AI2Go Multi Video Loader

Video is where ComfyUI gets genuinely annoying. Stock Load Video is one clip at a time, and the moment your workflow needs two clips feeding two different branches - a V2V pass on clip A while clip B goes down a different path, or a multi-clip stitch - you're back to loader sprawl plus a dozen reroute noodles. The AI2Go Multi Video Loader does for video what its siblings do for image and audio: drop up to eight files onto one node and each gets its own video_N and audio_N socket pair.

The interesting part isn't the sockets, though. It's what the node doesn't do unless you ask.

The free path: force_rate = 0

The force_rate input defaults to 0, and 0 is the cheap route: every clip is returned lazily as a VideoFromFile object without decoding a single frame. No frame reads, no memory spike - you're just handing downstream a handle to the file. That's a genuinely nice touch for multi-clip work, because the alternative (decode eight clips up front) can eat VRAM and seconds for zero benefit when you're only going to re-encode later anyway.

Set force_rate to any other value (it goes up to 240) and the semantics flip to match VideoHelperSuite: the node decodes each clip and drops or duplicates frames so every clip runs at that rate - 24, 30, 60 - while preserving real running time. A 10-second clip stays 10 seconds; you're changing playback rate, not duration. That costs time and memory, because it has to actually decode frames to retime them. It also handles the NTSC weirdness properly: a 29.97 fps clip forced to a clean rate keeps its true duration instead of drifting (the code normalizes to a 2997/1001-style rational rather than a float artifact).

Rule of thumb: leave it at 0 unless a downstream node genuinely needs a uniform frame rate. The retime is there when you need it, but it's not free.

Audio comes along

Each row also emits audio_N, decoded separately with PyAV - so you get the clip's audio even on the lazy force_rate = 0 path, where video frames were never touched. A clip with no (decodable) audio track outputs None on that row's audio_N socket, exactly like an unplugged OPTIONAL input. Fine for optional consumers; a REQUIRED input downstream will fail. (The loader is also smarter than it used to be about tricky audio: it picks the last audio stream FFmpeg can actually decode, so files with an undecodable first track - iPhone spatial-audio, say - don't blow up.)

Inputs and outputs

• files_json - hidden, front-end managed; don't edit it.
• force_rate - the one you'll actually touch, default 0.
• output_slots - auto by default; pin to a fixed count to keep sockets (and wires) stable while you swap files.

Outputs: count plus video_N / audio_N per file (8 max). count = enabled rows actually emitted. The off-toggle behaves like the rest of the pack: a switched-off row keeps its socket slot but outputs None - safe for OPTIONAL inputs, a hard failure for REQUIRED ones. And if you reorder or remove rows, check the status-line warning: sockets shift, wires move with them.

Install

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/Little-God1983/ComfyUI-AI2Go-Utils

Restart ComfyUI (or Manager → search "ComfyUI-AI2Go-Utils"). No extra dependencies - PyAV and Pillow ship with ComfyUI. The usual caveat from the README applies: this repo is frozen at v1.6.1; the author moved development to ComfyUI-IntoTheLatent-Utils under new ITL* node names, so this pack is for keeping existing workflows alive, not for new features.

Common issues

• "not found in the input folder - re-add it" - the source clip moved or was deleted from input/. Re-drop.
• audio_N is None on a clip that clearly has sound - that track may use a codec FFmpeg can't decode; the node logs which file failed, so check the console.
• Slow loads / high memory after you set force_rate - that's expected, it's decoding every clip. Set it back to 0 if you don't need uniform rates.

For multi-clip video work it's the loader worth reaching for: the lazy path is the honest reason to pick it over wiring up N stock loaders, and the retime is a bonus when you need it.