Downgrading/Overwriting Higher Quality Episodes

Help & Support
#1

Sonarr version (exact version): 2.0.0.4326 - 14 Sep 2016
OS: Windows Server 2012 R2 x64
((Debug logs)): 3.9mb.txt file: http://www.filedropper.com/sonarrdebug

Description of issue:
My Grab Profile is set to the following: HDTV-1080p > WEBDL-720p > WEBDL-1080p

Marvel Agents of Shield S04E01 started downloading via uTorrent, it finished around 09:00 but I’m having some issues with labelling/folder allocation so so post-processing did not run correctly.
I grabbed the file from uTorrent and moved it to a folder and Manually-Imported the file (16-9-22 09:13:04.3 in debug file). The file was 1920x1080 WEB-DL 1.7GB so it should have met the finished file type for the profile and left it alone. As you can see by the screenshot below Sonarr has continued to waste bandwidth and has continued grabbing other poorer quality versions, I noticed this as I started getting notifications through Pushover and Kodi for HDTV and 720p releases being downloaded, I let this behaviour it go until Sonarr settled on a final file.

The final file it has decided on is marked as WEB-DL 1080p however it is 1.3GB and it’s resolution is 1080x720 and it has deleted/overwritten my good 1920x1080 1.7GB file?

#2

According to Sonarr it grabbed a WEBDL-1080p release, then you did your manual import and it was aware of an HDTV-720p release (likely that is due to the file name not actually including the quality so it relied on the extension, where .mkv = HDTV-720p).

It looks like an HDTV-720p release was imported again (which may be the original WEBDL-1080p file again? - hover over the i icon to see the filename) as the first file was deleted.

Then a WEBDL-720p release was grabbed, after all that’s an upgrade to whatever file was imported based on the information Sonarr has for it, ultimately the WEBDL-720p was imported (2nd line from the top) and that’s the file that is sitting there, the WEBDL 1080p release at the top of the list was grabbed only not imported.

Fixing the import issue should prevent things from being grabbed multiple times, but you’ll need to check why the original release was so poorly named as that started the mess of grabbing other qualities.

#3

I think I know what’s gone on, it’s grabbed the correct WEBDL-1080p release, downloaded it, post-processed it.
I then mucked around with it in MKVMergeGUI, it’s then output back to the original folder with it renamed to:
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D S04E01 The Ghost (1).mkv
I’ve then Manual-Imported to Sonarr and has it possibly post-processed it and (due to the name) interpreted it as an HDTV-720p release even though it had a resolution of 1920x1080?

I assumed during post it checked the resolution of the file to determine if it was 720/1080 ?

I’m surprised you use the container file extension to determine the quality if it is not written in the title, is there no better way to check this as more and more different style and types of releases are evolving 480p,720p,1080p,Br-Rip,Bd-Rip,HDTV,WEBDL,x264,x265,8-bit,10-bit,AAC,DTS etc etc - I have so many releases that Sonarr has marked as HDTV when in fact they were WEBDL-1080p just because someone who had no idea what they were doing wrote HDTV in the title. If that is in fact the case it would explain a lot…

#4

At this time only the file name tells Sonarr what the resolution is, media info is not used to determine the quality (something in the backlog to do).

Using media info would be a better fallback, but it still wouldn’t solve the problem, if the resolution was found to be 1080p Sonarr would have no way of knowing whether it was HDTV, WEBDL or Bluray so at best it would treat them as HDTV-1080p.

Including the quality in the file name is the best way to ensure Sonarr can rescan the file and get the appropriate quality later on. Also running mkvmerge before it was imported would mean it wouldn’t change later.

#5

What is the difference between HDTV, WEBDL or BluRay quality is it what type of media format the data was ripped from? Would something like a bitrate range be able to determine this or does it solely rely on the original uploader entering the correct source of the original material?

Could a Media Info profile to fit each category be established (maybe with a bit of assistance from the folks over at the Doom9 forums) ? So x reoslution + x bitrate range + x audio format = x quality ?

#6

Bitrate isn’t consistent enough, look at the severely bitrate starved WEBDL 1080p releases compared to an HDTV release that has a higher bitrate. We don’t have plans to guess at what it is based on bitrate + resolution + whatever else.

Either the filename contains the correct information (it’s extremely rare that well named releases don’t, otherwise they are nuked) or as a fallback we’ll be looking to add fallback to using MediaInfo and will assume the worst quality in the resolution group (HDTV in most cases) if it comes to that.

#7

Fair enough, how does this work then for HEVC 1080p quality files that are far superior than WEB-DL 1080p? I just downloaded one the other day and boom overwritten because it classed it as HDTV?

#8

Quality (based on the order of the quality profile) still matters, regardless of it being x264 or x265. If you have an x265 HDTV 1080p file and allow upgrades to Blu-ray 1080p, a x264 Blu-ray 1080p release will replace it, unless you ranked HDTV 1080p higher in the quality list.

#9

Ok I’m with you now. I’d still prefer an x265 HDTV release over a WEB-DL 1080p x264 release simply because:
A) It would definitely be equal or better quality (especially 10-bit releases).
B) Because it is a third of the filesize.

The only place I would prefer an upgrade in that instance is where a WEB-DL x265 release was available…

Especially with 4K content becoming more mainstream it would certainly be nice to have the option to search quality based on codec or preferred word so they can be identified and preferred for each quality.
Don’t know many people that would want an ep of House of Cards or Breaking Bad in 4K WEB-DL x264 (10GB) vs x265 release (1.6GB) ?

The only way to overcome this that I can see at the moment would be to disable all Season Monitoring, pick one quality so let’s say WEB-DL, disable all other qualities, then one would have to go into each Season and each Episode and manually search for any x265 releases and manually snatch those?

#10

Simply speaking, I’ve added a Restriction to the Indexers settings that says the release name must contain 265.
Anything that is missed by that, depending on my patience I’ll wait a few hours or a day or so, I’ll just do a manual search and select a 264 encode.

I’ve done a bit more with it to restrict it (https://forums.sonarr.tv/t/create-new-quality/12582/3?u=ozoak) but just adding the requirement to the Indexers should help out.

#11

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