Movie Support

[SonarrBot]

We would all like some kind of Movie support, however it is a very complicated matter to properly implement it in Sonarr. We rather not have it at all, than have it hacked in and barely working. This feature will need to be designed with its own architecture, hundreds if not thousands of unit/integration tests, with hundreds of man hours involved. We would need at least 2 additional developers to even consider this feature.

Sadly this means that, despite the number of votes, this feature is pretty much the last item on our todo-list.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from anon1265 on Trello:

Can you please make it work like moviegrabber http://sourceforge.net/projects/moviegrabber Rather than having a list of movies I want to watch, I want to set an imdb rating and have it download all movies above that rating.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

CouchPotato allows that as well.

So maybe implement that option, but don't make it work solely like that as it'd be useless for a lot of people. I like to be picky in what I watch.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from robinroy on Trello:

A great idea would be to download movies based on an IMDB watchlist.

CouchPotato sort of does this, but it never worked very well for me... sometimes downloading the wrong movie because of a similar name.

This should be simple if the match is done with the IMDB id instead of movie title.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from toby9999 on Trello:

This definitely needs to be done :-) While CP is pretty ok, I struggle with a bunch of annoying little bugs almost every day (I have to rename files and manually hack the database). On the other hand, NZBDrone just works (ie I _NEVER_ have to fix anything!!).

So for me, just having the same solid reliable coding as already exists for TV would be totally awesome. And of course, as others have said, having one app to do both TV and Movies would be brilliant.

So that's a huge +1 from me, and thanks very much to Markus101 for everything so far :-)

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

Just out of interest, what bugs do you see? It's very very solid for me, I just have issues with it searching for movies that it thinks are too early, but that's tricky to solve.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from robinroy on Trello:

For me the most annoying thing with CP is this:

• It finds the right movie on imdb and adds it to my wanted list.
• It then downloads any movie with a title that "matches" the one in the wanted list (disregarding the imdb id).
• Tells me it found the movie I want when it is actually a different one.

This happens a lot with sequels or movies that aren't out yet, but which have a title similar to another movie that came out a year or two before. For example, it would download "The Amazing Spider-Man" when the movie in my watch list was "The Amazing Spider-Man 2".

Because of this, I am now using Movie Grabber. The only thing I don't like about MG is that I can't add an imdb watchlist.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

Interesting. I've honestly never had that happen once since I started using it (years). I'm going to say it's most likely your config, and possibly just crappy indexers...

Anyway this isn't the place to discuss it, but start a thread on the CP forums and it should get worked out.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from staalvreter on Trello:

@simon I have the same "issues" discribed below. The work thats beeing done here is quite impressive :). Much updates. Keep it up!!

[SonarrBot]

Comment from mvds74 on Trello:

I don't recognize the issues being described here at all. But we are not discussing CP here, but NzbDrone ;) And movie support would be awesome! And importing from imdb, rottentomatoes, trakt, moviemeter, kinepolis and possibly other sites would be very (VERY!) handy indeed!

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

markus, when you guys decide to get back to this, maybe have a think about a way to deal with movies that are "out" sooner than expected. CP has issues with this in that (I believe) it checks a list of expected DVD release dates from somewhere, and based on that info it won't search for movies prior to that date. This is good in that it greatly reduces API hits to indexers (and also fakes), but it's just not reliable enough. Often movies are "out" earlier than expected, so they're not searched for and grabbed.

I don't really have a better solution in mind just yet, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while. A reliable solution here would be super handy.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from bcsteeve on Trello:

@simonk83 what you're describing is an option already in CP... but they caution that it results in a LOT of false hits. And it does, because frankly there are a ton of [losers] who "release" a movie early to look cool but its a bogus release. You really want to be downloading all that junk in the hopes of getting the ~0% that are legit early releases?

I really don't know what makes NZB so reliable with TV vs. CP which is so hit and miss. One thing we have to consider is that it really is less about the organization software and perhaps more about the sources. Maybe TV sources are just more reliable?

Early on I really was gung-ho about adding movie support to NZB... but as I've gotten more experienced with it I start to wonder "why?" Unlike TV, where there are multiple seasons with multiple episodes, and therefore something to actually organize... movies are 1 for 1. That is, 1 movie has 1 download (ideally, if garbage didn't exist). So it starts to be "what's the point"? Its easier (way easier) to just manually search for the movie of interest in your indexer and manually download it. Granted, CP has some cool features but, to me, they aren't even remotely worth the hassled generated by the garbage downloads.

If it is just a crappy algorithm and if nzb can do it better, then GREAT! But if its more about the sources, then I say stick to manual downloading.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

@bcsteeve, I know there's an option to turn it off and search for everything, but that's not what I'm after, because that doesn't work properly either (you just end up with fakes, and hundreds of API hits every day) ;) We need a solution that's a mix of the two, so it reliably grabs new releases around the time they're supposed to be out, without having to search for everything every time.

CP's solution works 80% of the time. What we need is a new solution that works closer to 100% of the time. As the movie support hasn't really been started yet, now's the time to start thinking of solutions so it can be built that way from the ground up.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

Thinking about it some more, and considering the integration with Trakt already. When a movie is "out" it will inevitably start popping up on Trakt as more and more people grab and watch it. I wonder if we could check trakt (rather than indexers) before a movies release date and if it's showing on there (like more than 1 person has watched it or whatever), start to search for it in Drone?

Still not ideal as with the rate of takedowns nowadays, the file could be gone before we even get to it, but something to think about.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from joelkaberg on Trello:

@simonk83 Better check preDB's instead,

http://predb.me/ http://orlydb.com/ http://www.nfohump.com/ http://www.doopes.com/ http://www.nfoogle.com/

Check if an release exist on any of the above, if it does: it's the real deal

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

OH of course, that makes a lot more sense. I wonder why CP doesn't just do that...

[SonarrBot]

Comment from joelkaberg on Trello:

@simonk83 it does...

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

Interesting. It doesn't work in that case ;) I quite often get the "too early to search for this title" message in the logs and have to grab things manually. This wouldn't happen if it was checking with a predb.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from jay150 on Trello:

MUST HAVE THIS!

But seriously, I've been itching for movie support ever since I discovered the beauty of NzbDrone. The interface and usability is unmatched.

Is there any chance some impatient members could get an early look at the "in development" version and help test? :)

[SonarrBot]

Comment from derekhighet on Trello:

@jay150 cards in the "In Progress" or "In Develop" tier are features that are currently being developed. Movie Support isn't yet, mainly just being discussed.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from guidojurriens on Trello:

@jay150 There is an option to test out development builds. They can be unstable though so be warned about that. The instructions for the development build are in the forums.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from taloth on Trello:

No, there is no movie support whatsoever. (not on a branch either) It's a big feature to do 'right' so is gonna take time. It's certainly on our strongly desired list (the 180 votes don't miss our attention) but atm we are doing anime and torrents. The devs are gonna have to sit together to talk about the best architecture and features to deal with 'the movie problem'.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from jay150 on Trello:

@taloth Haha, fair enough, fair enough. I'm just impatient. As a developer, I know these things take time. If your current work is any indication, I know you guys will do good work with it in time.

Really appreciate all the effort you guys put into this!

[SonarrBot]

Comment from chrisschnobb on Trello:

Im supper stoked for this. I hate using CouchPotato and NzbDrone has really shown me a new meaning to Usenet and automation. I really hope movie support comes soon!

[SonarrBot]

Comment from markus101 on Trello:

I realize this is the most voted feature (by a large margin), but in terms of time and effort (we don't have the time to dedicate to it), we're not doing anyone a favour by keeping it as high priority. I'm moving it back down.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from joepayton2 on Trello:

I would love to see a all in one Internet PVR and this looks like it could really be it. Add torrent and nzb clients built in and it would be one stop shop. But movies would be plenty.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from tymixon on Trello:

@joepayton2 I think having the dwnload clients be sep is a better solution. One app to find it, another to handle downloads & repair/decompression.

That way you can use what you like. :)

[SonarrBot]

Comment from joepayton2 on Trello:

To be totaly honest I agree. There are better/different options for different systems. Still. It would be nice to have an all on one.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from karmapolice1 on Trello:

This idea is actively in development over at CouchPotato (adding TV to CP which already does movies)...

I might be wrong, but my suspicion is that the first of the big 3 (SickBeard, CouchPotato, Sonarr) to handle TV and Movie functionality will be a HUGE winner and could well destroy whomever is in 3rd place in terms of user-base (which would be Sonarr currently)... The only reason I could see this not happening is that CP is so poor at what they do implement it might be just horrible enough to keep people from switching...

That said... might be worth a re-eval on priority for this one in light of CP going down this road currently (they have a fork setup in git with very frequent committing going on).

[SonarrBot]

Comment from markus101 on Trello:

@karmapolice1 CP started TV support last year and ended up not finalizing it, looks like they restarted development on it again.

Its been almost 2 years since we started v2 and there is still tons that we could do in the realm of TV alone, this stuff can't be thrown together over night.

We realize this is the number one voted feature and has been since it will added, but we feel there is more we can do in the world of do one thing well before we take on movies.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from karmapolice1 on Trello:

@markus101 sounds good, just wanted to check in on it considering the revived interest over at CP in this.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from bcsteeve on Trello:

I don't think there should be any pressing need to add movies support based on the fact CP may be considering adding TV support there. I really don't think the important thing is that we have an all-in-one. To me, the reason its important for Sonarr to add movie support is because Sonarr is so good, and the presumption is that they would do movies better than CP does (which, I personally think, is rather poor. I don't even use it anymore... I just manually d/l). If CP did a better job then I think it would be perfectly fine keeping things separate. Sonarr just works. I'd like the same for movies.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from shadeblack on Trello:

+Vote - I hate CouchPotato Would like similar app with proper control over what is grabbed.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from bwilson85 on Trello:

+1 Cp is absolutely horrible. Always crashing, renamer constantly gets stuck and I have to restart, doesn't find things it should, downloads fakes, and can't find the files it downloaded. How it still sucks after all this time is beyond me. I'm on the latest development release too. I took a peek under the hood of cp and sonarr and cp looks like spaghetti code, whereas sonarr looks to be written in a much cleaner and more concise fashion. Sonarr is more stable, fetches more reliably, everything is just better. I would love to see movie support.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

Weird, it's been working flawlessly for years here. Take some time to set it up properly ;)

Movie support in Sonarr will come eventually, and I'm sure it'll be great, but CP works fine in the meantime so I'm in no rush for it.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from bcsteeve on Trello:

Nah, come on. If you have to work so hard to set it up "properly" to get it to work "flawless", then that still proves Brett's point. I feel I have mine set up "properly" but there's no way I'd describe its operation as "flawless". Granted, I don't get a lot of the errors and troubles Brett describes, but it is nowhere even close to the slick, near-problem-free operation that Sonarr exhibits. I've had to hamstring CP by making it NEVER grab anything because, more times than not, it would grab a bad file, an over-sized file, or even the wrong movie entirely. I have to manually search every time and then, really, what's the point of CP? I almost NEVER manually search with Sonarr and it gets it right.

I have to allow that maybe that isn't really a function of Sonarr or CP though. Maybe its just that the scene releasers of TV shows do a better job than they do with movies. That, I don't know.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from bcsteeve on Trello:

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

[SonarrBot]

Comment from simonk83 on Trello:

You too :)

Honestly I have a good 250 movies in my list at any given time and it's very, very rare that it ever grabs the wrong one, or a bad one. I can't even remember the last time that happened.

I do hear (mostly in here) people having issues though and I can only assume it comes down to two options:

1. Do NOT select the "Always Search" option in Settings > Searcher. That will absolutely get you bad files, as it'll try to grab all the fakes that are released before the movie is officially out.
2. Add a few keywords to avoid in Settings > Searcher > Categories. My list is as follows (a lot of these are there by default): "dxva, hdscr, hdrip, bdrip, brrip, web & dl, webrip, screener, dvdscreener, german, dutch, french, danish, swedish, dubbed, swesub, korsub, hsbs"

You might not want all of those (I only ever want bluray 1080p, so I exclude WebDL's).

This has been working fine for years, and honestly it's generally the same few groups that release all the movies in good quality at 1080p anyway, so you could probably just add their names to the REQUIRED keyword list and not have to worry about it again :)

[SonarrBot]

Comment from steve_mcnally on Trello:

With my new build I thought I would give Couch Potato another try after ditching it a year ago. I can't stand it. I just can't. Uninstalled after two days. My movie downloading remains manual sadly, and probably will until the Sonarr guys find the time to do it as it should be done.

Can't come soon enough.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from danielbrooks4 on Trello:

Couch potato works ok for this, but it is separate install, and does not manage failed or bad downloads like sonarr does for tv shows

[SonarrBot]

Comment from kikidy on Trello:

Couch Potato is a piece of !&@$. I have it installed and over 2,500 movies in the list & I have lots of problems with it.

For instance it doesn't have length scaled size requirements... so a 3+ hour movie like Lord of the Rings downloads in bad bitrate, or I increase the limit and end up out of space. And many more problems... especially that it's very slow.

Come to think of it a good solution, to that, that neither has is a button that I could manually click to search by ignoring size requirements.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from taloth on Trello:

Discussing issues with CP here isn't really fruitful.

I'm going to edit the description to emphasis our position on this feature.

[SonarrBot]

Comment from beanbandit on Trello:

@danielbrooks4 Well I think there is a reason for it being a separate program, it makes it so much easier to program, debug and update... perhaps sonarr-movie should also be a separate program but with features to 'communicate' with sonarr-tv.

[scutzi128]

I'm in the CP sucks camp aswell. I'vs spent countless hours tweaking the setup but it still randomly fails to work sometimes for seemingly no reason. Sonarr on the other hand is a gem and works 99% of the time.

[icopp]

A "nice to have" secondary feature for this could be an option to also track "TV Movie" special episodes as movies using the same file. I'm not sure how practical it is, though, since thetvdb doesn't have a "this is a movie" metadata flag.

For example - Babylon 5 had a set of TV movies that have their own IMDB entries, but are also tracked by thetvdb as specials for the series.

[CatmanIX]

Yeah, i've been trying to think of a way for TV movies specials to be managed properly by anything. It would definitely require a 3rd party service to map specials on tvdb, trakt, and the like with IMDB pages (and maybe trakt movie pages too).

Sonarr already uses xem though, right? I wonder if xem could be expanded to do this as well since it already covers most of the functions necessary.

[MrDevanWright]

I would like to add a vote to have movie support added to Sonarr. The TV handling is amazing, so no doubt you guys would be able to come up with something amazing for movies. With that said, It's completely understandable for this to not be a priority request and that implementing this feature will take countless hours.

I'm still looking forward to it though. Television and Movies all handled by Sonarr would be fantastic. Bittorrent to Sonarr to Plex is a marvelous creation.

[JigSawFr]

Yes, it will be a fantastic alternative to couchpotato :+1:

[tidusjar]

+1 for Movie support from me. If I can help out with the implementation in anyway please let me know.

[MrsAngelD]

I would really love to see Movie support on Sonarr

[robellegate]

Movie support on Sonarr would be amazing! Not a fan of couchpotato.