Root Folders for Different Resolutions / Quality

[thedigitalhobo]

Hopefully I haven’t missed this info in the wikis and FAQ, so apologies if I did.

On my Plex server, I maintain separate libraries for HD and 4k movies. It just makes it easier than troubleshooting transcoding and support issues.

I’d like to do the same for my TV series. Is there a way for Sonarr to save 4K content to its own 4kTV root folder? I currently have separate libraries for Kids TV and regular TV, but I set those manually based on the show. Is there a way to automate this based on the quality profile?

[Obelisk]

Sonarr would certainly allow you to have multiple root folders for TV (i.e. 4ktv and tv) but then filesystem selection would be done at the series level (when you add a series you tell it which root folder to use just like you would with the quality profile) and it has been my experience that there isn’t a lot of consistency when it comes to posting 4k tv series as sometimes episodes are only available in 1080p so you could end up with a mix of 4k and HD content within the same series. That isn’t too much of an issue for me so I just live with it. If you are looking for episode-level routing based on the resolution of the media I don’t believe that is possible.

[thedigitalhobo]

Thanks for the quick reply. Excellent point regarding series consistency.

I am looking for series level, but I’d plan on having two separate libraries, with copies of the same series in each. I don’t like to make 4k content available for remote streaming, but I do have it for inside my house.

So currently I have:
/4KMovies/Movie (year) - [4k.Atmos]/Movie (year) - [4k.Atmos].mkv
/HDMovies/Movie (year) - [HD.AAC]/Movie (year) - [HD.AAC].mp4
/TVshows/Series (year)/Season (xx)/Series (year) - SxxExx.mp4

I’d like to add a separate 4kTV folder, like I have for movies, but that would require downloading two different profiles of the same series, and sorting them into their appropriate root folders. Seems like Sonarr just isn’t set up to do that, and I completely understand and have no complaints about it. I know I’m not set up for the standard use case.

I wish I could rely more confidently on Plex picking the right format rather than transcoding 4k content into 1080p based on bandwidth or device compatibility. But its just been easier - at least with movies - to keep them separate.

[Obelisk]

I actually have the same issue with Radarr in that I have a lot of movies that are HD and 4k. There isn’t a way that I have seen to have the same series (or movie) twice inside the app (either Radarr or Sonarr) and then be able to assign a unique root folder and quality profile. What I have done for Radarr is use it to send the 4k movies over to the downloader and then quickly flip the category in the downloader (in my case I use a category called 4k_movies) which means Radarr forgets about it and the downloader triggers a custom copy script to move it to the 4k movie library folder.

[thedigitalhobo]

That’s a pretty good solution. I don’t worry too much about movies, since I’m very particular about what I grab and the quality and sources. So grabbing two copies of one movie isn’t a lot of hassle.

But managing weekly episodes of a series is more manual work than I wanted to do. Might just stream them and not worry about it.

Thanks for your help breaking this down!

[fanboy]

https://wiki.servarr.com/en/sonarr/installation/multiple-instances

[Obelisk]

Wow, I never considered running multiple instances of the application. Thanks for the heads up. I have had my system set up since the days of NZBdrone pre-Sonarr branding so I guess I should really go back and read the wiki and knowledge pages as I am sure there are a lot of clever solutions that others have brought forward that haven’t occurred to me.