What happens after you ask for a movie or TV show, step by step, until it shows up in Plex ready to watch. You only do the first and the last step. Everything in between runs on its own.
There are two ways in. Both end up in the same place.
Open requests.brantho.com, sign in with your Plex account, search for the title and press Request. For a series you can choose which seasons you want.
In any Plex app, add the movie or show to your Watchlist. Every few minutes the request site checks watchlists and turns new entries into a request for you.
Seerr is the program behind requests.brantho.com. It checks whether the title is already in Plex or already requested by someone else, so nothing is fetched twice. Then the request is approved, either automatically or by Thomas.
Example. You get this so you know the request is on its way. If it lands in spam, mark it as “not spam” once.
Seerr hands the request to one of two librarians, depending on what it is. From here on they are in charge of finding it.
Keeps the list of wanted series and episodes. It also keeps watching a show, so new episodes are fetched as soon as they air.
Keeps the list of wanted movies. If a movie is not out yet, it waits and grabs it once a digital release exists.
The librarian searches many online catalogs (called indexers) at once and gets back every copy of the title it can find. One movie often has dozens of versions.
Prowlarr keeps the list of catalogs in one place and shares it with Sonarr and Radarr. When Thomas adds or fixes a catalog there, both librarians know about it right away.
Those versions differ in picture quality, file size, language and sound. Profilarr holds Thomas’s rules for what counts as a good copy. Sonarr or Radarr scores every search result against these rules and picks the best match.
If no copy passes the rules yet, nothing is downloaded. Sonarr and Radarr keep checking and grab a good copy as soon as one appears.
The chosen copy goes to one of two download programs, depending on where it was found.
Usenet is an old network of servers, today mostly used to store files. Access is a paid subscription, and files come straight from the provider’s servers, so it is usually fast and steady.
With torrents, people share a file directly with each other. Your copy is put together from small pieces sent by many others at once, so speed depends on how many people share it.
When the download finishes, the librarian checks it, gives it a clean name and moves it into the right library folder: Movies, Series, Anime or Classic series.
Plex spots the new file, adds the poster, description and cast, and the title appears in the library for everyone with access.
Example. Seerr notices the title has arrived in Plex and tells you it is ready.
Watch in any Plex app, at home or on the road: TV, phone, tablet, browser. If your device can’t play the file as it is, Plex converts it on the fly using the graphics chip built into the server.
Everything above runs on one small server at Thomas’s home. Your devices reach it over the internet, and the server reaches out to a few outside services.
Runs directly on the server’s network so Plex apps find it easily. Uses the chip’s built-in Intel graphics (Quick Sync) to convert video for devices that need it.
Popular titles often arrive within an hour of approval. Older or rare titles can take longer, sometimes days, because a good copy has to turn up first.
Request it anyway. Radarr waits for the digital release and grabs it then. You get the “Now available” email when it lands.
On requests.brantho.com each title shows whether it is requested, approved, downloading or available.
No. Once a series is requested, Sonarr keeps watching it and adds new episodes of the seasons you asked for on its own.