SABnzbd, Sickbeard, Couchpotato and Headphones are applications that help you create a fully automated system for downloading of TV Shows, Movies and Music. It works on Windows as well as Mac and Linux. This is supposed to be a complete guide to the setup (and small part of usage) of the appropriate programs for TV Shows, Movies and Music on the Windows platform. I’m a computer geek and have been working with IT for many years. Even this did not prepare me for the nightmare of a setup this was. The guides out there are really limited and have gaping holes. So, I do this for everyone out there who is new at this, and who wants a helping hand. This guide is written with a JRiver Media Center setup in mind, but it can easily be used as a basis for XBMC or any other Media Center or player.
What are NZB & News, SABnzbd+, Sickbeard, CouchPotato, Headphones
NZB & News
NZB is a file type used in News groups, to gather information about downloadable files. Almost like a Torrent. News groups is an old system used for discussion groups and sharing data. Today, this is mostly used to categorize, search and share data. The beauty of NZB and News is the fact that every file that is uploaded has to be categorized and tagged. This information makes it easy to search for exactly what you need, and you can be pretty darn sure you’ll end up with what you want and nothing else.
Another positive thing is that this is a service which does NOT require you to upload anything. It’s a download only service. Of course, there have to be people uploading, and there are quite a few of them. But for normal users, you can be certain you don’t get sued by USA media giants for uploading a few music tracks. Especially if you encrypt the data you download.
The only downside with NZB and News is that it costs a bit money. For News systems like this to be effective you need two things.
• One or more reliable search sites for NZB files. Like the torrent search web pages.
• One or more file server access
The search pages is normally priced at around 10$ for lifetime usage. The file service providers use mostly monthly rates of around 10$. So, you can probably calculate a startup fee of 20-30 bucks, and then a few dollars each month.
News sites normally save stuff for around 1000 days. In other words up to or around 3 years. Data older than that will be removed to save space. This means that older content CAN be hard to come by, but popular content normally gets uploaded now and then, so you can get media that is decades old.
The biggest problem with News sites is that copy right owners sometimes find their media on this news servers, and they send a cease notice to the admins. They are forced to remove parts of media, or whole files. Even though this parts of media seems to be spread and might have some duplicates(?), the result is often that this blocks or parts that the media consists of, sometimes is missing or bad. The only real option of dealing with this is to get access to News servers that is NOT of the same provider. This other sites often have the same data, but they might not have gotten the same cease notice, and the blocks you need is often available on other sites. This is where Block Accounts comes in. With a block account from another provider, you'll often be able to get this small blocks that is bad or missing, to recreate a fully functional file. With the setup I'm suggesting I find that my downloads have a success of up to and over 95%. The rest can be fixed by downloading different versions, or as a last resort, download by torrent. But be sure to use SSL encryption and delete the torrent from your torrent software as soon as it's finished, so you don't risk getting sued for millions!
What are NZB & News, SABnzbd+, Sickbeard, CouchPotato, Headphones
NZB & News
NZB is a file type used in News groups, to gather information about downloadable files. Almost like a Torrent. News groups is an old system used for discussion groups and sharing data. Today, this is mostly used to categorize, search and share data. The beauty of NZB and News is the fact that every file that is uploaded has to be categorized and tagged. This information makes it easy to search for exactly what you need, and you can be pretty darn sure you’ll end up with what you want and nothing else.
Another positive thing is that this is a service which does NOT require you to upload anything. It’s a download only service. Of course, there have to be people uploading, and there are quite a few of them. But for normal users, you can be certain you don’t get sued by USA media giants for uploading a few music tracks. Especially if you encrypt the data you download.
The only downside with NZB and News is that it costs a bit money. For News systems like this to be effective you need two things.
• One or more reliable search sites for NZB files. Like the torrent search web pages.
• One or more file server access
The search pages is normally priced at around 10$ for lifetime usage. The file service providers use mostly monthly rates of around 10$. So, you can probably calculate a startup fee of 20-30 bucks, and then a few dollars each month.
News sites normally save stuff for around 1000 days. In other words up to or around 3 years. Data older than that will be removed to save space. This means that older content CAN be hard to come by, but popular content normally gets uploaded now and then, so you can get media that is decades old.
The biggest problem with News sites is that copy right owners sometimes find their media on this news servers, and they send a cease notice to the admins. They are forced to remove parts of media, or whole files. Even though this parts of media seems to be spread and might have some duplicates(?), the result is often that this blocks or parts that the media consists of, sometimes is missing or bad. The only real option of dealing with this is to get access to News servers that is NOT of the same provider. This other sites often have the same data, but they might not have gotten the same cease notice, and the blocks you need is often available on other sites. This is where Block Accounts comes in. With a block account from another provider, you'll often be able to get this small blocks that is bad or missing, to recreate a fully functional file. With the setup I'm suggesting I find that my downloads have a success of up to and over 95%. The rest can be fixed by downloading different versions, or as a last resort, download by torrent. But be sure to use SSL encryption and delete the torrent from your torrent software as soon as it's finished, so you don't risk getting sued for millions!