Monitor / Download based on Audio Quality / Channels

[sirupflex]

First of all, I’d like to mention that I LOVE Sonarr! Great software, great job of the team, thanks for making all this happen ongoingly!

I searched the forum for similar feature requests and found two during the past two years with similar, but not exactly the same request, hence I think it’s worth asking for it:

Sonarr has a great way of defining the desired video quality, e.g. load all 720p and 1080p and stop monitoring / downloading once you found a 1080p version. Now, as audio quality is as important to some of us, I’d like to have the same mechanism for audio. I especially focus on the number of channels. If I only have a 2.0 audio channel file, but Sonarr finds me another version with 5.1 audio channels, then please download the 5.1 version and replace the 2.0 version.

I guess this should not be too complex as the audio channel information is obviously available in Sonarr (Mediainfo.AudioChannels), and the monitoring preferences feature is there, too ,already and working well with video. For me, it would be sufficient to say that, based on the video quality settings, if there’s for the same video quality a version with better audio quality, then please download. You could also e.g. have a checkbox defining if audio or video is more important to you (e.g. if audio is more important and video allows for 720p and 1080p, then a 720pDD5.1 would be preferred over a 1080p2.0).

For me, despite the automation of Sonarr, I currently have to monitor each download manually because I cannot control the audio quality I get. Would be great to have the audio quality automatically monitored based on criteria, too.

Thank you very much in advance for considering this!

[sirupflex]

Addendum:
I see that you are working on a concept of “preferred words”, as Team Sonarr described here in the replies:

[Full Graphical Concept] Preferred Words for each TV Show

Hello, This is my first post in here! I read different threads about preferred words feature, however I wanted to help in the idea of how preferred words can be implemented in Sonarr. And so, I’ve made a full graphical concept of a possible Preferred words implementation. This concept is powerful yet simple as it will enable users to find their preferred releases whether by certain audio types, certain release group, etc… The location to adding a new preferred word: [image] You press the…

This would definitely be a great step forward compared to today, because probably 70-80% of my request could be covered with it. It regularly happens, however, that the audio quality / channels is not defined in the file name, so a direct solution with clean audio properties would be preferred. As mentioned, for many people the audio quality / type / channels is as important as video quality, so a full support would be appreciated. Also, it would be consistent with the whole goal and scope of such a software. It deals with TV Series and Movies, which consist of video and audio. So let’s define and organize video and audio, and not just video

Thanks again for all your fantastic and much appreciated work on Sonarr!

Edit:
Thinking through the “preferred words” approach, I’m not sure any more if this adequally helps for my request. The problem starts with the point that for video I usually care for resolution, not source. So, 1080p as a minimum is important to me, but I do not care about the source.
Now, what happens if WebDL-1080 is above HDTV-1080 but “DD5.1” is one of the preferred words. If there is a HDTV-1080 file with DD5.1 and a WebDL-1080p with AAC2.0, I’d end up again with the undesired AAC2.0 version.

[markus101]

Preferree words along with quality grouping would handle that, you’d end up grouping all 1080p qualities at the same level and Sonarr would no longer care about the source.

[sirupflex]

Many thanks for your answer, markus, much appreciated. Ok, sounds pretty promising to me, looking forward to trying this out.

Is there a rough timeframe until when those two features “preferred words” and “quality groups” may get available in the master branch? Are we talking about “weeks”, “months”, “before end of 2017” or “not before 2018”? Just to get the right idea and to correctly set my expectations

[markus101]

No, I can’t say when, it’s not something we’re actively working on.

[sirupflex]

Ok, many thanks for the clarification. It’s a bit of a surprise to me because I saw those two features mentioned by you also at other threads as a solution. Looks like it would add a lot of value to Sonarr for various different problems and requests. Maybe it’s worth giving “preferred words” and “quality group” a priority on the development roadmap if feasible.