• Dandroid
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    2118 months ago

    And this is exactly what is pushing people back to piracy. It’s easier to get all your movies from the pirate bay than it is to find it legally and pay for it.

  • @[email protected]
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    1078 months ago

    Honestly I put up with doing that when the prices were better. After damn near 15 years I had to dust off the hat and sail the seas. It forced me to learn how to set up a home server which I’ve never even entertained the idea of until now.

    • The Picard ManeuverOP
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      288 months ago

      I’m about to be in the same boat (pun intended). I think I’m going to learn to use Linux and set up a home media server at the same time.

        • The Picard ManeuverOP
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          168 months ago

          I fully expect to post my noob questions about Linux here on lemmy. Seems like the perfect place for it.

      • @[email protected]
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        78 months ago

        Kind of a cool hobby, you will have your problems in the begging but as soon as everything is set up stable, it is quite convenient. I personally use openmediavault (Debian based) as my host OS and Docker containers for all services I host. I can highly recommend Jellyfin for your own media streaming service

          • @[email protected]
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            18 months ago

            I only still use it because it’s a pre-existing setup and flow. I would prefer to run pure FOSS where possible but are there any good reasons to do the lifting to change over otherwise?

      • @[email protected]
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        58 months ago

        I have a fledgling Plex server, on windows not Linux, and it has been shockingly easy so far. I would say I’m better than the average person at tech stuff but I’m far from some uber nerd who knows the ins and outs of everything computer related and I’m doing just fine so far

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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        48 months ago

        I’ve got a docker-compose file that will spin up a full Usenet stack plus Transmission on a VPN and Plex if you want it. Way easier to implement than installing them all as services on Linux.

    • @[email protected]
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      68 months ago

      Yrah, I went land lubber for a few years there too. Now I’m back flying the black flag and teaching friends. I’m starting to learn about plex too.

  • @[email protected]
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    828 months ago

    What really annoys me is paying for the biggest Netflix package to get 4K content, then you watch a somewhat recent (non-Netflix) movie like The Equalizer (2014) and it’s 1080p or less with a terrible bit rate.

    That movie is available in 4K HDR. I know because I downloaded it to my Plex server and switched to watching that after 15 minutes of watching macroblocking and pixelation artefacts via the legal method.

    • @[email protected]
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      418 months ago

      Your next step is to stop paying for the shit version. Things only change when you hit their wallet

    • @Patches
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      8 months ago

      What annoys me ever more is that despite paying for the 4K tier of the streaming platform, and the ‘best tier’ on my Internet plan. If I were to watch a not insignificant amount of 4k movies - I would hit my ‘data cap’ and be unable to use the Internet at all for the rest of the month.

        • @Patches
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          158 months ago

          That I have a data cap of 100GB and after that I am at 56kbps speeds? Because we treat the internet as a luxury instead of a utility.

          • @[email protected]
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            108 months ago

            WTF, Internet providers once tried to impose data caps on home internet here in Germany, but they dropped that real fast.

            And 100GB isnt even a lot of data, its more like a top tier phone plan, not even close to enough for a home.

            I will soon get gigabit fiber for 40€ per month, so yeah.

            • @[email protected]
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              68 months ago

              Hey now, that’s unfair to 3rd world countries. I live in a 3rd world country and we don’t have data caps lol. Only place I’ve heard of them is in the US and Australia (notably not 3rd world countries).

            • @[email protected]
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              48 months ago

              Welcome to comcast ‘business practices’. I have a 1 TB cap too, I think they charge $10 per bundle of 50 or 100 gb after, or something equally ridiculous for ‘overage charges’.

  • @[email protected]
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    718 months ago

    Don’t forget that when you search you also need to wade through AI-generated SEO trash that doesn’t actually tell you which service it’s on.

    • @[email protected]
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      368 months ago

      I’m so fucking done with the garbage AI articles that give nothing. Do nothing. Just waste time and space to try to eat up and revenue I don’t even give because I have ad blocker sup to wazoo. If I had any way to punish them for the damage it’s doing to the internet I would in a second.

      • @[email protected]
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        128 months ago

        I feel exactly the same way. I was searching on google for niche item x to buy. First couple of results were paid ads, then came 10+ dropshipping sites I’ve never heard of before. I miss the old internet

    • @[email protected]
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      187 months ago

      Section 1

      What is streaming? To understand what streaming is, first we have to explain how the Internet works.

      The Internet…

      The Universe…

      Goddamn it just gimme the fucking information already!

    • @[email protected]
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      68 months ago

      I use aggregators like Plex and Google TV to tell me, but even then it’s a pain and not always correct

  • The Barto
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    718 months ago

    It’s almost like they want us to pirate shit.

    • @[email protected]
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      478 months ago

      It’s a consequence of only thinking one quarter at a time.

      If all the content creators pooled their content into one platform and split the profit based on viewership, they’d be making far more money on the deal. I’d gladly pay $50/month for access to everything in one place.

  • @[email protected]
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    8 months ago

    When pirating becomes easier and more convenient than using the legit services, the industry is doing something very wrong…

    • @[email protected]
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      198 months ago

      Genuine games being sold with cracks to remove the DRM instead of recompiling it without the DRM because the DRM doesn’t work on modern machines and they can’t be arsed to recompile and actually fix anything so even they resort to piracy.

      It’s absolutely ridiculous.

      • Queen HawlSera
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        108 months ago

        Yeah I still haven’t forgiven EA for making me waste 15 fucking dollars on a fucking sport demo disc that didn’t fucking work on my computer, and I had to reinstall it uninstall it so many times that I used up all five of my installs, because apparently you don’t get those back when you want install. Fuck you EA

      • @[email protected]
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        37 months ago

        Excuse me, what?

        Got any links for that? I’d love to read more about it, that seems really stupid but also believable considering our current market.

        • @[email protected]
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          7 months ago

          It’s a bit of a rabbit hole, but Rockstar was caught recently selling a cracked version of their game on steam.

          A lot of the time the person / group doing the cracking leave a digital signature. Here’s a hacker news link to the original Twitter thread that caused a bit of fuss recently:

          https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37394665

          • @[email protected]
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            27 months ago

            Jesus Christ that’s embarrassing. And it’s not even one of the companies commonly labeled as “lazy” like EA or Ubisoft.

      • @[email protected]
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        108 months ago

        I type it in Radarr or Sonarr and let my -arr stack work its magic. Depending on how popular a show or movie is, I can watch it in a few minutes on my Kodi TV. Wouldn’t really call it annoying.

        • @[email protected]
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          78 months ago

          Check out overseerr. You can search for movies or tv shows from there and it will request to radarr and sonarr for you. But what’s nice is it shows you all the popular shows, gives your recommendations, you can search by streaming service if you want.

          • @[email protected]
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            38 months ago

            Overseerr has been a game changer for my Plex/jellyfin which I share with 10+ friends and family. They submit tons of requests and it all automatically shows up on my nas without me needing to be bothered. I used to only download what I wanted and only take special requests and only for movies or completed series because I didn’t want to be harassed every week for the latest episode. Now my recently aired row is a constant stream of new episodes aired that week and I get friends saying “oh I didn’t know you had series x, now I don’t need that streaming service” - it’s not obvious to them still that I can get almost anything if they reauest it and overseer makes it so frictionless.

        • @[email protected]
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          28 months ago

          Learned my lesson on this. Ended up with a ton of 1mbps 1080p files that look terrible. All depends on what show/movie and absolutely based on what sources I had. I’m sure other people’s setups can acquire better files on average.

          I just prefer to download manually these days.

          • WhatTrees
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            17 months ago

            I know this is a bit late for a reply, but sonarr and radarr allow you to set specific requirements it must meet as well as things you’d like it to have. In my case, I’ve told not to get anything 4k or above (no 4k displays so why bother) or less than 720p and to prefer h265 since they are always a lot smaller files. It will even replace h264 copies if a new h265 comes out. It does great at finding nice looking copies in a small file.

            • @[email protected]
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              17 months ago

              I’m aware. Like I said it’s probably more telling of my sources than anything.

              I can get everything as a direct download link anyways and skip seeding, so I prefer to do that while manually selecting how much space I’m giving away on my server.

              I also hated how it would pull hundreds of individual torrents if it couldn’t find a pack, so messy.

              Just a different approach, glad it works for people just not my jazz.

          • @[email protected]
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            18 months ago

            Understandable. I haven’t had any of those problems, even though I only use some free torrent trackers. Unpopular stuff (local shows that aren’t in English for example) can sometimes take a while, so I’m thinking of subscribing to some paid usenet indexer.

      • Adori
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        38 months ago

        Nah I got a website that has all the media

      • @[email protected]
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        28 months ago

        I’m in an invite only site that I’m not going to name and there hasn’t been a single instance of something not being uploaded there that I wanted to watch.

        • @[email protected]
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          28 months ago

          When you say uploaded, do you always “need” to download it or can you simply stream?

          • @[email protected]
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            8 months ago

            Download. I have fast internet so I don’t really care about streaming + I like to archive rewatch worthy shows. An entire season of a show takes only a couple minutes, then it’s accessible on my plex server.

            • @[email protected]
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              18 months ago

              I love all of that, I just wish there was an easy way to have a media player that reads of an SSD (10+ TB or some shit) and doesn’t have some arbitrary storage limit that it cant read off of past).

              Anyone have success with like a specced-out Mac Mini and that XMBN or Kodi thingy? Im the oldes young person aha

  • HonkyTonkWoman
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    498 months ago

    Just Watch is a great app for finding out where something is.

    Yes. It is fucking ridiculous that we need an app to find this stuff, but at least there’s an app…

  • @[email protected]
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    418 months ago

    Kill the dvd and blu ray.

    Because nobody wants that stuff. It’s old and uncool. Streaming is it.

    Now we own nothing.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 months ago

          I have a 4k Blu-ray player because my wife felt the need to spend the money. I think we’ve used it twice in the 3 years we’ve owned it. But my desktop has both a Blu-ray and a DVD drive, they get enough use I’ve already had to replace the Blu-ray once, and the DVD is starting to get wonky.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 months ago

          If someone likes DVDs such as the person in this twitter post then a dvd player wouldnt be a bad purchase.

      • @[email protected]
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        18 months ago

        Disc prices are stupid now as well. Streaming seemed to kill off the year old bargain bin discs, so instead of picking something up for £3 or £5, the 4K discs are all like £25 each. They can suck my balls if they think I’m paying that.

        Bring back DVD prices, and I’d cheerfully own some 4K discs again.

    • @[email protected]
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      78 months ago

      I’ve been on three, and Prime’s decision to have ads on a paid for service has seen me cancel that.

      Swapped it for a VPN and went on a smash and grab of all the stuff that hasn’t been on streaming for the last few years, and frankly, the others are on borrowed time now as well. Mike Flanagan is almost single-handedly keeping my Netflix subscription alive.

      • @[email protected]
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        88 months ago

        Freebee on Prime is the absolute worst. They don’t even offer the OPTION to pay more to not have ads on Prime videos.

        I’m already paying for Prime, so I fell 100% justified in pirating ANY content they throw ads onto.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 months ago

          Yeah, I watched a couple of things on it and the ad was like 30 second at the start only.

          Then I watched more and it just started shoving them in wherever so I gave up on it. Fuck them.

      • @[email protected]
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        68 months ago

        K thats not like a silver bullet, is it? I feel like thats sort of orthogonal even tho in letter you may be able to access all the shit. We need like a “Beeper” app for streaming services or something, I dunno

        • @[email protected]
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          48 months ago

          The VPN is for a torrent client. No need to worry about streaming services when you’re sailing the high seas instead.

          • @[email protected]
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            38 months ago

            Which one’s that and but can you literally stream without having to dwn to completion. I just wanna watch shit like a certain prime service but I hate having to readjust whatever to watch each subsequent episode/season. Just wanna netflix and chill dammit aha

        • @[email protected]
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          28 months ago

          Stremio is kinda beeper for streaming. In stock config you can search a show ir movie and itl show where it’s available and has links to the right app if you have them installed.

          Or you can install some plugins to sail the seas.

            • @[email protected]
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              18 months ago

              Yeah the plugins are mainly there to provide a harbor for your ship.

              Best part is that you can download the app from the playstore and the plugins are available trough the app without any external site.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 months ago

          With a VPN you can torrent shows/movies as soon as they’re out on streaming. How is it not a silver bullet?

            • @[email protected]
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              8 months ago

              It’s not hard at all to find legit torrents. I don’t even know where you’d find millions of fake ones.

              • Google. Google strikes down all the legitimate torrents from their search so you’re left with all the virus cesspits. I usually stumble into a few before finding a legitimate one

                • @[email protected]
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                  17 months ago

                  You’re doing it wrong. There’s plenty of resources on how to torrent safely. Start there to find reputable trackers. Don’t just download random shit off google.