Sonarr X265

0 views

Skip to first unread message

Henrietta Naughton

unread,

Aug 3, 2024, 2:08:41 PM8/3/24

to annonilet

However, I have found some 720p files are still quite large (which fit my profile and download), and I know there are many episodes that have a 1080p x265 encoded version that would be great (that are excluded by my profile).

With radarr, I use the same settings. I have a tag for x265 which I put for the releases but in radarr it will still grab the x264 and than upgrade whenever it is available. This is far preferred since in sonarr with the exact same settings, sonarr ignores the x264 versions and refuses to download them without the x265 tag. They are identical setups, is this a limitation in sonarr, an added feature in radarr or do i have some setting somewhere else different that i cannot find?? Example below since it just happened.
image1216762 114 KB

Once again please explain in detail how a tag by itself (i.e. without being in a release profile and a series) does not anything at all for controlling upgrades. That literally does not exist in the docs, in the ui, nor in the code.

Now if you were asking how to prefer x265 versions and given Preferred Words are always an upgrade, that answer would be to create a Release Profile preferring - or must containing if you wish - the following Regex should do it /[xh][ .]?265\\bHEVC(\\b\\d)/i

I"d be keen for this to be added as well, currently it only grabs the latest 720p or asked for quality level so this could be any format in 720p which is a little annoying when you look aback in your folder and find 4 different capture codecs

I would like to keep the same file sizes but be able to improve the quality. So a WEB-DL of 720 would normally be 1.3 GB. However I would like to be able to say grab that and tie into a x265. So I would get a higher quality WEB-DL.

I have a substantial local library where the media alone takes up many terabytes of space. Recently, I started manually replacing shows with larger sizes with ones encoded in HEVC / x265. This has maintained or improved quality while saving a tremendous amount of space.

It would be fantastic if I Sonarr had HEVC / x265 quality categories for both 720p / 1080p. This way, I could configure shows to first search for HEVC / x265 format and if not found, then grab one with different encoding and/or set shows to this option to have them convert automatically (if available of course.)

However, Sonarr does have an Advanced Settings option and this could be under advanced. Thereby maintaining your ease of use for the general Joe/Joanna and giving the power user a little more control.

This is now true. The quality is based on whats in the file name, so if you have nothing in the file name it will set the quality by default to HDTV-720p but you add web-dl 1080p to each file name sonarr will pick it up as WEB-DL 1080p and the same goes for downloads. It checks the filename.

Preferring x264 over x265 or vice versa would be covered by this issue.
github.com/Sonarr/Sonarr Issue: Preferred words (more release restriction awesomeness)opened by SonarrBoton 2014-11-19We already have required/ignored, now we should add preferred, which will be handled the same way, but we'll need a service... 1% enhancement priority:low

In an Agile project, the Product Owner would simply add this to the backlog driven by user priority, has this happened? I know details the requirement as an enhancement but there does not appear any way for users to give weight to a given requirement, especially given it is closed.

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in supporting changing the release quality system. The current system as is parses releases for source, resolution, and size. This was designed when the codec choices were more limited and it made sense. It was unlikely to find very high resolution videos distributed in less efficient codecs.

the issue with the quality definitions is that they link a resolution to a file size range - which was fine up until x265 came around as it can now be well under half the size of the other codecs so setting, for eg, the 1080p range to be 800-1200mb isnt really viable when you can get 300-600mb x265 sized files which are probably fakes or just garbage in x264 format

you could put them in the quality section so theyre global across all profiles (simpler and presumes you want the same codec for all shows, which isnt always true), or remove the quality section completely and move it into the profiles (more complex but allows for individual shows to have a specific codec ordering set). either way sonarr could use the codec ordering for each resolution as part of the download ranking system which is also something people are starting to want (and presumably why the preferred text option was added in v3 - as this is way more complex and harder to work out)

while that might add some bloat to the UI and complexity to the code i think the new grouping system that was added in v3 would help to reduce that as you could use it to group (and order) the codecs under each resolution.

people that dont care about x265 would have all the codecs in a single group with a single file size range, so not really a lot of diffeence at the UI level. for those that do want x265 they would break it out of the default group and set it up on its own with a file size range and order it above the default group in each resolution they wanted it - its a bit more work for the user but thats to be expected when you want to customise it.

this is already known. the issue as youve noticed is that its mandatory so if you want the end goal to be x265 but will take an x264 in the interim (as sometimes the x265 variant never becomes available and you have to convert it yourself) then it cant be done in v2

v3 (which is now in alpha release) gets around the issue with its preferred words list, which is a good workaround, but its just that, a workaround for using a filename filter. it has no linkage to anything else (like file size)

i havent had a chance to use v3 yet so it really depends on how its been implemented (does it apply to both initial grabs as well as upgrades?) as to how useful the feature will be for the purpose of codec selection/prioritisation.

This video the first part shows how to automatically re-encode video files downloaded by sonarr or radarr using an advanced docker path mapping sending the media files through handbrake first before then being processed by sonarr/radarr.
I use h265 as i want smaller video files but any format can be choosen. This first part goes through the principles of how this works. The second video will go deeper using detailed examples. It is recommended to watch this video first.

I think this tutorial is a pretty good idea for new incoming videos. However I think it would be nice to also have a background process that can optimise my current files as well. I also often find that I download a video and want to watch it straight away. Perhaps something went wrong with the episode that was downloaded and I want to mark it as failed and download another copy. The problem I found with your setup here is I need to wait for the conversion after the download before I can watch that video. I believe a better solution is to have a monitor watching your library for new files. When a new file comes in, it will convert it (in a separate folder) and then replace that file once the conversion is complete.

Last night I wrote a container which has a monitor that watches your library for file changes. New files that match a list of file extensions are checked to see if they are already 265. If they are not they are converted and then replaced. It also has an optional scheduled event to carry out a full scan of your library.

Would you be interested in trying out my container? I should have it finished and pushed today. I would appreciate the feedback.
It doesn't have a GUI or anything. Just some variables to specify the quality you want (HEVC) and point it at your library.

Hi, @Josh.5 yes it sounds great. Please let me know when its ready. I would love to try your container. Sounds like a much more elegant solution than mine and much easier. It is annoying having to wait for conversion before watching. Have you seen the unraid port of FallingSnow's H265ize? I had a quick look at that yesterday as it will convert whole folders full of video and was thinking of using it to convert some of my existing media. But your container sounds like it takes that one step further, can't wait to try it.

I'd be interested in trying out your docker. I do not seam to have handbreak setup correctly. Handbreak is not converting files or it is just under 100 mbps. Are there any tutorials on setting up handbreak?