How do Sonarr / related services work? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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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?

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[-] freeman@lemmy.pub 1 points 1 year ago

The ARR tools are basically a search engine website you host. The interact with a few other tools you have to have access to/pay for. Namely an indexing service and a (for some) a download service. They can use torrents, so you dont HAVE to pay for downloading, but using something like newsgroups is really nice and add reliability and security.

THe "ARR's" basically then are just a fancy UI and scheduler and just search the indexing service, download the files you want, re-assemble them and copy them to the location you want (often a file share that your media player like Plex or Jellyfin will use).

You can set them to continually look for something too. So for Sonarr, it will auto-download new episodes as soon as they appear in the index. Or if you see a commercial for something upcoming, you can add it and monitor it and as soon as it starts showing up in the indexes it will download.