Part 2: Installing and Configuring SickBeard

By
Total HTPC
– 06/19/2011Posted in: Guides

Installing Sick Beard

What is Sick Beard?

Sick Beard is described as an “Internet PVR”.  Bascially what that means is, you tell it what shows you want to see, and it goes ahead and downloads new episodes of that show for you as they are released, and typically that is immensely fast!

Requirements:

Start here with getting a Usenet Provider.  Once you have that, all you need is a suitable PC/Mac to install the app!  Proceed!

What about old shows?

Yep, it handles them too.  If you want to download the whole back catalog of all your favorite classics, as long as they are on Usenet, Sick Beard will find em.  Which leads to the point of Index sites later on, take a mental note!

Installing Sick Beard on Windows:

  1. Download Sick Beard
  2. Extract the zip file to wherever you want Sick Beard to be installed
  3. Run sickbeard.exe, Sick Beard will be running in the background and now is accessible (Rest of the steps are optional if you want Sick Beard to start on boot)
  4. Right click on Sickbeard.exe and create a shortcut to it.
  5. Drag that shortcut to C:\Documents and Settings\Your Username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
  6. Try to access Sick Beard in a new browser window via http://localhost:8081

Installing Sick Beard on Mac OSX 10.6

This way is a bit a pain, but it will enable you to have Sick Beard run at login without any manual commands and it will also allow you to update directly from within Sick Beard, so no more terminal commands.

  1. Download Cheetah.
  2. Open a new terminal window (terminal is located in your Applications/Utilities folder)
  3. Type cd and drag the newly created Cheetah folder into the terminal window until you get results that look similar to”cd /Users/Username/Desktop/Cheetah” and hit enter
  4. Type “sudo python setup.py install”
  5. You then probably have to type in your password to continue, do so and it will install Cheetah.
  6. Download and install git.
  7. Open a new terminal window and do a “cd /Applications“
  8. Type “git clone git://github.com/midgetspy/Sick-Beard.git“
  9. Type “python sickbeard.py -d“
  10. Open a new browser window and try to access the newly installed Sick Beard via http://localhost:8081
  11. In order for Sick Beard to run automatically at login you should open Automator and create a new action to do this
  12. do shell script “python /Applications/Sick-Beard/sickbeard.py”
  13. Save this as an application and then go to System Preferences, Accounts pane and drag this newly created application into your startup items.

Configuring SAB for Sick Beard

In your newly downloaded Sick Beard folder (/Applications/Sickbeard) you will find a folder called AutoProcessTV.  Drag the contents of this folder into the scripts directory where your SABnzbd is installed (OSX – /Applications/SABnzbd : Windows C:\Program Files\SABnzbd or whichever folder you installed to)  Then log in to your SABnzbd and go to the Config / Categories tab and look for TV.  Next to TV look for the dropdown for post processing script and select the appropriate SABtoSickbeard(.exe for Windows or .py for OSX).  Also make sure that TV sorting is disabled on the Config / Sorting tab as Sick Beard will be handling that.

Configuring Sick Beard

Connect to Sick Beard in a new browser via http://localhost:8081 if on the local machine Sick Beard is running on, or substitute localhost for the proper IP address. Browse over to the Config tab.

General Tab

The only settings I would change on this are the top two settings to make sure it doesn’t launch a browser on start and make sure it checks for updates.  You can have it open a browser on launch if you want, but if you’re trying to make this as seamless as possible, you don’t want a browser to open up in front of your Media center application if using one machine as a total HTPC.

Search Settings Tab

 

Episode Search

  • Download propers – Checked
  • Search Frequency – Default 60 minutes is fine
  • Usenet Retention – Set to whatever your providers retention is set for, 900 is fine for most providers.

NZB Search

  • Search NZBs – Checked
  • SABnzbd URL – http://0.0.0.0:8080/sabnzbd
  • SABnzbd Username - Your SAB username
  • SABnzbd Password – Your SAB password
  • SABnzbd API Key – Can be obtained from your SABnzbd General Settings pane
  • SABnzbd Category – tv (unless you changed this in your Categories within SAB)

Torrent Search

We are going to stay away from Torrent search, as it is really unreliable and this setup is not meant for Torrents anyhow.

Search Providers (THE MOST CRUCIAL PAGE IN THE SETUP)

Provider Priorities – This one you have to configure for yourself, if you are a subscriber of NZBMatrix only, drag that to the top of the list followed by Sick Beards built in search and leave the rest unchecked.  If you subscribe to multiple, check the ones you are subscribed to and designate them in whichever priority feels right, obviously you can change this later.

 

Configure Built in Providers – This is where you are going to select the provider(s) that you subscribed to.  It will ask you for information such as your username and password and API key.  All of this can be obtained from your providers site.

 

Post Processing Tab

The options on this tab are pretty self explanatory for the user, you can configure if you want Sick Beard to rename the shows to match your current structure or to establish a new one.

Notifications Tab

This tab is where you will configure Sick Beard to automatically update your desired MediaCenter application.  If you are using Plex (my suggested media center application) you would check the box next to Plex and point Sick Beard at your Plex install.  If this is your all in one media center, point Plex Media Center and Plex Client at 0.0.0.0:32400.  Again, more on this later.

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