How it picks¶

Borer asks Radarr or Sonarr for their own interactive search, the same one behind the magnifying glass in their pages. That way the title, year, season and languages are already matched across every indexer in Prowlarr, and when Borer grabs a release, Radarr or Sonarr imports it the usual way. It ignores their quality profile's verdict, because my profile turns down nearly everything, even the releases I'd pick myself. It only listens to them on "wrong film" and on anything blocklisted.

What it throws out¶

The wrong film or show, and for a season, episodes I already have.
Cams and pre-release rips.
No seeders, or fewer than the minimum on Settings (3).
Too small or too big for its length: under 0.5 Mbps is a fake or unwatchable, over 20 is a remux.
Dub only. Dubs are fine as long as there's ALSO an English track or the original-language one (Hebrew for an Israeli film, Korean for a Korean one, and so on). A release that's only a dub goes.
Blocklisted releases, and any group I've blocked.

Each one shows on the page with its reason in red, so I can see what it threw out and why.

How it scores the rest¶

What's left gets scored the way I'd look at it:

Seeders first. It's on a log scale, so 1,000 seeders beats 100, but not by ten times.
A group I trust: any group I've imported from at least twice, plus any group I pick on the page or add on Settings.
1080p, then 720p. 4K and anything under 720p lose points.
A sensible size: about 1.5 to 5 Mbps is the sweet spot. Much bigger or much smaller loses points.
x265, a little, since it's smaller for the same picture.
English subs, a little, when the name says so. Missing subs never throw anything out, since I can always add those later.
A whole season in one pack, when it covers every episode I'm missing.

When it's sure¶

It grabs on its own only when the top release is:

1080p (or 720p from a trusted group with 50 seeders, when there's no 1080p at all),
seeded: at least 20 seeders from a group I trust, or 200 from any group,
a normal size, between 1 and 10 Mbps.

Anything else goes under "Needs you" with the top three. For a season it takes the pack when there is one, otherwise the best release of each episode.

When it searches¶

The public indexers time out or hit their limits when they're asked too much, so Borer does four searches every ten minutes, a minute apart. An empty answer counts as no answer, and it tries that one again in an hour. Before anything lands in "Needs you", it searches once more an hour later, so a half answer never gets put in front of me. After that it refreshes the options every 12 hours, since seeders move. Something nobody has posted gets searched less and less often, from an hour up to every three days.

It doesn't search at all for a film that isn't out at home yet (digital or disc), which is where most of the fakes are. It waits under "Waiting" with the date.

Its limits¶

It starts out holding itself to 15 grabs and 100 GB a day, and stops when either disk has less than 60 GB free. All three are on Settings.

It checks them before every release, not once for the whole search, so a season of single episodes stops where the day does. It grabs what fits, and the rest wait under "Waiting" with the reason, and it tries again every hour until the day has room.

What I deleted stays deleted¶

Anything I had and then deleted, from Jellyfin, from the disk, or in Sonarr or Radarr, is NOT brought back, even when it's still monitored. Borer reads that from Radarr's and Sonarr's history, and it sits under "Skipped" with "Deleted". Search again brings it back if I want it.

Next: Catching fakes