Software like Netflix and Stan might have an abundance of tv show and movie but at what cost. These days to watch different tv shows you need to subscribe to multiple video streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon, Stan, Hulu. This can become very costly after a while, most streaming services selling subscriptions of up to $10 per month. There is a better way to get all your tv shows ready to watch at the touch of a button.
Im sure most of us have used BitTorrent to download movies of tv shows before. Torrenting allows you to download TV shows and movies that are not usually available from generic web sites. It uses the a P2P network to share files between computers. In this tutorial i will be using uTorrent as my Torrent software. I will not be covering how to use or setup uTorrent. Please see my tutorial HERE for more. This setup will basically allow you to manage your tv shows and episodes, find missing episodes, and automatically download new episodes as soon as they are released. It is completely automated once set-up and is a great way to keep up to date with your tv shows.
What is required:
- Windows or Mac Computer as download server
- Internet Connection
- uTorrent Software (or equivelent)
To Begin we need to understand how the software works. Sonarr is basically a server set up on your computer that has a website user interface. You can connect to the server from any device connected to your local area network. You can then add any tv shows you would like to watch, check the next release dates for your shows, edit settings, and control the entire system. Sonarr can import your current tv show collections and even tell you if any episodes are missing. You can choose to find and download the missing episodes or just ignore them. Sonarr Periodically checks torrent sites for new uploads and then determines if these shows are in your wanted list. It will NOT automatically re-check tv shows older than a few days. It makes the software very quick and efficient. Older episodes can be manually searched and automatically downloaded.
Firstly head over to here to download Sonarr application.
Windows
- Extract the zip file to your target directory. Make sure to use a folder like ‘My Documents’ as Sonarr will NOT be able to access a folder like
C:\Program FilesorC:\Program Files (x86) - Open and run the program ‘Nzbdrone.exe’ as administrator for the first time to register the port and URL with Windows.
- You can then start Sonarr manually everytime by running ‘Nzbdrone.exe’ or run ‘ServiceInstall.exe’ to install the server as a windows service.
- Then from the browser go to http://localhost:8989.
OS X
- Open the archive and drag the Sonarr icon to your Application folder.
- Open Sonarr.app
- Then from the browser go to http://localhost:8989.
You should then see the sonarr homepage. Before you can start adding tv shows, we will need to setup a few things. Click on the ‘Settings’ Button at the top and click on Show advanced
Media Management
The first tab is used to automatically rename your tv shows after they are downloaded. Sonarr automatically handles downloaded files and can rename and move your episode to your desired folder and with the correct episode name. This helps keep your tv shows organised without any extra effort. To turn on automatic renaming just click the slider next to ‘Rename Episodes’ to YES.
I reccomend selecting to show ‘Advanced Settings’ for more advanced setup. Select yes to ‘Analyze Video’ so that Sonarr doesnt import any fakes. Make sure to set a ‘Recycling Bin’ folder so that if the episode already exists the episode will go to this folder instead.
Profiles
Profiles in Sonarr allow you to setup the quality of episodes you want for each show. You can setup multiple profiles for different shows. For example you can download ‘The Simpsons’ in standard definition but ‘House of cards’ in high definition. Just make a profile of each and you can select which profile to use when adding your tv shows. Profiles work via a preference system. The items at the top of the list are most prefered, to the least prefered at the bottom. ‘Cutoff’ is when Sonarr stops searching for a better quality. You can set the time frame for how long Sonarr will keep checking until it finally downloads the episode.
royrdan 