Configure CouchPotato as a pvr for automatically downloading your movies. This guide assumes you have already installed CouchPotato on your platform of choice like Windows, Debian, Ubuntu or Raspberry Pi. Setting up couchpotato is very straightforward. You need to have a usenet provider account like usenetserver or newsdemon. You also need a usenet binary downloader like sabnzbd or nzbget. Make sure you have your API key from sabnzbd or login details for nzbget. Ideally you should have a newznab indexer account from a private site like dognzb.cr and your API keys. If these requirements are met, let’s configure.
Usenet Provider UsenetServer Newshosting Frugal Usenetlink
This guide assumes you are using built-in sorting with Sabnzbd or NZBGet's Videosorter plugin. A separate guide will be created to use the renaming function of CouchPotato.
You need to know the IP address of the box where couchpotato is installed, http://ip.address:5050.
Edit: There is now an updated guide to configure CouchPotato with Usenet and Torrents
Configure CouchPotato
You will be met with this welcome screen, you can either click the navigation menu at the top or scroll using your mouse wheel.
Scroll or click on General
Under the General tab you can specify a username and password to protect the web interface of CouchPotato.
You can also change the default port if you want to feel extra secure.
If you are on Windows and don’t want a browser to automatically start every time the couchpotato service starts, uncheck the box.
Scroll down to get to the Downloaders tab
Blackhole is checked by default. Check the usenet downloader you installed earlier. I will do sabnzbd first and nzget afterwards.
This is for sabnzbnd couchpotato integration, you need to paste your API key here.
If for some reason sabnzbd is installed on a different machine enter its IP address in Host.
Type movies for the category
For nzbget, you do not need an API key, if you changed the default username and password or port, enter the correct ones here.
NZBGet has the movies category created by default so you don’t have to change anything else here
Scroll down past the torrent providers tab to the usenet providers section.
If you are fortunate enough to have VIP accounts with any of the newznab indexers, check the box next to the website’s name and paste your API key.
If you have set up your own private newznab or nzedb usenet indexer you can enter the API address in the bottom blank row and enter its API key.
If for some reason you do not want to use a newznab provider then uncheck the box at the very top.
You can use free indexers like nzbindex or binsearch but you are likely to get fakes and/or viruses so I only recommend it if you are desperate.
Now scroll down and you are told how you can easily add movies to your couchpotato wanted list through a browser extension.
The browser extension is available for Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Scroll past it for now.
Scroll down and you will see a big green button, click it
Adding CouchPotato Movies
After clicking the big ass green button you will see this screen.
I will show you how to add movies using the manual method but I highly recommend using watchlists which are explained in another guide.
Click the search button.
The search dialog will come up, start typing in your movie name and couchpotato will automatically search its databases for it.
The movie will show up in the dropdown list, click the correct one.
Then you have to choose the desired quality, SD is usually just fine but if you have lots of hard drive space and a fast internet connection you can choose HD.
Click Add
Well done, the movie has been added 🙂
You are welcome to add all the movies you want through this method but it can be tedious.
If you want something more automated like automatic importing of your imdb or trakt.tv watchlist, I have a guide for that on the way.
Now let your htpc home media server check periodically for movies on your list using CouchPotato and the power of usenet.
This method helps avoid DMCA takedowns when downloading with sabnzbd or nzbget form usenet which is a huge bonus on top of having the system be fully automated.
Optional Stuff