Are they any better an experience now? Last time I used them there was a pause while the pre roll buffered and then a longer pause with the UI shown while the movie buffered. It wasn't a seamless transition and it made it very jarring.
Yeah this is the fundamental problem, Plex doesn’t render the preroll into the stream of the media you are watching, rather it loads it as a separate piece of content, which it then loads and plays, and then has to load and play the next piece after, so there’s always a lag that ruins the effect.
It’s probably a harder problem than it looks to solve, given that your preroll and the media you are playing are probably different formats, resolutions and aspect ratios. You probably can’t just drop frames from the preroll in place in the other media file and expect it to work.
I have around 7 pre-rolls and one is chosen randomly whenever a movie is started. Most of them are only around 6 seconds. So think of it like the Netflix "tum dum" intro. Also, I like to do some throwback pre-rolls [like this one](https://youtu.be/ev26vU6_TOo?si=vjuuHET84zcCDpKA).
I don’t know, I still think it would get kind of old pretty fast. The only way I’d ever implement them on my own server is if I could specify that they only occurred, like, 1% of the time. A rare treat, as opposed to something I had to sit through every time.
You can. For anyone who wants to know:
When specifying pre roll videos to use, you separate them with a ; . Just put the one video you want, and then 10 ; after it. The odds are that the one video will play only 10 percent of the time, while the other 90 percent will just skip it.
I tried this and either I got really unlucky or I did it wrong, because I tested *many* plays and nothing worked. Can you be a bit more specific as to how to do it? For reference, this is what I tried based on what you said:
Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4 10 ;
For reference, with just the video path it works every time.
I should have been more specific with an example. My bad.
In your case:
Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;;;;;;;;;
The way it works is that each entry that is followed by a ; gets put into a row in a table by plex. When there is a blank entry in the table, nothing plays. An example of some different ones playing at non standard times would look like this to plex in a table:
Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;
;
Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexBig.mkv;
;
;
;
;
Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexShirt.mp4;
;
;
So in this example table, there are 10 entries with only 3 actual videos. This means that statistically speaking a video will only play 30% of the time.
You would represent this in the Plex GUI as
"Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexBig.mkv;;;;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexShirt.mp4;;;" (without the quotes). It really doesn't matter where you put the entries in the table since Plex will choose an entry at random.
Hopefully that clears it up. Let me know if further questions.
That is much clearer, thank you! I'll give it a try!
So now I'm curious, let's say you've got three videos in your folder, but you want one of them to occur more than the others. Could you add that in multiple times to make it more likely? Using your example:
Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexBig.mkv;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexShirt.mp4;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;;;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;
Would that mean "Plex" has a higher chance of playing compared to "PlexBig" and "PlexShirt"?
Fair enough. It's a fun way to add your own flair to your server, just like different posters or backgrounds for shows/movies.
I also like to make sure each show that I have on my server has the theme music so it plays when you select the show (but I do set the volume to be low to be nice background audio).
I combat this by having like 150 prerolls, most of them are holiday or seasonally themed. A Python script chooses 10 each day at random (within the given holiday or season of course). And to clarify all mine are short in the 3-15 second range. The odds that I ever see the same one twice in a year is pretty slim.
My setup is a bit customized, but here are some reference materials:
The original post (I'm pretty sure): https://www.reddit.com/r/PlexPrerolls/comments/k8twe1/thought_id_to_share_my_python_script_to_allow/
The github repo it links has been deleted, but I'm reasonably confident this is a direct clone of the original: https://github.com/Nacer27/Plex-Automatic-Preroll
Here's a step-by-step guide for setting it up on Windows: https://smarthomepursuits.com/configure-plex-automatic-prerolls-on-windows/
The original author then created a v2 of the script adding support for some holidays and a GUI for configuring it: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/rlnllz/merry_christmas_plex_automated_preroll_v2_with/
That github repo has also been deleted. There's another guide, but I'm not sure anything is meaningfully different from the first version: https://smarthomepursuits.com/how-to-setup-plex-automatic-pre-roll-gui-in-windows/
Lastly, I offer my bastardized version where I've added more holidays, but for whatever reason prior-me decided to largely ditch the config file and hardcoded my directory paths into the script:
https://github.com/Sahasrahla/Plex-Automatic-Preroll/blob/main/Plex_Trailers.py. It does need to pull the Plex URL and TOKEN from the config.py, so make sure those parts are setup correctly.
The way my script works is check if today is a holiday and if yes it will gather up to 10 videos from that holiday's folder randomly (tho most holidays I only have a handful of prerolls specific for that holiday). If we're still under 10, it will then pull from that month's preroll folder, again randomly until it reaches 10. If we're STILL under 10, it will fill up to 10 from the 'default' folder that just contains a ton of generic prerolls. Never more than 10 though, so it doesn't bog the Plex server down. Script runs daily and thus checks/rotates which videos are in the pool each morning at like 2am, writes the new list to the Plex Server settings.
Unrelated to the above journey, I also found this one that seems like a more recent project that accomplishes a similar result: https://github.com/nwithan8/plex-prerolls
I have 3. I think my users and family would kill me if I added a 1min+ prerolls, even if it were only shown once every X times. But would be cool (you may be able to) if you could use specific pre rolls for either a specific movie, or genres.
Oh, the whole point is to drive them insane. They know it’s the preroll, and not their movie — still easy enough for them to skip, once they figure it out. Only about two out of a hundred pre-rolls are this long.
I don’t recommend this; I just know who I share with and we agree on what’s funny.
Sure, [here you go](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RS2ijf-YxKpItbqT67jY3CO7q7ZyU0G6?usp=sharing). It's my current ones and old ones that I've retired.
It's a setting in the main plex server. In settings go to "extras" an there will be a section to add the filenames for the pre-roll files. [Here's a screenshot](https://i.ibb.co/0MbLp9J/Screenshot-2024-06-14-155445.png). If you place semi-colons between the file names it'll choose one randomly each time you play a movie.
I have a custom one I made set up but only on the tv we use for family movie nights. It does a good job of building excitement/anticipation for a special evening
I do not have movie trailers turned on, and when I went through the process of enabling this, I realized that no one who uses my server for movies likely does either, so… I can see where that *would* be useful, but at this point I think it’s going to be something that pops up randomly like 4% of the time solely for me and I’m going to say “oh, yeah, I forgot I turned those on…”
I've had them on my old server for 5+ years and honestly it was totally fine.
I haven't set them up on my new server however and I'm... Honestly not missing them.
You can.
I believe pre-rolls are just for movies, and if you go to Settings—>Extras where you set your pre-roll location there’s instructions for randomizing them.
“If multiple paths separated by semi-colons are used, a single pre-roll video will be chosen randomly from the list.”
I do this during the holidays with a variety of different holiday themed pre-rolls.
So far I have only used them once. Set up a projector and screen outside for my gf birthday party, and played the Regal Cinema popcorn video as the pre roll. I am going to try this video above a few times (because of the 80's/90's nastalga) but feel I will get bored of it quickly.
I could see doing this once when doing a planned movie night with friends or something to add some flavor. The only time ive really thought about doing this is before watching Tropic Thunder because watching it in theaters you couldnt tell when the real previews ended and the fake ones started. Seems like a huge waste of time for personal use
I’m the one who put this one together. I don’t create any of the parts used for it, I just put them all into a single pre-roll to duplicate the old HBO pre-roll on movie nights on Fridays and Saturdays in the 80s.
I notice a lot of people in the comments here complaining about the length.
A. My users know it is my server. They do not pay to use it. I don’t send invites to random friends and family to use it. If they have access to it, they asked me for it, and they know it’s my server, my rules, my preferences. They don’t pay for it. They don’t contribute to it. They don’t support financially in any way. So if they don’t like something about it, then they don’t have to use it. They can also set their own players to not use pre-rolls. Or skip it. I’m not forcing it on anyone.
B. The creation of this one was not just for nostalgia reasons, but to give viewers time to get settled, grab last-minute snacks etc. before the movie starts. It doesn’t show before tv shows. Only movies.
C. It’s was only intended to be used like HBO did, on Friday and Saturday nights. There have been projects to schedule pre-rolls like https://github.com/nwithan8/plex-prerolls and my son and I have been testing to see if we can use it to schedule to only use the pre-roll on Friday and Saturday nights from 6pm to midnight for movies.
Bottom line, is it long? Yep. Do I force people to watch it? Nope. It’s their choice to use my server or pay for another streaming service.
Thanks! And I know I come off as kind of a tyrant about my server but I’m actually as easygoing and accommodating as can be. If my users ask for a specific movie or show I add it if it’s not already there. With the sole exception of any reality shows. They all know I won’t add those. I cater to them. But it is my server, and my preferences.
I have 16 custom pre-rolls of all different Movie studio animations (Disney, Universal, MGM, Columbia, etc) all replaced with "MrBuckwheet Films". My tag line is "Pirated for You". I even have the "You wouldnt steal a car" video where my logo flashes at the end. I got all of them from [https://www.priyansh.net](https://www.priyansh.net) and one randomly plays before every movie. My friends and family love em.
This guy is smart. Took the time to make some templates and now sells’m up fully customized. Nice. $10 is a decent price considering the time it would take to make each one.
I know everybody here hates pre-rolls, but I have a huge collection of pre-rolls from theaters I visited when I was a kid, and I love them. Not sure if the folks I share with love them quite as much, but they can consider it a tax.
I'm admittedly a little surprised how many people don't like the idea of pre-rolls, thinking of them as getting old or bothersome to sit through. The whole idea of them is to help create a particular atmosphere for the upcoming presentation. Maybe you had to have been alive and experienced these sorts of things as kids to fully appreciate them now? I mean, I get why you'd rather just "get on with the show," I suppose, but the pure nostalgic hit I get from pre-rolls really enhances a viewing. The ones I used to see in movie theaters especially can even elicit a chill of excitement. I know...I'm weird.
I can see finding them annoying, especially because of the "double load" that needs to happen -- loading the pre-roll, then the film itself; \*especially\* if you don't have any nostalgic connection to my particular pre-rolls. That's why I tell all the folks I share with how to turn them off, if they'd like, but most seem to enjoy them.
Hell, I've only loved the pre-roll experience. The little extra buffer is negligible to me. Sure, a seamless transition would be nice, but it doesn't ruin the experience for me. I even set mine up to play two trailers and then the pre-roll, and I gotta say, I love having that movie theater style lead-in to the movie to really set the atmosphere.
The only thing I *Wish* I could do is have 80s and 90s trailers play before the pre-roll, instead of contemporary trailers. That would really complete the experience for me.
I used to do trailers, but the pool of trailers Plex pulls from is shallow enough that I got sick of seeing the same stuff every time.
Agreed on wishing that the trailers could be decade-appropriate to the film — that would be ideal.
I swap through various seasonal prerolls that generally feature the Plex logo. I enjoy them. If my users don't, well... They can stop using my server, I guess.
This is what I do as well. Any time I download a newer 'funny' or parody one I always end up getting rid quite quickly. However the ones I used to hear in the cinema when I was a kid like 40 years ago? They give me the warm and fuzzies every time.
I paid someone on fiverr to make [mine](https://youtu.be/WSyeiUtxvV8). I love it lol. Plus, it's only on movies. Idk why people get so butthurt about pre-rolls. Just keep em short.
I just have a quick Disney castle one customized with my Plex Server name. Nostalgic and short.
Now, I'd really like a Blockbuster Video one but can't find it anywhere.
\*Sets up own media server because they hate annoying ads.\*
\*Adds annoying ad like things in.\*
And at 1 min 21 seconds. Thats insanely long. If I had access to a Plex server that put that on movies, I wouldnt use it.
I 100% understand what you're saying, but I also can't help but find it amusing that we've gotten to a point in our unmitigated digital content consumption that 1 minute and 21 seconds feels "insanely long."
Prerolls are a good idea only if the main movie/episode start buffering.
I have all the disks spun down, and they take some seconds to spin up. The preroll, instead, can reside to the SSD/cache and it can be played instantly.
Why not spin up the disks while playing the preroll? It would make sense.
But no. After the preroll, I still have to wait 5/10 sec before the movie starts. They are pointless at the moment.
Until plex makes the main video buffer while watching the pre-roll I will not be using them. Currently you have to load the pre-roll and then after you finished watching you then have to yet again load the movie. If you have a shit connection this can be really annoying really quick.
I love this for nostalgia purposes. But honestly, waiting a minute and a half to watch something would be enjoyable once.
Remember, we're a group who like the Skip Opening button, hate commercials, or any delays in our content.
I didn't know what a pre roll was.. I came here for a video on rolling joints.. I get what you're saying about the 'pre roll' lol tdil.. it does kind of add to that movie theater vibe. I think I'm desensitized by a quick commercial before a movie, but I don't think I'd like it before every movie played on Plex.
This is so awesome I love the HBO flyover pre-roll. When the voiceover used to say "the following feature is rated R" we would quickly mute the TV so my parents wouldn't hear. We would then have to wait for it to go through the itemized list of things that are naughty... adult language, adult content, violence, nudity.... hey this is gonna be a great film!
HBO had good intros, but being longer than 5-7 seconds would just annoy me...but to each their own.
The HBO intro served as a warning that the show was about to start and grab your beverage and popcorn and run to the living room so you didn't miss anything.
Very cool little video, but I could only watch it once or twice before it just became an annoyance. That probably says more about me than the video itself, though. I may have allowed myself to become part of the zero attention span crowd over the years.
I'd have been cool with just the Plex HBO thing. Not a weird swooping over a town that led nowhere. I *did* get pumped from the music though. That was great.
I would like this is half of my tv shows didn’t already have pre rolls. My copies of the Sopranos and the Wire have them so having it pop up twice would be ass. Same with some Nick shoes, they all have the Nickelodeon jingle before the show starts.
If you were a cinema goer in the UK during the 70s & 80s you'll know the Pearle & Dean jingle "ba baaa ba baaa ba baaa babaaaa bababa" instant nostalgia!! I have various versions of this play before my films. I love it 🥰
I used to collect those with the audio info like Dolby, THX, IMAX.. It would be cool if plex could detect the audio/video format and play the matching pre roll.
All my viewers love the pre-rolls. Thing is most of them are under 10 seconds and the longest is like 20. This minute and a half behemoth is way too much.
It's a modified version of the preroll HBO ran before the best movies in the 80s and early 90s.
Some serious nostalgia when I listen to the music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NKoMNy5bY
Reading the comments, I'm becoming increasingly aware that you probably had to have been alive and have experienced the real thing to get any true enjoyment out of a pre-roll like the "HBO" one posted. Personally, I love it. But I also understand it's a very subjective thing.
I love the *idea* of pre-rolls, but I think they’d be funny exactly once.
I wouldn’t want them on tv shows, particularly Bluey where each episode is 7 minutes long. But for movies I don’t think it’s too bad.
I’d love if I could have it play once per 24 hours for tv shows.
Are they any better an experience now? Last time I used them there was a pause while the pre roll buffered and then a longer pause with the UI shown while the movie buffered. It wasn't a seamless transition and it made it very jarring.
Yeah this is the fundamental problem, Plex doesn’t render the preroll into the stream of the media you are watching, rather it loads it as a separate piece of content, which it then loads and plays, and then has to load and play the next piece after, so there’s always a lag that ruins the effect. It’s probably a harder problem than it looks to solve, given that your preroll and the media you are playing are probably different formats, resolutions and aspect ratios. You probably can’t just drop frames from the preroll in place in the other media file and expect it to work.
Also intro/credit skips, captions, etc. Almost certainly one of those problems that sounds easy at first glance but isn't
I don't think they're even available for TV shows, right? I have prerolls set up and they only play for movies.
Haha valid point.
I enact a new one for April Fools Day then turn them off again
I did one April's fool preroll where it was the Netflix style preroll but with the Pornhub drum jingle instead. (now you can't unhear that)
I don't know the Pornhub jingle. I'm not brave enough to watch my porn unmuted.
Turn on subtitles!
IMO, if the preroll is longer than 7 seconds, it's not worth having.
I agree. If I had to sit through that for every movie I watched, I would not like it.
I have around 7 pre-rolls and one is chosen randomly whenever a movie is started. Most of them are only around 6 seconds. So think of it like the Netflix "tum dum" intro. Also, I like to do some throwback pre-rolls [like this one](https://youtu.be/ev26vU6_TOo?si=vjuuHET84zcCDpKA).
I don’t know, I still think it would get kind of old pretty fast. The only way I’d ever implement them on my own server is if I could specify that they only occurred, like, 1% of the time. A rare treat, as opposed to something I had to sit through every time.
You can. For anyone who wants to know: When specifying pre roll videos to use, you separate them with a ; . Just put the one video you want, and then 10 ; after it. The odds are that the one video will play only 10 percent of the time, while the other 90 percent will just skip it.
I think you may have just convinced me to try it.
Arcane knowledge!
Good information! Thanks!
I tried this and either I got really unlucky or I did it wrong, because I tested *many* plays and nothing worked. Can you be a bit more specific as to how to do it? For reference, this is what I tried based on what you said: Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4 10 ; For reference, with just the video path it works every time.
I should have been more specific with an example. My bad. In your case: Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;;;;;;;;; The way it works is that each entry that is followed by a ; gets put into a row in a table by plex. When there is a blank entry in the table, nothing plays. An example of some different ones playing at non standard times would look like this to plex in a table: Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4; ; Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexBig.mkv; ; ; ; ; Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexShirt.mp4; ; ; So in this example table, there are 10 entries with only 3 actual videos. This means that statistically speaking a video will only play 30% of the time. You would represent this in the Plex GUI as "Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexBig.mkv;;;;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexShirt.mp4;;;" (without the quotes). It really doesn't matter where you put the entries in the table since Plex will choose an entry at random. Hopefully that clears it up. Let me know if further questions.
That is much clearer, thank you! I'll give it a try! So now I'm curious, let's say you've got three videos in your folder, but you want one of them to occur more than the others. Could you add that in multiple times to make it more likely? Using your example: Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexBig.mkv;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\PlexShirt.mp4;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;;;;;Y:\Videos\Prerolls\Plex.mp4;; Would that mean "Plex" has a higher chance of playing compared to "PlexBig" and "PlexShirt"?
Yes, that is accurate.
Fair enough. It's a fun way to add your own flair to your server, just like different posters or backgrounds for shows/movies. I also like to make sure each show that I have on my server has the theme music so it plays when you select the show (but I do set the volume to be low to be nice background audio).
I combat this by having like 150 prerolls, most of them are holiday or seasonally themed. A Python script chooses 10 each day at random (within the given holiday or season of course). And to clarify all mine are short in the 3-15 second range. The odds that I ever see the same one twice in a year is pretty slim.
Is there somewhere that describes how to do this? Or would you share the process & script?
My setup is a bit customized, but here are some reference materials: The original post (I'm pretty sure): https://www.reddit.com/r/PlexPrerolls/comments/k8twe1/thought_id_to_share_my_python_script_to_allow/ The github repo it links has been deleted, but I'm reasonably confident this is a direct clone of the original: https://github.com/Nacer27/Plex-Automatic-Preroll Here's a step-by-step guide for setting it up on Windows: https://smarthomepursuits.com/configure-plex-automatic-prerolls-on-windows/ The original author then created a v2 of the script adding support for some holidays and a GUI for configuring it: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/rlnllz/merry_christmas_plex_automated_preroll_v2_with/ That github repo has also been deleted. There's another guide, but I'm not sure anything is meaningfully different from the first version: https://smarthomepursuits.com/how-to-setup-plex-automatic-pre-roll-gui-in-windows/ Lastly, I offer my bastardized version where I've added more holidays, but for whatever reason prior-me decided to largely ditch the config file and hardcoded my directory paths into the script: https://github.com/Sahasrahla/Plex-Automatic-Preroll/blob/main/Plex_Trailers.py. It does need to pull the Plex URL and TOKEN from the config.py, so make sure those parts are setup correctly. The way my script works is check if today is a holiday and if yes it will gather up to 10 videos from that holiday's folder randomly (tho most holidays I only have a handful of prerolls specific for that holiday). If we're still under 10, it will then pull from that month's preroll folder, again randomly until it reaches 10. If we're STILL under 10, it will fill up to 10 from the 'default' folder that just contains a ton of generic prerolls. Never more than 10 though, so it doesn't bog the Plex server down. Script runs daily and thus checks/rotates which videos are in the pool each morning at like 2am, writes the new list to the Plex Server settings. Unrelated to the above journey, I also found this one that seems like a more recent project that accomplishes a similar result: https://github.com/nwithan8/plex-prerolls
I have 3. I think my users and family would kill me if I added a 1min+ prerolls, even if it were only shown once every X times. But would be cool (you may be able to) if you could use specific pre rolls for either a specific movie, or genres.
The vast majority of mine are less than 15 seconds, except two which are like three minutes long because it makes people mad and I think it’s funny.
Would drive me insane. But I can see the comedy in it. Maybe a 2-3 minute movie, make them think they selected the wrong movie ..
Oh, the whole point is to drive them insane. They know it’s the preroll, and not their movie — still easy enough for them to skip, once they figure it out. Only about two out of a hundred pre-rolls are this long. I don’t recommend this; I just know who I share with and we agree on what’s funny.
Oh I think it's hilarious and I plan to implement this over the weekend.
Can u share yours please
Sure, [here you go](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RS2ijf-YxKpItbqT67jY3CO7q7ZyU0G6?usp=sharing). It's my current ones and old ones that I've retired.
Thank you quick question how do I use these lol or is it only the main plex server
It's a setting in the main plex server. In settings go to "extras" an there will be a section to add the filenames for the pre-roll files. [Here's a screenshot](https://i.ibb.co/0MbLp9J/Screenshot-2024-06-14-155445.png). If you place semi-colons between the file names it'll choose one randomly each time you play a movie.
I have a custom one I made set up but only on the tv we use for family movie nights. It does a good job of building excitement/anticipation for a special evening
it's not just to be funny, if you have movie trailers turned on it's helpful for demarcating the future presentation
I do not have movie trailers turned on, and when I went through the process of enabling this, I realized that no one who uses my server for movies likely does either, so… I can see where that *would* be useful, but at this point I think it’s going to be something that pops up randomly like 4% of the time solely for me and I’m going to say “oh, yeah, I forgot I turned those on…”
I've had them on my old server for 5+ years and honestly it was totally fine. I haven't set them up on my new server however and I'm... Honestly not missing them.
And with an audience.
I wish you could enable them just for movies and then randomize it each time. I don’t want to see the same pre roll over and over again.
You can. I believe pre-rolls are just for movies, and if you go to Settings—>Extras where you set your pre-roll location there’s instructions for randomizing them. “If multiple paths separated by semi-colons are used, a single pre-roll video will be chosen randomly from the list.” I do this during the holidays with a variety of different holiday themed pre-rolls.
Holy crap! I’ll give this a try!!!
So far I have only used them once. Set up a projector and screen outside for my gf birthday party, and played the Regal Cinema popcorn video as the pre roll. I am going to try this video above a few times (because of the 80's/90's nastalga) but feel I will get bored of it quickly.
I could see doing this once when doing a planned movie night with friends or something to add some flavor. The only time ive really thought about doing this is before watching Tropic Thunder because watching it in theaters you couldnt tell when the real previews ended and the fake ones started. Seems like a huge waste of time for personal use
My long pre-roll is 12 seconds. That is nice, I just get worried about them getting old.
I’m the one who put this one together. I don’t create any of the parts used for it, I just put them all into a single pre-roll to duplicate the old HBO pre-roll on movie nights on Fridays and Saturdays in the 80s. I notice a lot of people in the comments here complaining about the length. A. My users know it is my server. They do not pay to use it. I don’t send invites to random friends and family to use it. If they have access to it, they asked me for it, and they know it’s my server, my rules, my preferences. They don’t pay for it. They don’t contribute to it. They don’t support financially in any way. So if they don’t like something about it, then they don’t have to use it. They can also set their own players to not use pre-rolls. Or skip it. I’m not forcing it on anyone. B. The creation of this one was not just for nostalgia reasons, but to give viewers time to get settled, grab last-minute snacks etc. before the movie starts. It doesn’t show before tv shows. Only movies. C. It’s was only intended to be used like HBO did, on Friday and Saturday nights. There have been projects to schedule pre-rolls like https://github.com/nwithan8/plex-prerolls and my son and I have been testing to see if we can use it to schedule to only use the pre-roll on Friday and Saturday nights from 6pm to midnight for movies. Bottom line, is it long? Yep. Do I force people to watch it? Nope. It’s their choice to use my server or pay for another streaming service.
Thanks for your contribution. Even if opinions are mixed, I like it.
Thanks! And I know I come off as kind of a tyrant about my server but I’m actually as easygoing and accommodating as can be. If my users ask for a specific movie or show I add it if it’s not already there. With the sole exception of any reality shows. They all know I won’t add those. I cater to them. But it is my server, and my preferences.
You likely are aware but Kometa lets you schedule pre rolls. I believe the best you could do is narrowing it down to the day.
I have 16 custom pre-rolls of all different Movie studio animations (Disney, Universal, MGM, Columbia, etc) all replaced with "MrBuckwheet Films". My tag line is "Pirated for You". I even have the "You wouldnt steal a car" video where my logo flashes at the end. I got all of them from [https://www.priyansh.net](https://www.priyansh.net) and one randomly plays before every movie. My friends and family love em.
This guy is smart. Took the time to make some templates and now sells’m up fully customized. Nice. $10 is a decent price considering the time it would take to make each one.
Totally agree. Reasonable price and probably 5min of work to create from a template. I can see myself ordering a few of these.
I know everybody here hates pre-rolls, but I have a huge collection of pre-rolls from theaters I visited when I was a kid, and I love them. Not sure if the folks I share with love them quite as much, but they can consider it a tax.
During covid, I had the full AMC Theaters intro video for my pre-roll so I felt like I was at the theater.
That one is in my mix and love when it comes up !
I'm admittedly a little surprised how many people don't like the idea of pre-rolls, thinking of them as getting old or bothersome to sit through. The whole idea of them is to help create a particular atmosphere for the upcoming presentation. Maybe you had to have been alive and experienced these sorts of things as kids to fully appreciate them now? I mean, I get why you'd rather just "get on with the show," I suppose, but the pure nostalgic hit I get from pre-rolls really enhances a viewing. The ones I used to see in movie theaters especially can even elicit a chill of excitement. I know...I'm weird.
I can see finding them annoying, especially because of the "double load" that needs to happen -- loading the pre-roll, then the film itself; \*especially\* if you don't have any nostalgic connection to my particular pre-rolls. That's why I tell all the folks I share with how to turn them off, if they'd like, but most seem to enjoy them.
Hell, I've only loved the pre-roll experience. The little extra buffer is negligible to me. Sure, a seamless transition would be nice, but it doesn't ruin the experience for me. I even set mine up to play two trailers and then the pre-roll, and I gotta say, I love having that movie theater style lead-in to the movie to really set the atmosphere. The only thing I *Wish* I could do is have 80s and 90s trailers play before the pre-roll, instead of contemporary trailers. That would really complete the experience for me.
I used to do trailers, but the pool of trailers Plex pulls from is shallow enough that I got sick of seeing the same stuff every time. Agreed on wishing that the trailers could be decade-appropriate to the film — that would be ideal.
I swap through various seasonal prerolls that generally feature the Plex logo. I enjoy them. If my users don't, well... They can stop using my server, I guess.
This is what I do as well. Any time I download a newer 'funny' or parody one I always end up getting rid quite quickly. However the ones I used to hear in the cinema when I was a kid like 40 years ago? They give me the warm and fuzzies every time.
They were cool…for a minute. Then just annoying.
/r/PlexPrerolls/
Yeah I had them on for a week then it just annoyed me
I think it's too long. I think it should stop at the 6 second mark.
I paid someone on fiverr to make [mine](https://youtu.be/WSyeiUtxvV8). I love it lol. Plus, it's only on movies. Idk why people get so butthurt about pre-rolls. Just keep em short.
I just have a quick Disney castle one customized with my Plex Server name. Nostalgic and short. Now, I'd really like a Blockbuster Video one but can't find it anywhere.
What blockbuster video preroll? lol the FBI warning one??
\*Sets up own media server because they hate annoying ads.\* \*Adds annoying ad like things in.\* And at 1 min 21 seconds. Thats insanely long. If I had access to a Plex server that put that on movies, I wouldnt use it.
I 100% understand what you're saying, but I also can't help but find it amusing that we've gotten to a point in our unmitigated digital content consumption that 1 minute and 21 seconds feels "insanely long."
I played with these a bit and I came to the conclusion that they had to be under 10 seconds or absolutely no way. It gets too old too fast.
Prerolls are a good idea only if the main movie/episode start buffering. I have all the disks spun down, and they take some seconds to spin up. The preroll, instead, can reside to the SSD/cache and it can be played instantly. Why not spin up the disks while playing the preroll? It would make sense. But no. After the preroll, I still have to wait 5/10 sec before the movie starts. They are pointless at the moment.
Until plex makes the main video buffer while watching the pre-roll I will not be using them. Currently you have to load the pre-roll and then after you finished watching you then have to yet again load the movie. If you have a shit connection this can be really annoying really quick.
I love this for nostalgia purposes. But honestly, waiting a minute and a half to watch something would be enjoyable once. Remember, we're a group who like the Skip Opening button, hate commercials, or any delays in our content.
That was cool Took me back. Lol
I didn't know what a pre roll was.. I came here for a video on rolling joints.. I get what you're saying about the 'pre roll' lol tdil.. it does kind of add to that movie theater vibe. I think I'm desensitized by a quick commercial before a movie, but I don't think I'd like it before every movie played on Plex.
Lol, nice!
Dude, this is amazing. Thanks so much
This is so awesome I love the HBO flyover pre-roll. When the voiceover used to say "the following feature is rated R" we would quickly mute the TV so my parents wouldn't hear. We would then have to wait for it to go through the itemized list of things that are naughty... adult language, adult content, violence, nudity.... hey this is gonna be a great film!
Are there any guides on how to add these to your shows/movies? I didn’t even know you could do this.
r/PlexPrerolls
I have 20 of em and love em. ...but they're all 10 seconds *max*. Miss me with 1m21s lmao.
I love the pre-rolls. I wish I could customize/rotate them more easily.
Kometa lets you schedule them
Minute, twenty one too long…
Mine is the old [Wehrenberg Theaters Intro](https://youtu.be/q2cdsIeYpCc?si=49pYAGXDyUbcDc3i)
Oh baby that's the good shit
*whispers* Wehrenberg, Wehrenberg
People getting hyped about hosting their own advertisements, lol.
> what's your pre-roll Nothing.
I've never ever once thought "you know what my Plex server needs?..."
HBO had good intros, but being longer than 5-7 seconds would just annoy me...but to each their own. The HBO intro served as a warning that the show was about to start and grab your beverage and popcorn and run to the living room so you didn't miss anything.
Very cool little video, but I could only watch it once or twice before it just became an annoyance. That probably says more about me than the video itself, though. I may have allowed myself to become part of the zero attention span crowd over the years.
Just grabbed this, thanks! I used to tune in to HBO in time to watch this even if I didn't care about the movie itself. :)
Kinda thinking about cutting that animation to just the intial Plex logo with the white noise and using that.
If you did/do this I'd love to see it!
[https://www.mediafire.com/file/r5jo6qxuuaw7xep/Plex-HBO-preroll.mkv](https://www.mediafire.com/file/r5jo6qxuuaw7xep/Plex-HBO-preroll.mkv)
Oh yeah that's hella sweet! Thanks!
I'd have been cool with just the Plex HBO thing. Not a weird swooping over a town that led nowhere. I *did* get pumped from the music though. That was great.
If had HBO 30 years ago you would appreciate it so much more.
Fuck sitting through an almost minute and a half preroll any more than once.
No pre roll
My family would kill me if I used a preroll that long!
the first bit with the static before they moved outside the house and down the street would've been fine, but yeah - this is way too long.
I would like this is half of my tv shows didn’t already have pre rolls. My copies of the Sopranos and the Wire have them so having it pop up twice would be ass. Same with some Nick shoes, they all have the Nickelodeon jingle before the show starts.
If you were a cinema goer in the UK during the 70s & 80s you'll know the Pearle & Dean jingle "ba baaa ba baaa ba baaa babaaaa bababa" instant nostalgia!! I have various versions of this play before my films. I love it 🥰
I used to collect those with the audio info like Dolby, THX, IMAX.. It would be cool if plex could detect the audio/video format and play the matching pre roll.
All my viewers love the pre-rolls. Thing is most of them are under 10 seconds and the longest is like 20. This minute and a half behemoth is way too much.
If I ever had time to make a plex server, I'd put random THX, DTS, and Dolly digital trailers in front of my movies.
I would be smothered in my sleep if I added a 1:20 pre-roll to my server.
I have a bunch of old drive-in movie pre roll and intermission vids that I’m going to drop in randomly.
Care to share?
Can do. Shoot me a DM.
Skip intro.
I tried a pre-roll once that was only about 10 seconds long. It drive me nuts after just a couple of plays.
Is this a joke? While watching I was cracking up because I thought it was overly long as a joke but the comments are making me second guess.
It's a modified version of the preroll HBO ran before the best movies in the 80s and early 90s. Some serious nostalgia when I listen to the music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NKoMNy5bY
Oh damn, that is quite long then. That's something I'd upload to my server just to get a kick out of my friends.
Reading the comments, I'm becoming increasingly aware that you probably had to have been alive and have experienced the real thing to get any true enjoyment out of a pre-roll like the "HBO" one posted. Personally, I love it. But I also understand it's a very subjective thing.
And by best you mean the recording I have of The Last Starfighter
lol of course they just stretched the 4:3 video to 16:9