Whenever I torrent something I feel like the torrent almost always includes addtitional subtitles and audio tracks. Is there a way to prevent this? I’ve tried to set up bazarr to atleast fetch the correct subititles and default those to english but its not always working either. But the default audio tracks I’ve yet to find a way to delete/set english as default.
Is this as common of a problem for Usenet users? Been considering going over to usenet for a while.
MKVToolsNix is how I remove audio tracks I don’t want from MKVs and reset default tracks and subtitles. Super easy to use.
Tdarr can do what you want. I have mine setup to drop all non English tracks unless theyre the only one and do the same for subtitles.
You can setup a custom format in the ARRs that specifically looks for English audio and ranks any others or multi-audio as a negative value, that should help you avoid non English releases.
I automated this with FileFlows.
New media automatically has Audio tracks sorted with the best track (English, most channels, highest bitrate) set to index0 and set as default and a basic stereo AAC track added for compatibility if there isn’t already one in the file. superfluous tracks are removed. Subtitles are also cleared out if there are extras too.
I also have Fileflows handle a light compression pass on files that are more than 6 months old for archival, in certain video libraries where I don’t need perfect copies stored.
Most of the files you get from private and public trackers will be same ones you can get via Usenet so it’s pretty much the same everywhere, filtering your *Arrs to prioritise certain release groups helps when you know specific shows or genres are better supplied by a certain group.
If it’s a matroska (mkv) file you can use mktoolnix (use the header editor) to set default tracks.
MKVToolNix will work even if the file is not MKV. It will just remux it to MKV.
I don’t get how having additional audio tracks and subtitles in other languages is a problem. Idk what you’re using to watch your stuff but, at least in Jellyfin, you can set the default audio and subtitle languages in your profile settings.
Considering I’m hosting this for family/friends they get rather confused about this when launching a movie and its in Russian… While its easy to change it would be more convenient if they/me didn’t have to. Sometimes movies/shows also strictly only download the movie in Russian even though my settings are applied to only download English stuff.
It can’t be that confusing, my 9 year old brother manages to change the language just fine but, as I said, you can just set a default language in the profile settings of each individual user, so it’ll automatically use that language, no matter what the default language for the video file is
If you’re using the Servarr apps to fetch media, then you need to set up Sonarr/Radarr using the TRaSH guides to make sure they don’t fetch media in other languages.
trash guides is what ive used for my current setup, but thanks
It’s possible you might have missed a step then, if you’re getting a lot of Russian releases. TRaSH scores bad dual audio very low, so you shouldn’t be getting things that default to Russian if you’re looking for English, because it should simply refuse to download them if set up correctly.
Lots of suggestions for MKVToolNix, but I prefer automated solutions:
Tdarr is a highly configurable automated conversion tool. You can use it to just remove extra video audio or subtitle streams, change containers, transcode streams into different codecs, or all of the above.
I’ve got it set to automatically convert all media that gets added to my libraries into hevc/mkv while stripping out extra audio/subtitle tracks. This leaves me with less clutter and 30-40% smaller file sizes.
Thanks for pointing that out, as it would have to be automated for me to be “happy” with it. I’ll have a deep-dive into tdarr asap.
Don’t bother with removing stuff. Just set your default audio and subtitle track in whatever you’re using to play or stream the media, and you won’t have to worry about selecting the proper one each time.
As for Bazarr, there’s several reasons it might not be fetching the right subtitles, so definitely look into fixing that. Often it’s a problem with paths being wrong. It might give you a clue by looking at the status page.
And be sure you’re setting up all your Servarr apps using the TRaSH guides. It’ll take you an hour or so to do, but you only need to do it once, and it’ll drastically improve the quality of releases you grab.
