MakeMKV gives you a pile of VOB files. Sonarr wants a clean named MKV in the right folder. The gap between those two is always a manual dance. Figure out which season it is, rename it, drop it in the right place, trigger a rescan.
Discarr fills that gap: it’s a small Node.js web UI (no npm packages, pure built-ins) that handles the VIDEO_TS / BDMV / ISO → arr import chain.
What it does:
- Scans disc structure automatically (VIDEO_TS, BDMV, multi-disc, ISO)
- Reads IFO chapter data to split multi-episode DVD discs correctly
- Browser UI to map disc titles to the right Sonarr episodes or Radarr movies
- Queues HEVC encodes via ffmpeg or HandBrake (locally or over SSH to a remote box)
- Notifies Sonarr/Radarr via custom script hooks on import/delete/completion
- Optional: qBittorrent hook triggers a scan on torrent completion; Tdarr ping after encode
- Persistent job queue. restarts resume automatically
Requirements: Node.js 18+, ffmpeg + ffprobe. HandBrake optional. Docker image bundles both plus openssh-client.
Still early, issues and PRs welcome.
Forgejo (primary): https://git.opensourcesolarpunk.com/Circuit-Forge/discarr GitHub (mirror): https://github.com/pyr0ball/discarr
I don’t get this part
MakeMKV gives you a pile of VOB files
For me MakeMKV gives me a single or multiple (depending on how many I choose) .mkv files for the video files vailable on a DVD/BlueRay. I can then decide to use them as they are, or run them through Handbrake to convert to my desired format.
Isn’t this the case on your side?
Sure, but that takes a lot of time and effort when you have a complicated stack, so it’s nice to be able to handle it in two clicks instead of setting up an entire encode queue while cross referencing all my metadata so I get episodes mapped right. Often a series session will take me upward of 30 minutes to set up an encode queue manually. With Discarr, it takes me 30 seconds
Edit: this came out of many attempts to create a single script that could post-process torrents, unpacking archives or converting disk images dynamically. The trouble is that dvd formatting for series follows no standards whatsoever, and really requires a human to map the titles. Discarr automates everything except that, and surfaces the title and episode queues side-by-side to allow quick identification and assignment
This is all correct and i get it. I was wondering about the VOB part for MakeMKV. Because I never get a VOB Out of MakeMKV.
Ah, well you see the explanation for that is pure ignorance. I’ve only ever used handbrake myself and was trying to help another friend who apparently uses makeMKV wrong or something or is bad at explaining to me xD
Ok got it. Thanks for the reply!
It’s been a while but I used automatic-ripping-machine for a long time and worked well. Definitely going to take a look at this in the coming weeks.
What is the point of Sonarr/Radarr in this workflow?
If you get a proper mkv file from this tool, why not just put it in your media library for your media player to discover?
Sonarr/Radarr occasionally grab disk rips as they’re the only format available for certain titles, but they can’t be directly imported without conversion. This fills that gap cleanly.
I’ve never used this software, so just guessing here, but if radar/sonarr are not aware of the mkv file they will attempt to find the media which would result in duplicate files
