App to Import and Download Films for Plex

by Rian

This is a related post from yesterday’s. Both Plex and *arr platforms share the same categorization of video contents. They are either films or series. Sonarr handles series, Radarr handles films or theatrical runs. One would think films would have less an issue fetching metadata, but managing media libraries can create some extreme edge cases.

Radarr is open source and free download manager for films but also offers importing feature, much its like Sonarr. Let’s assume you are importing a series-like movie franchise, or movie franchise with lots of standalone titles to consider. Though I didn’t have to handle Star Wars this way, it would be a good example to explain how it’s going to be. The IP has both the movies and series. The combination of Radarr and Sonarr gives structure to managing media, one that is readable to human user and to media library manager, such as Plex.

I had originally only used Sonarr to keep track of what I have. My “edge cases” began with Evangelion franchise. First, I needed to establish how I will handle subtitles and special characters. Going through the NAS, I found out I had duplicates due to the fact that I couldn’t find it by the other convention. Second, I needed to show that it was a movie being released as part of another franchise, and also it is a movie series unrelated to the original TVA. Neither of which were particularly easy to convey on regular filesystem. My DIY scripts did some work, but again caused more troubles than it solved. In that sense, giving an easy and automated access to reliable convention, it makes these tools worth it.