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.
This fucking hurt to read… thank fuck for piracy
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.
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!
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.
What are the pros/cons of this vs a Plex setup?
I think local storage and access to hardware. Stremio rewuires little storage and uptime for 1 user vs. a computer being on and storing the media to push to different devices.
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"
Can you also use alldebrid with this?
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.
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
It is the same for eBooks imo. There are some sources of DRM free eBooks, but they don’t tend to have the popular books. I’m always buying on kindle, because it is so laughably easy to circumvent their DRM as long as one has a kindle serial number attached to their account.
It’s a little bit embarassing to admit, but I never purchased eBooks at all. Only “legal” copies I have are in the form of paper books. One interesting thing, that just struck me, is that my SO the other day purchased one of the books in the form of eBook on one of the “local” online book stores. And from what they told me it’s completely DRM free, even though it’s something that was written by a foreign writer. From what I know this marketplace does not have every book in the digital format nor it is certain that all of the digital copies are DRM free there. But my guess is that some regional marketplaces might have some legal DRM free content, just not being vocal about this
The issue with streaming companies is the exclusivity. I would happily pay for Netfix if I could watch Ted Lasso (= Apple+) and Halo (= Paramount+) on it.
But if you want access to original series you have to buy the platform. I pay around €45 total in VPNs, Seedboxes, Usenet indexers… per month. I would happily pay for Netfix if I had access to everything in the world for up to €50/month. But with netflix you get access to a shitty catalogue on only one device for €8/month… That’s not okay for me.
See they’re doing you a favor by not letting you waste your time on that garbage that is the Halo show. What a farce.
It’s not even worth pirating, lol
real Halo fans waited yeeeaaarrs for that show to come out. i mean i remember being a little kid in middle school and thinking “i can’t wait for the halo movie/show to finally come out”. Fast forward years later, and i have a house, 2 kids, I’m married and the Halo show is finally out and it’s garbage. i hate what happened to that franchise
Trust me. You do not want to watch Halo.
Ugh, there has not been a TV show that has disappointed me as much recently as “Halo” has… It’s a disgrace that it is even called Halo.
The disappointing thing is there were small tidbits of S1 where I said “Hey, if there was more of this then I’d be excited to for the next episode to air!” … But no.
I like to joke and say “My disappointment is immeasurable” but this was certainly a case where I actually meant it.
I’m still only using legit services right now. For us the biggest thing we miss is the ability to actually find something specific. They work “ok” for just choosing something to watch from the algorithm, and that’s only because we got like 4 services total. But if you want to watch a specific film? 9 times out of 10 it’s not on any of them.
I’ve posted as much here in three weeks as i did on Reddit in three years. That’s one post, but still. I am trying to be more active though to keep lemmy active and because it just feels more meaningful here.
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
Okay, this bflix thing is amazing. How is it legal?
It ain’t legal but all these streaming services and their greed shouldn’t be legal either
How does it compare to paying someone for a plex server?
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.
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.
Okay, this bflix thing is amazing. How is it legal? How do they pay for it?
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.
I got no problem with streaming services competing and putting exclusive content on platform. What do I have problem with is them backing off from the things they advertised as when they were starting. Netflix literally rose in populating with ads saying “love is sharing the password” and other bullshit. Premium accounts were more expensive just so you can share your password with others. Nowadays they say it’s no longer possible and you have to pay extra.
I recently found out that it’s possible. The password restriction doesn’t apply when accessing netflix from a computer browser. The restriction notification only (for now) pops up when trying to watch Netflix through an app (e.g., Roku Netflix). I’ll just cast netflix from my laptop to TV if I want a big screen. Not saying this is ideal, but it’s a workaround.
I pay for Amazon Prime, but still get less buffer time by streaming torrents with Stremio, which also never fails to remember where I left a movie at (even if I change the torrent source, which is crazy)
Amazon video is an absolute trash heap. Worlds behind even other streaming services.
This reminds me of the meme subreddit called r/Piracy. That was quick.
I’m so glad to see people other than me annoyed by this.
I pay more for my personal setup each month than I would have to pay for all streaming sites combined.
Yet it’s the ease of having Arr’s and a personal server with almost zero limits to stream any content I want.
My setup includes :- Dedicated Server Usenet Indexers and Private Trackers
The only time I wouldn’t find a movie or show I want would be a really old obscure media which doesn’t seem to exist anywhere.
Everything else is grabbed from both via my Arr’s and life is chill.
I pay 0 and get everything I want streamed with 0 limits to my tv 😂 wtf why pay for all that bs💀
Because it is fun running it and and be a bit more independent.
If I wanted to drop my Netflix, Prime, and Disney+ and still have lots of options for stuff to watch, what would you guys suggest. Please explain like I have the IQ of a half eaten apple that’s been sitting out in the sun for a week, I can barely figure out Lemmy having come over from Reddit.
Search for a Stremio + Torrentio tutorial in Youtube
This combo almost seems to good to be true. Keep in mind it is not completely free.
Not completely free? I don’t pay anything, what you are talking about?
Based off my 3 days of research into the topic, yes it is free but you’re at the mercy of seeders and active torrents. Isp’s also may not like you using the service as it’s torrenting and your usage of the service is very visible.
The paid aspect of it comes from this service called Real Debrid which basically is a middle man that downloads all the stuff for you (or 99% of the time already has it downloaded) and then will send it to you via an encrypted connection at whatever max speed your internet is. It allows for smooth, 4K HDR, no buffering streams just like you’d get from Netflix and only costs 33$ a year. Real Debrid can also be used to download any torrent in existence at max speeds.
Changed my life. Literally a 4 click setup, never done anything easier. Just search for “Stremio, Torrentio and Real Debrid guide”
Well, I’m just a broke college student in a country where the price of the dollar is a little… salty. My country is not like the EU either, so here it’s very difficult for someone to get caught for piracy, I only remember it personally with people who own piracy sites, and it’s still very uncommon, so I don’t have to worry about paying for VPN either. For me, relying on Seeders is no big deal, it’s very rare to see something that isn’t currently being seeded. This happens more with dubbed content (in my country’s language) and old movies. Still, most of these old movies are already in the public domain and can be seen on Youtube, and I don’t like dubbed content, I just watch animations like that, and that is something very common to be in http stream’s plugins (take a look in that, usually it fills the gap of Torrentio). So I prefer not to pay anything for now.
Totally fair, as far as I know the only country where you can get in trouble for pirating is the US.
If your country is anything like mine then you’re perfectly fine not using a caching or middleman service. 🙏🏻
True, I gotta stop thinking everyone is in the same situation/country as me. Debrid is crucial for me if I want to continue pirating with my current provider.
in that IQ range I would suggest Amazon Streaming.
But you made it here so qbittorrent + jellyfin server is probably bare minimum
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.
Concerns with shitty players is such a frustrating issue, too. The Paramount+ website is such hot garbage, it frustrates me anytime I try to watch anything on it.
Definitely not bro. I got a server running the arr suite with download clients and have to buy HDDs to store the content and run maintenance and updates and and and and and. Don’t get me wrong, I am a nerd and love doing that, but I wouldn’t call it “convenient”.
It’s definitely the case for my wife though 🤣 she only has 2 apps, one to request content, the other to watch it.