Recently learned about this stuff on a Lemmy World post and I thought I’d move the conversation here since they’ve been fussy about DB0 in the past.
I’m really just a common seaman when it comes to the high seas. I just use Proton and qBit and whichever website is supposed to be safe and active nowdays (currently Torrent Galaxy?). I just download from the magnet link to qBit and save it on my drive. I don’t know much about torrent streaming or ports or networks or anything IT might ask me to check beyond “plug it in”.
But for some shows I’ve only been able to find single episodes, not full seasons, so when I heard about something that compiles stuff for me, it seemed convenient. I’d be curious to learn more. Unfortunately the websites for these services don’t really offer any explanation to new users and laymen, so I got a bit lost. Thought I’d ask here rather than venture into their forums where they already don’t seem to welcome idiots like me.
So… what the heck is Sonarr and how do I use it?
Best way I can describe them is piracy automation, and man do I love them. Been using an arr suite for almost a year now. Prowlarr -> Sonarr/Radarr <-> Recyclarr <-> Jellyfin <-> Jellyseerr -> Kodi player in my living room.
Jellyseerr pulls info from a ton of databases to give you show/movie recommendations. They show ratings from 4+ sites, all the info, links to trailers, etc. Best part is the request button. Find what you want? Press request and I have options for 720/1080 or 4k, depending on what I want.
That passes along the request to Sonarr or Radarr, depending on if a tv series or movie, respectively. They have an insane set of presets to give me exactly what I want in the best quality. You set for file sizes, filtering bad release groups, 265 vs 264, HDR, Atmos, etc. It grabs the best it can find and sends it to it’s downloader.
For me, that’s Sabnzbd. But I started usenet, and wouldn’t recommend it to someone new. For you it would be qBit, which is an excellent choice. Once downloaded it renames it to show all relevant info, like a tag system, but in the file name.
Once done, Radarr or Sonarr tell my Kodi and Jellyfin immediately that it’s complete, and with the new file name, they scrape online to find the content, get posters and pictures, info, trailer, and display attributes like HDR or atmos.
My Kodi player is a SoC oDroid N2+ running CoreElec. Minimal Linux meant only to boot into Kodi. The hardware’s only limitation is Dolby Vision, which is proprietary and requires a license to use on hardware you build.
Jellyfin is for if I want to watch something outside of my house. Like a personal, private Netflix.
Recyclarr is a Sonarr/Radarr settings sync. There’s a guide for them called Trash Guides, and it’s his arr app to sync his settings on a cron schedule. I found his settings/preferences to be perfect for me, and I just tweak Recyclarr settings for 4k downloads to prefer HDR and Atmos.
Prowlarr syncs with Sonarr and Radarr to tell them where they are going to search for releases. This is where you would put your Torrent Galaxy info.
That’s probably a lot for you to process and look up. Just comment if you have any questions. I’ve been running this setup overall issue free the entire time. All of them docker containers, and they check for updates nightly.
So where do you download stuff to? Would a WD Cloud storage drive work for this purpose?
For me, all my programs are on an Unraid server which is where they download to.
An external drive would be fine, but I’m not too sure about a WD cloud one. You’d have to see if they monitor the traffic if accessed outside your home.