Wow that’s old.
Frankly, as shitty is a lot of that stuff was, DVDs were like the last form of media distribution that I would actually call tolerable in terms of consumer friendliness. You still got a physical disk with the actual movie that was easy to rip and share, no internet required. If it weren’t for the quality limitations, I’d still collect them as the primary physical backup to my media server.
4k Blu Rays exist. Aside from the pain of having to get a special cracked drive to rip them they are my primary backup for my movie server.
You just made me realize I could probably do this myself with a library card
the only big shortcoming to DVDs was the region locking …
That’s why we had a market for region-free DVD players!
Some of these players even skipped the
unskippable
intros and always started at the main menu. The best thing for legit buyers and enthusiasts back in the day. And don’t forget the (S)VCD support and DivX/Xvid support. Good old times.
I don’t use piracy for convenience. I watch movies and series together with my girlfriend (in a remote way) and we haven’t found a way to watch together (Like Teleparty for Netflix or Disney Plus native “Watch Party”) the content without the remote partner watching it in 320p (using Plex “Watch together” functionality). It simply doesn’t work.
This fucking hurt to read… thank fuck for piracy
It’s been said to death but at heart, I’ve always felt that when it comes to piracy, it’s a service issue, not a cost issue.
Except for you Adobe. That’s a cost issue.
Except for you Adobe. That’s a cost issue.
AutoDesk had entered the chat
I found out the other day that LibreOffice Draw has a full pdf editor built in.
I know adobe makes many more products, but boy do I like telling people they don’t have to pay for Acrobat!
It’s why I pay for Spotify, convenience and pretty much everything in one place. For TV/Movies it’s Plex and the high seas.
My game changer was going to bflix.gg and downloading the android app from there (OnStream).
Every episode of anything can be streamed! If I get problems I can download an episode str8 on my phone. I use xcast to then chromecast it directly on my tv.
For anime, I go to 9anime.
LITERALLY FREE
How does it compare to paying someone for a plex server?
Just make a Plex server. Easy. Only thing I pay for is a VPN. Can download and watch whatever I want. Build my own library. I do need to upgrade the PC though, it’s a pretty shitty box that I put it on.
Because you don’t pay for anything. You basically store on your phone and cast to tv there. On laptop the website streams. On phone itself you’re streaming.
Streaming companies are lucky that not more people know about Stremio + Torrentio + Real Debrid. That combination is a game changer and allowed me to get rid of all streaming services.
This sounds interesting. I even have a Real-Debrid account but don’t know anything about those other two things. Guess I’ll be doing some researching tonight.
This is a guide that someone on Reddit wrote and it helped me a lot. It looks complicated with the first glance, but when you do the steps it takes less than 15 minutes. I changed the order of the original slightly and added a few infos to make it easier:
"Guide installing Stremio with Torrentio and Real Debird on your desktop.
Stremio
Go to https://www.stremio.com/ Download the relevant client for your platform (Windows/Mac/Linux) Open Stremio and sign up with email or facebook
Real Debird
Go to https://real-debrid.com/ Sign up Go to Premium Offers ($3 for one month, $16 for 6 months) Choose a package and subscribe
Torrentio
Go to https://torrentio.strem.fun/configure Choose your options for providers, quality, foreign language etc You can now choose to install Torrentio without a Debid Provider. Personally I use Real Debrid to connect directly to a server vs having my IP shared in peer to peer and to speed up performance. Torrentio has a slot for a possible API key (the Real Debrid key) To install with Real Debrid follow the next steps: Go to the API key with this link: https://real-debrid.com/apitoken Copy the API Key and go back to Torrentio and paste it under RealDebird API Key Install
Stremio with Torrentio installed
Check the addon installed correctly Click the puzzle piece up on the top right that says ‘Show All Addons’ Click My Addons and scroll until you see Torrentio Test stream a movie or TV show Go to Discover Click on a Movie or TV show and click ‘Show’ You should now see [RB+] Torrentio - Quality Enjoy streaming"
With Sonarr/Radarr and Jellyfin, that convenience has effectively been trumped. I don’t know how they can compete
Can I make that work on Android TV
Edit: went to read up a bit, it circles back to getting into indexers/private trackers, which is where I usually give up. I’ve tried to get going on torrentleech from when I got an invite way back, but when I couldn’t get ratio I gave up, I just don’t have time for this kind of stuff… Any solutions where private trackers aren’t required to get quality content? I care about getting 4k/Atmos etc.
Check out usenet. It takes a bit of money and research but its much more reliable than torrents seem to be. You will need an indexer and a provider. Good luck.
It’s weird that we have “capitalism” and there are people, who clearly have desire for a drm-free content. Hell, we even have a gog, where you can buy drm free games. Yet the market does not want to provide legal option to obtain films/shows that are not locked into the service.
And even with the gog there are still many games that are impossible to get drm-free in a “good” way. Not to mention emulation where things get kinda grey, depending on the system you are emulating
As more and more people get direct fibre optic connections, this advantage will get smaller and smaller…
I think piracy is more convenient
100000000%, beyond the fact that I don’t want to pay a thousand different subscriptions, I also much prefer having everything in jellyfin or Plex. I don’t want to mess around with all these crappy streaming apps, each with their own set of limited functionality or handicaps.
Also, why would I want to watch low bitrate streams when I can get full quality Blu-ray rips. Hopefully someday streaming platforms will offer full bitrate video, as physical media will probably go away over time.