More control over file sizes

Feature Requests
#1

Right now I have fairly large ranges for file size in Quality->Quality Definitions. For example my WEBDL-1080p is 996MB - 2.69GB for 30 min and 1.95GB - 5.37GB for 60 min. Often Sonarr will grab a file on the low end for a show I’d prefer a larger file size for and sometimes it grabs a huge file when I’d prefer a smaller file. Because of this I keep SABnzbd paused so that I can see what Sonarr sends and then I can let it download or I can manually look for files that are more in line with what I want.

I have two ideas:

  1. Add more quality definitions - Instead of just WEBDL-1080p, change this to WEBDL-1080p High (or large), WEBDL-1080p Medium, and WEBDL-1080p Low (or small). Then we can have a lot tighter control over size limits, maybe High is 4-5.5GB, Medium is 3-3.99GB, and small is 2-2.99GB. Inside my WEBDL 1080p “High” profile it might look like this:

WEBDL-1080p High
WEBDL-1080p Medium

but for a show that I’d rather get small file sizes I’d do this:

WEBDL-1080p Low
WEBDL-1080p Medium

I originally thought it would be best if we could make our own quality definitions but perhaps that would be harder to implement than increasing the quality definitions by a fixed amount.

  1. My other idea was instead of increasing quality definitions, use a tag based system to tell Sonarr to grab a larger or smaller file within the giving range. High, Medium, or Low tags could optionally be attached to a series. High would tell Sonarr to prefer a file on the upper end of the given range, Low would tell Sonarr to prefer one on the low end of the range, and Medium would be somewhere close to the middle. I know this is vague and it wouldnt give us as much control as I’d like but maybe a tag based system would be easiest to implement?

edit: It might make more sense in idea 2 to use a file size tag rather than high, medium, low. Lets say I want a show to be close to 3gb, so I put a "size-3gb "tag on it and Sonarr tries to get close to that target. Maybe on another show I put “size-1.5gb” for the tag and Sonarr picks the 1gb file because the next closest is 2.2gb.

How to control file sizes
#2
  1. This is definitely not going to happen, size is doesn’t make it a different quality in the sense of source + resolution
  2. We’ve discussed something like this for preferring a size within the allowable range, but hadn’t considered multiple options there, something for us to think about.
  3. Then there is this https://github.com/Sonarr/Sonarr/issues/613 more flexible, but means you’d need multiple profiles that differ based on the size limits, which is something we aren’t fond of, but still possible
1 Like
#3

Thanks for at least thinking about it.

Many years ago when you added the the size limit sliders it worked well because almost everything got a bluray release and those files usually had strict limits set by release groups for file size. It was predictable that there would be a release within a certain, fairly small size range. But today there are far fewer bluray releases and webdl’s are all over the map with regards to file size.

Either #2 or #3 would be awesome and immensely helpful. Thanks for your time!

#4

#3 is a great solution, I really like that.

It would allow you to “get the highest quality under a certain size limit”, which I think is one of my most sought after features in Sonarr.

#5

I don’t like #3. I’m already intolerant of the current effort that needs to be made to define file size ranges in the quality profiles. Efficiency will keep changing with different encoding (and even among different TV shows). I don’t think I should need to maintain all the specific file size ranges that make the most sense for different scenarios.

Why can’t we just have a toggle between “prioritize large files” and “prioritize small files”? Or even inclue OPs “Medium” option as well. I would be plenty happy if this was a system-wide setting, it doesn’t even need to be profile-specific (for me) This is all I want.

We already have plenty of quality categories for resolution and source format. If I want higher quality I can grab 1080p. If I want lower quality I can grab 480.

With the availability of h265 and the ability to play it back on my devices, the lowest file size is the best choice for me by far. And Sonarr’s inability to effectively grab these superior files is becoming a big detriment.

#6

check the preferred words option in v3, its pretty good for prioritising x265

#7

Thanks but this is not a solution for the same reason that Sonarr developers don’t want to define quality groups for video encodings. I want to save disk space. h265 is just one glaring example of where sonarr’s functionality falls short. I want to prioritize lower file size in ALL occasions. I can’t do that.

#8

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