A Playnite extension for browsing and watching YouTube videos for your games in a fullscreen, controller-friendly player. Search for trailers, gameplay, walkthroughs, reviews, and guides, watch them without leaving Playnite, and download trailers into the ExtraMetadataLoader folder.
Designed as a complement to ExtraMetadataLoader, and built for both Desktop and Fullscreen mode.
Built with the help of Claude Code and Cursor IDE
- Downloads now respect the quality you picked. Saved trailers always came back at 720p regardless of the setting. Best means best again, and everything up to 4K is reachable. Also fixed downloads that could end up silent (no audio track) or leave a partial fragment file behind.
- 2160p (4K) and 1440p download options.
- Downloads report what they actually fetched - the quality requested, the format picked, and every resolution YouTube offered - so a low-quality result tells you whether it was YouTube''s ceiling or FullReel''s choice. When YouTube offers nothing above 720p, FullReel retries once against a client that exposes the higher formats.
- UniPlaySong pausing can be limited to the player, so browsing search results no longer pauses your music.
- Downloads now respect the quality you picked. Saved trailers always came back at 720p regardless of the setting. Best means best again, and everything up to 4K is reachable. Also fixed downloads that could end up silent (no audio track) or leave a partial fragment file behind.
- 2160p (4K) and 1440p download options.
- Downloads report what they actually fetched - the quality requested, the format picked, and every resolution YouTube offered - so a low-quality result tells you whether it was YouTube's ceiling or FullReel's choice. When YouTube offers nothing above 720p, FullReel retries once against a client that exposes the higher formats.
- UniPlaySong pausing can be limited to the player, so browsing search results no longer pauses your music.
FullReelDemoVid.mp4
- Category Search - Right-click a game and pick FullReel to search YouTube, browsed by category tab (trailers, gameplay, walkthroughs, reviews, guides). Results stream in instantly with thumbnails, titles, durations, channel, and view counts.
- Fullscreen Player - A borderless player that streams direct from YouTube. Autoplays on open, plays the best quality the source offers (1440p/4K when available; optional Prefer 1080p first), and uses a smooth direct-render path.
- Controller and Keyboard - Both fully drive the player and results list (play/pause, seek, volume, fullscreen, screenshot, download, close), respecting Playnite's Swap Confirm/Cancel setting.
- Frosted-Glass UI - Real backdrop-blur controls and an auto-hiding title bar over the live video, with 6 selectable bar styles (MinimalGlass default, plus FrostedBlur, HeavyFrost, TintedPurple, GradientFade, Performance) and a live preview in settings.
- Trailer Downloads - Save a video into the game's ExtraMetadataLoader folder as
VideoTrailer.mp4(H.264 / AAC), so EML plays it as the game's trailer. Quality and cookies are configurable. - UniPlaySong Integration - Pauses UniPlaySong's music while a video plays and resumes it on close. Does nothing if UniPlaySong isn't installed. On by default.
- Tool-Path Validation - yt-dlp, ffmpeg, and deno path pickers in settings, each validated with a live status readout so a missing tool is caught before it breaks search or download.
- yt-dlp, ffmpeg, and deno. Set their paths in the add-on's settings; each is validated with a live status. deno is yt-dlp's JavaScript runtime for YouTube's stream-signature challenges, and without it search and download can fail.
- WebView2 Evergreen runtime 132+, aka Edge browser. Required to watch videos. Preinstalled on most Windows 11 systems; otherwise install Microsoft's Evergreen runtime.
- [Optional] ExtraMetadataLoader, optional and needed only for the downloaded-trailer playback complement.
- Right-click a game or access Fullreel in the extensions menu of Fullscreen. Pick FullReel. The results window opens and fills in as videos are found, sorted into category tabs.
- Navigate the results with the D-pad or arrow keys, and switch category tabs with LB/RB or Q/E.
- On a result:
- A / Enter to watch it fullscreen
- Y / D to download it as the game's trailer
- B / Esc to close and return to Playnite
The player's title bar and controls bar are real frosted glass (backdrop-blur over the live video). The title bar auto-hides during playback and reappears on input. Pick from 6 controls-bar styles in Settings → Player → Controls bar, each with a live preview.
Downloads land as VideoTrailer.mp4 in the game's ExtraMetadataLoader folder ({ConfigurationPath}\ExtraMetadata\games\{gameId}\VideoTrailer.mp4), encoded H.264 / yuv420p / AAC so EML plays it untouched. Re-select the game in your library so ExtraMetadataLoader picks up the new trailer.
- Tool paths: yt-dlp, ffmpeg, and deno pickers, each validated with a live status message.
- Cookies: browser cookies or a custom cookies file, for age-restricted or region-locked videos.
- Download quality: pick the quality for saved trailers - Best, 2160p, 1440p, 1080p, 720p or 480p. Best takes the highest the source offers.
- Playback quality: Prefer HD playback (on by default) reaches for the best format the source offers; Prefer 1080p first caps it at 1080p for a lighter default.
- Player controls bar: choose one of the 6 glass styles (MinimalGlass default), with a live preview image.
- UniPlaySong integration: pause UniPlaySong's music while a video plays. On by default.
- Debug logging: verbose log for troubleshooting.
- Age-restricted videos can't be played in the embedded player. YouTube blurs their thumbnails in the results and points you to watching them directly on YouTube. You might be able to bypass this with cookies.
- Video quality depends on the source upload. Some channels upload choppy or low-bitrate videos that look poor even at 1080p, while others (official publisher channels like PlayStation) look excellent at the same resolution. The quality pill icon will show the true decoded resolution.
Search or downloads return nothing:
- All three tools must show a checkmark in settings — yt-dlp, ffmpeg, AND deno. YouTube now needs deno to fetch videos, so a missing/invalid deno silently breaks search and download.
- Use the official Windows (.exe) builds of all three:
yt-dlp.exe, the Windows build'sffmpeg.exe, and the Windowsdeno.exe. - Best practice: put
deno.exein the same folder asyt-dlp.exe. - Keep the tools in a simple path (e.g.
C:\Tools\), not folders with unusual characters, and off read-only or system-protected locations. - If you downloaded the
.exefiles with a browser, right-click each → Properties → Unblock. - Search works but downloads fail? Check Cookies source in settings. Browser cookies (especially Chrome/Edge) often can't be read on recent browser versions. Set it to None, or use a custom
cookies.txtfile — only enable cookies for age-restricted or region-locked videos. - Still stuck? Enable debug logging in settings, retry, then open the log folder and check
FullReel.logfor the exact error.
If FullReel is useful to you, consider buying me a coffee.