Sonarr V3 Help (Sonarr Noob)

Help & Support
#1

Sonarr version (exact version): 3.0.3.652
Mono version (if Sonarr is not running on Windows):
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Debug logs: Not necessary for what I require help with I don’t think…
Description of issue: Existing Library of over 500 series, mostly 1080, some 720, and very few SD series…

My issue arises with how Sonarr determines the original source (HDTV, WEBDL, BluRay, etc). My entire library was already named for Plex, so all of that information is gone from the filenames. I also process all of my releases from the highest quality sources I can find (Personal BluRays, BluRay Remux, DVD’s/DVD ISO’s, or Web-DL for current seasons), and then I transcode them into High Quality H.265 files for space saving, and delete the sources. So my entire Library is H.265 HEVC, and the sources are varied. I would like Sonarr to upgrade the files that actually need upgrading (ie last seasons WEB-DL sources to BluRay Remux sources, or 720 sources to 1080 sources, or SD sources to HD sources), but not the entire library, as most of it is high quality already, it’s just that Sonarr is reading it incorrectly.

As I understand it, it reads the information from the filename, and as that’s all gone, it’s just tossing all 1080 as HDTV 1080, and all 720 as HDTV 720, which is “mostly” not true, 99% of it will be WEB-DL or higher quality. What’s even more bothering is that for things like “Star Trek : The Next Generation” Which is from a BluRay Remux in 1080p, it’s listing it as 720 because the Horizontal Resolution is not 1920, it’s 1440. It should be reading the Vertical resolution first, and if not matching because if 2.35:1 or something else, it should be looking at the horizontal and making the determination based on that. Why it reads the Horizontal first is kind of beyond me. (At least I think that’s how it’s determining, if not someone can feel free to correct me)

So, I guess my question is, given my specific use case. Is there an easy way without renaming my files and re-importing them, to accomplish what I want? Why is there no mechanism to edit the sources from which they came? I would just be able to select a bunch of episodes and say “These were BluRay Remux Source” and that would put a quash to it trying to get new sources for it all the time…
Any help here would be appreciated…

#2

Horizontal resolution is much more consistent, in most releases, this is an exception.

You can, it’s on the series page, Manage Episodes.

#3

It may be “more consistent”, but it’s certainly no exception, it’s 1440 because it’s 4:3 instead of 16:9. Plenty of shows were shot, and some still are shot in 4:3… Why try to shortcut something for “consistencies sake” instead of doing it right? 1080p, 720p, etc are vertical resolution designations for a reason. If anything though, 1440 is still nowhere near 1280 (which would be 1280x720), so it should still be classified as 1080p content.

Aha… Why is this option only available at the Series level page? Could there not be the same option on the Mass editor page? Going through 1000+ series one by one is going to be very tedious otherwise…

#4

This information in the file name is not a problem for Plex and can happily live in there.

What’s the width and height of the files? 1440x1080?

Purely number wise, something 1440 wide is closer to 1280 than to 1920. Using the width only was still a massive improvement from when the file name was the only piece used. Dealing with every edge case to that isn’t something we’ve been focused on.

Because that’s where the episode file information is all loaded, trying to pull that information for every series or even large chunks of series would be slow and likely to run into issues. No plans for an option on the series editor page.

It may be quicker to update the file names and get Sonarr to rescan if you need to deal with that many series and files. Filebot may be useful in that case.

#5

I can understand and agree with nearly everything you said, except for it being an “Edge” case… every show shot in 4:3 ever released on BluRay at 1080p will be 1440 wide unless the studio decides to crop the top and bottom of the film and “zoom” in… Any animated TV Shows from before widescreen TV’s existed, same boat. There’s literally 5 decades of TV content where Widescreen did not exist and wasn’t considered for Television where 4:3 is the native aspect ratio.

The only “exceptions” to this would be shows that were shot on film and cropped to 4:3, which isn’t many from back then, or shows where they feel like they can crop the image into 1.85:1 and get away with it (Buffy, OZ, The Wire as some examples of shows trying to do this). However, for directors/studios who are adamant about keeping the Native 4:3 (as is the case with Star Trek and hundreds, maybe even thousands of other shows), they will all be 1440 wide, as they should be…

What specific tags would I need to get it to scan at BluRay 1080p and where in the filename should it go? Can it be 24 - S01E01 - 1200am - 100am - BluRay 1080p.mkv ? Or? Is there a quick way to do this in filebot?

#6

Yes, typically at the end. That format should work just fine.

Not sure on how to do it in filebot, it’s been years since I’ve used it.

#7

Since you’ve been so helpful, is there a way to automatically unpack rars, and transcode the resulting file into my set specifications before Sonarr passes them off to the library?

Ideally something like:
Sonarr looks for file on indexer and finds it
Tells download client to download
one or the other unpacks the file from the rars
Sonarr tells chosen transcoder to transcode file and output in a monitored folder
once file is complete it gets moved and renamed by sonarr to the library…

Anything like this out there?

#8

Sonarr can run post-import scripts, but won’t unpack or run scripts prior to importing.

For usenet you can use post-processing scripts (at least in SABnzbd and NZBGet) which could convert before Sonarr ever sees them
For torrent clients that lack the “post-processing” features (no unpack usually and even when they do they report the download is complete) you’d need to extract to an intermediary location, convert the file then move it to the folder that Sonarr is watching (the one from the download client) or tell Sonarr via the API to import

I’m aware of people doing different parts of those steps, not sure if anyone has combined them into one app/script. /r/sonarr or discord may be a better place to ask.

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#9

Ok, so last question then, if Sonarr is the one to download and import the file, if the file gets changed after the fact, but the filename remained the same (ie whatever sonarr renamed to), will it retain the source information in its database even though I technically changed the files structure (ie from 264 to 265)?

If so I could just use MCEbuddy to transcode everything after the fact I think…

#10

Yeah, if the file name is the same Sonarr won’t update anything. That means things like size, media info, etc are stale, but it sounds like that’s acceptable.

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#11

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