ruTorrent RSS pcre tutorial.

Understanding naming schemes / tags.

Naming schemes (the name of the torrents and files) are usually quite standard, though
they may differ in some ways. Typically the torrents have the following naming sheme:
show.season#episode#.title.source.format.releasegroup.extension
So some typical shows would look like this:
The.Simpsons.S21E04.Treehouse.of.Horror.XX.HDTV.XviD-FQM.avi
CSI.New.York.S06E05.720p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION.mkv
Family.Guy.S08E03.720p.WEB-DL.DD5.1.AVC-CtrlHD.mkv

Let's explain everything from left to right...

The show name is the first thing you will see in most all torrents. Not much to explain
here.
The season and episode number show which specific episode this is. Typically this is
displayed as S##E## with a leading 0. However, sometimes people label them as
S21E04, S1E5, 1x05, or even 2102. I will show you below how to catch all of these.
The title is optional. This is where files really differ. Unless you only want to download
one specific show, you would use wildcards to ignore the title if there is one.
The source is very important. Here is a list of the most common sources and a very brief
definition.
HR - High Resolution (may not be considered a source but usually precedes HDTV)
HDTV - High Definition Television
PDTV - Pure Digital Television (not considered quite as good as HDTV)
DVD or DVDRip - Digital Video Disc
BD or BDRip - Blu-Ray Disc
WEB-DL - Web Download; means it was ripped from a website.
DSR - Digital Satellite Rip (does not necessarily mean good quality, usually in 480i)
TRANSPORT - A high quality format that allows for error correction when transmitting,
usually in 1080i.
PREAIR - Usually a leaked file, before the actual air date.

The format is usually one of three codecs, and is also given away by the file extension.
XviD/DivX (.avi) This is the most popular format of choice. It is usually a small file size.
x264 (.mkv) This is the high quality format of choice. It is usually a large file size.
transport (.ts) This is a redundant format and is extremely large.

Now, where files differ; you may or may not find the following information in the torrent.
Also a lot of times the source and format will be swapped or only show one or the other.

Now there is one more tag that I have yet to mention. This one is used when a torrent is
re-released and is usually re-released well after everyone has already downloaded and
watched their show. It is generally a good idea to avoid these since most people have no
interest in using their ratio to re-download a show. These include the following:
reencode, recode, repack, proper, and rerip.

Syntax in Theory.

. Wildcard standing for any single character.

* Repeats the preceding character 0 or more times.
? Repeats the preceding character 0 or 1 time.
+ Repeats the preceding character 1 or more times.
//i Everything between the forward slashes will be searched for and the i makes
everything case insensitive.
^ Means that the following text must be the first thing in the file name. Using this can be
the difference between downloading Desperate.Housewives or House.
$ Means that the preceding text must be at the very end of the string. For instance:
mkv$ would match any filename that ends with mkv.
() Groups evaluations. Once grouped, you can treat the group as a single character. For
example, using the ? to show the word the can either be there or not: (the)?
[] Matches one character of whatever is inside. Can also be used for ranges. For
instance, for a number you would use [0-9]. You must also use this to escape
characters (see below).
[\] Everything after the backslash will be escaped. (e.g. special characters)
| Or, matches one or the other on either side. Example: (its|it's)
(?##) Anything between the pound symbols will be treated as a comment. I suppose
this may be useful if you have extremely complicated filters.

Filters, & Inclusion Syntax.

Here are some filter examples:

/^(the.)?simpsons.*(s)?21(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^csi.(new.york|newyork|ny).*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^family.guy.*(s)?(08|8)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i

Everything between the / and the /i will be case insensitive. So it will match
The.Simpsons, SIMPSONS, or the.simpsons.
The ^ shows that the following must be at the very beginning of the line. As mentioned
above, this would be the difference between downloading Desperate.Housewives or
House.
. Matches any single character. This will include a period or a space that are commonly
used between words in torrent names. If you would like to only match periods and not
spaces, since a period is a special character, you would do this by escaping the period
like this: [\.]
(the.)? Using this makes the word the optional so it will be possible to download files
with names starting with both The.Simpsons and Simpsons.
((its|it's).)? Using the preceding two principles above, this would allow you to match
either its, it's, or neither (but nothing else) so you would match the following:
Its.Always.Sunny.In.Philadelphia., It's.Always.Sunny.In.Philadelphia., and
Always.Sunny.In.Philadelphia..
.* This references any number of wildcards, this is an easy way to skip over the title of
the episode if one is included in the filename.
(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+ (s)? means the S is either there or it isn't. (01|1) means
that there must be a number here, it may be either 01 or 1. The (e|x)? means that
there may be an E or an X here but nothing else. [0-9]+ means that there will either be
one or two numbers here, but no more or less.
This would cover everything from S01E02, S8E02, 1x02, or 2010. This will also lower
the chance of capturing torrents named such
as The.Simpsons.S01.DVDRip.5.1.x264-irie that may be released in your RSS feed
but you would not want to download due to their enormous size. It is a good idea to use
the specific season number to lower the risk of downloading old episodes as well.
.*hdtv Is used as the source. Using the wildcards shows that the word hdtv must show
up somewhere towards the end of the torrent name. If you wanted to only download
high quality movies you could use .*720, .*hr.hdtv or even .*1080p. Just make sure
you don't exclude those sources in your exclusion list!

Exclusions.

Well, we already know we want to avoid repacks and the such. You may also want to
avoid smaller resolutions of your TV shows formatted specifically for an iPhone or a PSP.
Sometimes a file has a larger audio stream that isn't compressed and makes the file
larger such as ac3. Here is the exclusion filter I use:
/(hr.hdtv|ac3|720p|1080i|1080p|bdrip|dvdrip|dvdr|dvd-
r|psp|ipod|iphone|mp4|reencode|recode|rerip|repack|proper|preair|transport|web-
dl)/i
This basically means that if any of the strings between the | operators will not be
downloaded.

Filter Examples:

/^30.rock.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^90210.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^((its|it's).)?always.sunny.in.philadelphia.*(s)?(05|5)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^american.dad.*(s)?(05|5)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^americas.next.top.model.*(s)?13(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^bones.*(s)?(05|5)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^bored.to.death.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^csi.miami.*(s)?(08|8)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^csi.(new.york|newyork|ny).*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^californication.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^castle.2009.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^criminal.minds.*(s)?(05|5)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^curb.your.enthusiasm.*(s)?(07|7)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^defying.gravity.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^desperate.housewives.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^dexter.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^dollhouse.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^eastwick.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^entourage.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^family.guy.*(s)?(08|8)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(flashforward|flash.forward).*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^flashpoint.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^fringe.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^gary.unmarried.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^glee.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^gossip.girl.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^greek.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^greys.anatomy.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^heroes.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^house.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^how.i.met.your.mother.*(s)?(05|5)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^law.and.order.*(s)?20(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^law.and.order.svu.*(s)?11(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^legend.of.the.seeker.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^lie.to.me.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^mad.men.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^medium.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^melrose.place.2009.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^merlin.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^monk.*(s)?(08|8)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^mythbusters.*(s)?(07|7)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^ncis.*(s)?(07|7)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^ncis.los.angeles.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^nip.tuck.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^numb3rs.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^one.tree.hill.*(s)?(07|7)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^parks.and.recreation.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^private.practice.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^psych.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^sanctuary.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^saturday.night.live.*(s)?35(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^smallville.*(s)?(09|9)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^so.you.think.you.can.dance.*(s)?(06|6|02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^sons.of.anarchy.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^south.park.*(s)?13(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^star.wars.*clone.wars.*(s)?(02|2)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^stargate.universe.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^supernatural.*(s)?(05|5)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?amazing.race.*(s)?15(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?big.bang.theory.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?cleveland.show.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?forgotten.2009.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?good.wife.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?office.*(s)?(06|6)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?sarah.jane.adventures.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?simpsons.*(s)?21(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?ultimate.fighter.*(s)?10(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?vampire.diaries.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^til.death.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^torchwood.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^trauma.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^true.blood.*(s)?(03|3)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^two.and.a.half.men.*(s)?(07|7)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^ugly.betty.*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^(the.)?venture.(brothers|bros).*(s)?(04|4)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i
/^white.collar.*(s)?(01|1)(e|x)?[0-9]+.*hdtv/i