Recently learned about this stuff on a Lemmy World post and I thought I’d move the conversation here since they’ve been fussy about DB0 in the past.
I’m really just a common seaman when it comes to the high seas. I just use Proton and qBit and whichever website is supposed to be safe and active nowdays (currently Torrent Galaxy?). I just download from the magnet link to qBit and save it on my drive. I don’t know much about torrent streaming or ports or networks or anything IT might ask me to check beyond “plug it in”.
But for some shows I’ve only been able to find single episodes, not full seasons, so when I heard about something that compiles stuff for me, it seemed convenient. I’d be curious to learn more. Unfortunately the websites for these services don’t really offer any explanation to new users and laymen, so I got a bit lost. Thought I’d ask here rather than venture into their forums where they already don’t seem to welcome idiots like me.
So… what the heck is Sonarr and how do I use it?
Hey @[email protected], I was in your shoes a month ago. I am proud to announce I just completed my (first) setup of all *ARR tools on Synology Container Manager (Docker). I documented my progress. If you need help with setup, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
EDIT : If the community would help me sanitise my files and get a GitHub repo going, I would happily help build an all-in-one download-and-run install package. Please let me know.
Thank you! Glad this community is positive and open. I know it can be frustrating for experienced users to be around a lot of users with varying levels of experience.
Yes please
I’d totally love to see you your process, I’ve been reluctant to start using docker, but all the cool stuff is there
They should be grateful about db0 , he was one of the first ones that work on a solution about the CSAM that was posted here in Lemmy. He is such an active member in Lemmy that I am just grateful of him.
Best way I can describe them is piracy automation, and man do I love them. Been using an arr suite for almost a year now. Prowlarr -> Sonarr/Radarr <-> Recyclarr <-> Jellyfin <-> Jellyseerr -> Kodi player in my living room.
Jellyseerr pulls info from a ton of databases to give you show/movie recommendations. They show ratings from 4+ sites, all the info, links to trailers, etc. Best part is the request button. Find what you want? Press request and I have options for 720/1080 or 4k, depending on what I want.
That passes along the request to Sonarr or Radarr, depending on if a tv series or movie, respectively. They have an insane set of presets to give me exactly what I want in the best quality. You set for file sizes, filtering bad release groups, 265 vs 264, HDR, Atmos, etc. It grabs the best it can find and sends it to it’s downloader.
For me, that’s Sabnzbd. But I started usenet, and wouldn’t recommend it to someone new. For you it would be qBit, which is an excellent choice. Once downloaded it renames it to show all relevant info, like a tag system, but in the file name.
Once done, Radarr or Sonarr tell my Kodi and Jellyfin immediately that it’s complete, and with the new file name, they scrape online to find the content, get posters and pictures, info, trailer, and display attributes like HDR or atmos.
My Kodi player is a SoC oDroid N2+ running CoreElec. Minimal Linux meant only to boot into Kodi. The hardware’s only limitation is Dolby Vision, which is proprietary and requires a license to use on hardware you build.
Jellyfin is for if I want to watch something outside of my house. Like a personal, private Netflix.
Recyclarr is a Sonarr/Radarr settings sync. There’s a guide for them called Trash Guides, and it’s his arr app to sync his settings on a cron schedule. I found his settings/preferences to be perfect for me, and I just tweak Recyclarr settings for 4k downloads to prefer HDR and Atmos.
Prowlarr syncs with Sonarr and Radarr to tell them where they are going to search for releases. This is where you would put your Torrent Galaxy info.
That’s probably a lot for you to process and look up. Just comment if you have any questions. I’ve been running this setup overall issue free the entire time. All of them docker containers, and they check for updates nightly.
So where do you download stuff to? Would a WD Cloud storage drive work for this purpose?
For me, all my programs are on an Unraid server which is where they download to.
An external drive would be fine, but I’m not too sure about a WD cloud one. You’d have to see if they monitor the traffic if accessed outside your home.
The *arr services are fantastic for helping you organize your content as you download them. They won’t find anything that you wouldn’t be able to find yourself, though. You feed it your indexers via Jackett or Prowlarr for torrents, or NewzNab (or equivalent) for Usenet. What shows up on my Sonarr searches is likely very different than somebody else’s since we likely have different indexers.
If you are looking for content that is hard to find I would recommend getting into Usenet or joining a private tracker.
If you want to get into building a large library and hosting your it on a Plex/Jellyfin/Emby server, I would recommend getting into Sonarr and Radarr, and then learning about the other *arrs.
Honestly before I do anything further I’m gonna need to figure out what 80% of those nouns mean
First take the dinglebop, then smooth it out with a bunch of shleem. The shleem is then repurposed for later batches. Take the dinglebop and push it through the grumbo. Where the fleeb is then rubbed against it. Its important that the fleeb is rubbed, because the fleeb has all the fleeb juice. Cut the fleeb. There are several hizzards in the way. The blamfs run against the trumbles and the ploobis and grumbo are shaved away. That leaves you with a regular old plumbus.
takes notes vigorously Cut the fleeb with what??
You tell Sonarr what shows (seasons, episodes, or complete) you want to watch. For episodes that aren’t out yet (ie something that airs tomorrow, or in a week, or next season) so long as Sonarr is watching it, it will download once available.
One an episode is released/availible, Sonarr talks to indexers (Usenet or torrent; through jackett, prowlarr, or other) to find those shows in the quality profile and language you asked for.
Sonarr then takes that torrent/Usenet and gives it to a downloader.
Once the download is finished, Sonarr moves a copy to the media folder you designate.
So the Indexer would be the website where I download my torrent magnet? Like old school pirate bay or currently in my case, TGx?
And the downloader would be qBitTorrent?
I guess I would also need to have my VPN running before I start the application too.
Yes.
This works best when your services are all running through a browser. You can set up most torrent clients to only work through a vpn. The rest of your traffic should be fine unless you don’t want your ISP to know that you’ve visited torrent sites.
Almost, but the indexer looks at all the torrent sites you tell it to.
So you could have it search torrentbay, 1337x, demonoid, and more (public, semi-private, and private). It will then pick the best torrent from all of them.
This is also helpful if one site it temporarily down, it still searches the others.
You can also set up some fancy rules if you want (for example download my movies from this one private tracker only, TV shows from these trackers, and music from any tracker) there’s also priority sorting, if your interested in that too.
What torrent site(s) does it use?
(Sorry if this is a stupid question)
Whichever sites you add to your indexers.
Thanks! Sorry, I’m just getting back into this after awhile of not doing it. I’ve done some reading up on this part of it already, but I hadn’t got there yet. :)
NP! Honestly there is a lot of services that all intertwine and it’s a little confusing at first. But once it’s set up it’s pretty easy to let it be.