Oftentimes, video files I download only include six-channel audio (i.e. 5.1). Using Tdarr, I transcode the video files and create a stereo audio channel from the surround channel.
At present, qBittorrent seems to seed these re-encoded files without complaint but if I force a recheck, it'll overwrite my newly-encoded files with the original. I'm concerned that my seeding these altered files is 'harming' the pool somehow but I am not sure?
An easy solution to this would be to keep two copies of each re-encoded file on my hard drive, so I watch the version with the stereo audio and seed the original. However, I do not have a lot of storage and would ideally minimize the copies I have of each file.
So, to sum-up, I suppose my question is: am I harming the torrent pool by seeding these altered versions? Or, if I want to be a responsible torrenter, do I need to keep duplicate versions, at least until my share ratio is 1:1?
Thanks.
EDIT:
Thank you to all those who took the time to comment and upvote. I've setup a 'pipeline' for seeding unaltered originals.
You know you can create an external audio track, right?
If you use a player like MPV or something like it, it will load by default the external audio file with the same base name (except the extension). For instance, if you have a video named Famous.Movie.2024.x264.AAC-GroupName.mp4 and an audio track in a file named Famous.Movie.2024.x264.AAC-GroupName.m4a, MPV will load that external audio and you will be able to seed the original file without need to remux the video and the new audio into a new file. This way you will save a lot of space.