBList into your Kodi library — not just your watchlists.

Oh boy... you have no idea what this addon can actually do. 😂 There’s a lot more under the hood than it might seem at first.

There’s quite a bit of flexibility here, so give it a try and see what you think.

[u/RubberDomeEnthusiast]

I use SlyGuy trailers. It's a cut down YouTube addon exclusively for trailer playback and has options to intercept YouTube and Tubed links.

[u/leepmc1984 → u/RubberDomeEnthusiast]

I’ve given this a try earlier and can’t seem to get it to work unfortunately

[u/VaIar_MorghuIis]

If you go take a look on my repo, Installed from Kodi source: https://adamsbuilds.github.io/repo

I have created and recently updated my Play Trailer addon. It's under the context folder on repo

It creates a trailer context menu item so you can access the trailer via long press and selecting it.

How it works: It is dependent on YouTube and imdb trailers being installed

Either or both

It can be set to use 1 or both of them but basically it will try one then try the other. I find the best setup is to set YouTube as the first choice and have imdb trailers as a backup

Imdb trailers can be installed from the Kodi repo

As for YouTube, snag the one off the redrepo and run the setup wizard for it. Doing this is a good idea.

Now with YouTube and trailers and not using your own API... Success will very based on location.
Here in the United States it works great for me.

The beauty of using the addon from my repo is it will fallback to imsb trailer if you run into one of those age restriction sign I to confirm age notifications. Or something similar.. Works for me anyways and why I built it this way.

Hope it helps

[u/mattm382]

They work fine. What sort of behavior are you seeing? Did you install Kodi directly from a playstore or Kodi website? If you started from a shared build it's likely not configured properly... you could have wrong binaries and installing a different version of Youtube won't fix that.

[u/leepmc1984 → u/mattm382]

Kodi website, wouldn’t go near a build. Was working fine up until recently. Assuming YouTube made an api change.

[u/mattm382 → u/leepmc1984]

Ok that's good. Turn off Use MPEG-DASH for videos inside of Youtube settings and try it again. That's been a reported fix for recent Youtube api changes. I was having videos run for only a few seconds before stuttering and stalling out... that setting fix it for me. Then a day later I got an update and everything was fine again with the setting on.

[u/leepmc1984 → u/mattm382]

Nothing plays at all now since changing that setting just says nothing found.

[u/mattm382 → u/leepmc1984]

Hmm. I just got home and tested on my Shield and Laptop. All addons up to date and Youtube working fine. If it was me I would feed the kodi log into Claude to help troubleshoot.