1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies.
2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release.
3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations.
4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth.
I didn't even mention that it's free or that there are no ads, because that's pretty much the least important attribute to me. If any company came out with a service that offered those four points, I'd probably be willing to pay a lot for it. How much? Who knows, we don't know how much this is worth because nobody is even trying to offer it.
0. Ability to watch offline!
1. Ability to fix subtitle issues with minimal tweeks like change size or moving location.
1.2 Ability to get subtitles if they aren't offered (or offered in your language)
2. Ability to normalize audio.
3. Ability to buffer videos when on a poor connection.
4. Ability to create collections, organize, and track your movie as you wish
5. Arbitrary number of user accounts
6. Multicast streams to watch the same show across different devices regardless of if someone has an account or not (see JellyFin's SyncPlay)
7. No big organization tracking you and selling your data to the highest bidder
There's more, but honestly pirating is just a better experience. I can't tell you how many times Netflix has fucked up the subtitles so they are covering half my screen. There's tons of little issues like that that are just random and the only option is to just not watch Netflix (or pick your streaming service) that day.
Besides that, for the price of a yearly subscription you can build a NAS that can do all this for you and you get to keep the movies. Instead of having a monthly fee you can progressively add more drives and this can also be used for all your other things. Pictures, home videos, games (you can make a Steam cache), your local AI models, or whatever else you want. With $1k you can build a pretty good system, though that's 3 years of 4k Netflix, so not the cheap route in the short term.
Arguably higher. For example, fans of Star Wars have scanned the original 1977 theatrical release with very high quality film scanners and created a 4K release complete with film grain and the original scenes intact which is not available through approved channels.
I swore off streaming services when they started pulling episodes of comedy shows and editing out scenes because they were worried someone might be offended
Streaming was OK when it was fighting cable, because it was cheaper and on-demand. With the constant greed, we're back to paying more than we used to pay for cable, it doesn't make sense anymore.
I paid for Disney+ to watch Andor at 4K, only to find out that you can't - Disney+ prohibits anything over 1K on computers whether you use the app or a browser. Went back to piracy very quickly after that. More fragmented experience is annoying, not even being able to get the highest quality as a paying customer is insane.
- ¿could we watch x movie? - let me see. no, it in this other service beside the 3 we are paying.
I use Plex and it shows what I’m currently watching first. So continuing to a new episode is easy. If I sub to 50 episodes they just show up on my first line. Hulu makes me scroll down a few rows to continue watching.
It also shows cast and crew and other movies with the same.
No advertising.
I think, particularly now after having the luxury of ad blockers for so long, that many of us are extremely triggered by advertisements and see them more nakedly as the awful propaganda they are.
Disrupting a cinematic experience with garbage propaganda ruins it. It's an insult to the creators, and none of us should tolerate it.
I'm glad streaming services adopted a better model, but then they reverted back as they increased prices because the money is too good and people put up with it.
Note that this was the original concept of Netflix's streaming service. The service got steadily dismantled as copyright holders demanded higher fees.
Which means that we do have a good idea how much it's worth; it should lie between the range of what Netflix was able to sell successfully and what they weren't.
1. Automatically downloads subtitles, can pick between multiple available voice versions
2. Calendar with notifications when new series are available
3. Integration with various services like Trakt.tv, Letterboxd, etc
4. Automatic collection and organization of content
5. Metada, IMBD ratings and other movie details
6. Foreign content, Anime series (oh and of course let's not forget 4k porn...)
I know I could vpn around this, but why should I pay even more just for subtitles?
In the end I'm paying for Netflix, Disney and Amazon. My son uses those as he is bilingual, I just pirate what I want to watch personally.
Spotify's convenience killed the mp3, and Netflix is hyper convenient compared to most piracy. No one (to a rounding error, but let's say no one) is _really_ interested in file organizing, bitrates, buffering, whether a show disappears in 5 years etc. Everyone (again, to a rounding error) just wants to watch that latest season of that latest show and then forget it.
What's now making old-school piracy return is that while Netflix is convenient, having 7 streaming services is really _inconvenient_. Not to mention expensive. But the inconvenience is horrible.
I wish just 1-3 of the large streaming services would cooperate on some standard which lets me see and manage all my content in one place. Then devices could natively support browsing that "rss for streaming" instead of having N different services. Once a few do, the pressure on others to join the standard would increase.
I'm able to find most of what I want to watch on physical media in either HD or 4K, with the exception of more obscure anime. Some TV shows can be expensive to pick up and more laborious to rip, though.
NOT THAT I WOULD EVER ENDORSE BREAKING DRM BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE A CRIME, but if I had a Blu-ray I could fairly easily break the DRM of the movie with MakeMKV or something and watch it anywhere I want without pirating it.
It's too bad it's illegal to do that, it sure would be nice to be able to have all these features without piracy.
Pressing rewind is akin to Russian roulette, to the point where I’ve mostly given up, lest I risk ruining the mood while trying to scrub back to where I was.
Amazing how what was table stakes in the 90s seems like unattainable tech these days.
I, too, would pay per show/movie to download and save DRM-free videos to my own drives.
- Watch movie before deciding if it's worth paying, or if it was propaganda for a particular ideology.
- Watch original movie. Companies like Disney often change content to match a trending ideology.
- Avoid subscription services.
It depends. If you're fine browsing torrent sites, choosing a download, loading in into your client, waiting for it to download, then plugging your laptop into your TV. Sure it's free.
If you're out to recreate a better streaming experience then it's certainly not free. Software licenses, server hardware, electricity costs, Usenet access, etc. Not to mention the time/effort to getting everything running so smoothly to the point that it is effortless to request and then watch.
I mention this because for a certain crowd (myself and likely many people on HN) it's not about being free. It's about not having to fight crappy software. Or not paying for the privilege to have ads shoved down your throat and being tracked. Not needing to remember which app Mr. Robot is currently on or having it suddenly vanish due to some licensing expiration. The list goes on.
Do I still pay for content instead of the tools to circumvent it? Sure! My city has a huge video rental store. It's super fun to go browse, find weird stuff, and help out a local business. The owner(s) are clearly huge movie nerds and seem to have spent a good amount of their earnings on some very cool movie props they put in the store. I love it.
In 2001, Joel Spolsky wrote:
Your typical architecture astronaut will take a fact like “Napster is a peer-to-peer service for downloading music” and ignore everything but the architecture, thinking it’s interesting because it’s peer to peer, completely missing the point that it’s interesting because you can type the name of a song and listen to it right away.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...
And in 2003, Apple started "selling" songs for 99 cents. They were incredibly successful, demonstrating that people weren't "pirating" songs to save a buck, but pirating songs to escape the deeply enshittified DRM shenanigans the industry employed, like installing rooting your PC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
There is a very large market of people who want no fuss, no muss access to movies, shows, and music. I personally think that many people who "pirate" shows do not want adware of any type, especially if it surveils them, and also do not want to stream certain shows and deal with issues like region locking, the shows vanishing when the streaming service retires them, and so forth. But that is a small quibble.
History agrees with you that "piracy" is not about the price, it's actually about the shitty experience that the music, TV, and film industries impose.
It also offers video games that can be emulated, and with OCR nd AI image descriptions, can be played by blind people. It also offers EBooks in many different formats which can b loaded onto accessible apps or Braille displays and read, without needing apps which may or may not be accessible, but which will always need connection to a phone or computer. And you can read all this offline.
So when I find companies, like Big Finish and Graphic Audio, which offer their stuff in downloadable, DRM-free formats, I pay them good for their stuff, because they respect me.
Ever get frustrated because you can't determine if you're selecting a button or if the button is always outlined/large ish, fix it yourself!
It's been really wonderful, everyone knows everyone by one degree of separation (me) and are adding to the library like a sort of group project. You can just hop on and see a somewhat currated library in the sense that someone you'll probably run into IRL thought this was worth watching.
So just to add to your point, you can't get this with a streaming service.
You get to use mpv instead of the streaming company's obnoxiously shitty video player.
You get to use Linux without some asshat in a suit taking issue with the fact he doesn't fully own your computer and deciding he'll only stream you 720p video as punishment.
You can't just offer all the content ever created without the rights holders to that content agreeing.
(I expect many will say those rights holders deserve zero compensation because they are large greedy corporations. Conveniently ignoring that piracy also means the creators of the content also get zero compensation for their work.)
I have several streaming services and its always a struggle to find out which one the show I want is on. And then maybe I don't subscribe because its something random.
Streaming took off originally because the experience was just smoother and easier than torrenting
A Netflix presentation to invite advertisers actually boasted how well they could target you for adds.
While piracy has a huge library, when it comes to stuff that’s not popular for the long-term with the mainstream, if a person doesn’t grab it while they can, it can be very difficult to get. Of course, these same things aren’t available at all on streaming services, so…
If I could buy DRM free movies and TV shows, from a single source, with a quality library of every show and movie, I’d be down. That doesn’t exist.
Cost was/is a non-factor.
For movies, if you buy it from one of the major movies studios that participate in Movies Anywhere, it is automatically added to your library in Amazon Prime, whatever Google is using these days, Vudu etc.
But to your other points.
2. If you can find a high quality rip
3. All the streaming services work on iOS, Android, Roku, AppleTV, Windows and Macs and whatever Google device that Google decide not to abandon this week
4. I had a Plex server and 1000Mbps u/d and it still wasn’t as reliable when I was on a plane, outside the country etc
just in case - not an ad, not affiliated with them anyhow, just use it for years with all my friends and family.
there are subtitles is 20+ languages, direct download links, no ads, and new episodes come out pretty fast (usually <24 hours from official release).
I find it so infuriating when streaming services only offer the extended edit of the Lord of the Rings films - these scenes were edited out for a reason! I pretty much only want to watch the the cinematic edits.
Same for Bladerunner. There’s so many different edits and the streaming services rarely declare which edit they offer, let alone offering options to choose your preferred edit.
I think the inconvenient truth here is that when anyone has got close to doing such a thing the price has been high enough that it turns out nobody actually turns up to pay for it, not at least outside a small niche.
It's free in the same way shoplifting is free, until you get caught. You are very much in violation of copyright laws if you pirate.
And that doesn't even actually list the movies, which are even more fragmented.
It it some kind of hedging strategy by The Pokémon Company to account for the number of different streaming services (thereby actually making the problem worse)? Was there some kind of timed exclusivity deal that's forced them to put different things in different places? Did one of the streaming services come along at a later time to try to undercut the earlier ones but the earlier licencing deals haven't expired? Anything else?
Season 1: Amazon Prime Video (also, Netflix)
Season 2: Amazon Prime Video Channels
3-5: Prime Video
6-13: Prime Video Channels (with 10-13 also available on the Roku Channel)
14-19: Prime Video (with 17-19 also on Netflix)
20-22: Prime Video Channels (and Hulu, and the Roku Channel)
23-25: Prime Video (and Netflix)
So, they're all on Amazon in some sense. I was aware that there was some kind of concept of Prime Video Channels, but when I tried to find an explanation on Amazon's website, I failed.
Except for some slight deviations, such as the beginning of Best Wishes (Black & White), you can put on a sequence of any 10 episodes from any season and it doesn’t matter what streaming service it’s on. By the end of the episode, Team Rocket is blasting off again.
The gist is here, that the complete first four season are on YouTube for free and the 5th is being added as we speak? (200+ episodes)
https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialPoke%CC%81monTV/playlists
There was nether the expectation with streaming that third party content doesn't rotate.
If you want a bit more persistent access you can buy them on Apple TV (Season 1-5 and 10-25)
Oh Boy, Pokemon is really not the example I would bring up here, when the aim is completeness on official channels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_episodes_removed_...
And I think he was largely correct, although the term _service_ seems like it now has to do a lot of heavy lifting as it now encompasses:
- Availability by Company
- Availability by Global Region
- Stream Quality
- Advert Policy (why does the lowest tier need to be ad supported? What am I paying for aside from being upsold?)
- Quality and availability of captions, audio description and any other media accessibility options
[1] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/valves-gabe-newell-says-pir...
A week ago I downloaded a couple of movies and shows from Netflix for my 6yo daughter, to watch on a 3hr flight. Worked nicely!
Today we made the return flight. She opens Netflix, and ⅔ of the films have now "expired" with no notice and she can't watch the one she wanted.
For the next flight I'll remember to pirate!
Indeed. Recently we purchased season 1 of a reasonably popular U.S. produced show via Apple TV. When played, it is available only in dubbed French in our region (Canada.) None of the info available beforehand said anything about this. Guess where I obtained the subsequent seasons? I will pay for content but not if you lie, or make me jump through ridiculous hoops.
Went to resubscribe, no option given for no adverts, no money from me.
Maybe so, but if media companies invested in fixing the service problems, the pricing problems would remain, and those keep people away just as effectively, so they're not going to do it.
People don't want to pay what the media companies want to charge, at any level of service.
I cancelled HBO after their price increase a year or two ago after being pretty happy with their service for a long time (though also the service quality had gotten worse). Too many people share my netflix for me to cancel it.
I do still have Kanopy though, which is great for me but obviously depends on your library.
Also, a lot of movies/series are only available dubbed here. (I really effing hate "Sie" in dubbed media. So much so, that it's one of the major reasons I go for subbed in english, at most)
For me it's a bit different. I have the *arr stack fully automated (with 22Tb of storage for now maaaaybe it's overkill), for friends and family too.
And the experience is nice because it makes content "crowd sourced". If something is on the server it means someone else purposefully added it, so you can still browse, but it's curated based on your friend/family circle.
But also the automation part can be a bit "mindlessly click download on everything even stuff I probably won't watch", but disk space constraints force you to delete it if nobody's watching.
the near-infinite library and lack of algorithmic nudging resulted in an era where i had healthy view habits. reasonable levels of screentime and VERY diverse content.
i add so many movies to my queue with the best intentions of watching them someday, but always put them off because something about staring at that endless scroll of options makes me crave something light and simple.
the disk-in-the-mail era was "remember that three-hour subtitled classic film you always said you should watch but haven't? well, today's the day you're watching it." and i always ended up being glad i did.
the streaming era is "ugh, i don't have the mental bandwidth to watch that three hour thing that's been on my queue forever. lets just rewatch some background content to zone out" and i always lament wasting hours of my life in front of the screen.
(of course, this could only work as long as publishers keep producing physical media)
Haven't used them, but I am planning on setting up a dvd player,
Now I'm genuinely curious
But since I can’t (and you can’t even find physical media for a lot of things), I feel like I am left with no options.
I am not even trying to get stuff that is recent, as I prefer to wait, especially for tv shows, to finish its run before I decide if it is worth investing my time in.
I mostly go to the library every week and pick up movies and tv shows on Blu-ray and rip them so I can watch them on my schedule. I often delete them afterwards if I feel like they don’t have replay value.
I think Jellyfin also provides a much better interface than any of the streaming apps, and I like to be able to know if I am going to watch them on my theatrical version or some extended version.
So much this. I take the simple moral position that I won't pirate things I can reasonably buy. That includes almost all music, and almost no movies, TV shows, comedy specials, etc. I still largely avoid pirating things and seek out alternatives instead, but I don't feel bad about it when I do because it's an industry that doesn't consider me a potential customer anyway.
Calling it piracy was funny during the early Internet when it was all pirate and ninja memes. But really letting them conflate this very minor crime with violence was a big propaganda loss.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy
I don't usually get too many weird looks with "unauthorized copying".
Ignoring the nuance is just ignorance and pedantic.
As a matter of fact, most people likely don't even associate piracy with pirates or boats. It's almost universally used to describe obtaining digital content for free.
This only works as long as there's no other nations with significant digital infrastructure that can be used for VPN egress points who don't care a whole lot about US copyright enforcement (or copyright enforcement in general).
Our government just pissed off a lot of other governments. Enforcement is good within the US, but not outside, even nations which the US has a lot of control over.
Then the streaming side started to fragment a bit, but I just grabbed all of the subscriptions (HBO, Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, etc). It was getting a bit iffy on value, but at least it was still convenient. Now it's just ridiculously _in_convenient. Search around to see which service might have the thing you're actually trying to watch and use this device with this app to get a decent quality version of the content delivered, all while hoping it doesn't force automatic quality "for your benefit". With Steam it's a bit less severe, but it did reach the "and the games you want are split across 5 services in exclusivity" and "DRM is getting to be an extreme pain on some of these" stages.
That and owning the media.
Privacy is undervalued.
As soon as it's earlier than 2005 you're gonna find less than half available across most streaming platforms, unless for renting/buying.
However, 15 years later, those numbers exceed or are the same as CATV costs combined with all the streaming/smart device headaches.
All we did was change the pipe. The providers didn't change except for consolidation and erosion of policy, both of which lead to worse outcomes for consumers.
I'm met with:
> Your device isn't part of the Netflix household for this account
> Not <my email here>? Create an account to enjoy your own Netflix today.
> Create an account
> Did we get it wrong? Watch temporarily until you're back on your Netflix household Wi- Fi, or sign out.
> Watch temporarily
> Sign out
Neither of the options actually worked to escape the bug(/feature?) either.
So that's when I cancelled my subscription after 8 years.
iTunes movie rentals seem to almost always win out when it comes to streaming specifically. I don't know why I would want to watch something on Prime Video at a lower quality and sit through ads. I've also encountered a number of services such as Peacock that absolutely refused to run on my Linux laptop even though I was a paying customer.
Further, the iTunes versions of movies often come with special features (e.g. The making of the Lord of the Rings). They also earned a lot of goodwill from me when they upgraded a number of my HD movies to 4k for free.
I do maintain a Jellyfin server with movies and shows I have legally purchased because I didn't like how the digital version of my James Bond movies had the final movie on a different streaming app. It's really hard to beat that setup if you know how to configure it. My Jellyfin server contains an episode of community from the DVD I own that was removed from streaming services, and that's where it really shines. I also have higher quality versions of Star Wars than the VHS copies I own.
Nonetheless, I think iTunes proves what an effective model is in a similar vain as Steam is to gaming. Shame that unlike Steam's relationship with Linux, iTunes is much more tied to Apple. At least the Apple TV is genuinely a good streaming box.
I found 4-6 movies I wanted to watch, but when I saw that they had Godfather 1 and 3 without 2, I had a good laugh. Then I watched all the Archer episodes they had, and tried to find something interesting for 2 more days before I cancelled my (still trial) account.
Though I stopped watching movies some years ago, until than I used to watch them on the same old pre-netflix way.
Of course I have heard that they have spent many billions on content since then, I'm sure they have some interesting stuff... but that came way too late for me.
Maybe I'm getting old, lol
I really wanted to embrace streaming services, prime really killed me recently, with introducing ads into a membership that I already pay for! and 90% of movies on prime I have to pay an extra 20 bucks to view ...why am i paying for membership?
Yeah, I got into low level private trackers before netflix got really big and here in germany it always had a rather lackluster library anyway. The enshitification began faster than I was willing to move. In the end i'm still just pirating everything except games and music. Games because steam is more convenient on linux than dealing with cracks, wine installers and all that stuff. Not that i'm unable just that it's literally worth the convenience to pay for it and music because spotify was better than the pirated music i had available. I'm thinking about changing that and taking the RED pill, if you catch my drift.
That way, I'd happily use any service to watch whatever cause it would be convenient, instead of piracy.
And it would be a reason for them to really improve their recommendation systems.
If MS cant, why would I expect any company to properly maintain them?
https://community.spiceworks.com/t/how-to-play-content-prote...
So, unless these are MP4's or MKV's with correct subtitling and appropriate audio, I'm not going to pay a cent here.
And/or pay-per-episode, pay-per-season or pay-per-show. So I don't have to start thinking ahead too much about the _length_ of something and can just enjoy the thing itself based on some pre-determined price.
The service effectively rebroadcasts all the streaming services to provide exactly what you suggest. It’s still paying the streaming services, and users pay it.
Better not set it up in the US .
Gee...sounds a lot like Cable TV.
Sarcasm aside, the one problem folks had with Cable was the inability to upgrade without getting locked into another 2 year contract. Streaming solves that one problem while enshittifying all the other good things.
I just ran into a situation where I really wanted to buy two e-books. Unfortunately, both are on Amazon. Amazon doesn't let you just download them to your computer anymore, you need to transfer them to a Kindle. A kindle I do not have.
I tried to find any possible workaround, but they've totally locked it down. So, I didn't buy either book. I really struggle to see how this is helpful to anyone. Does Amazon seriously make enough profit off of each Kindle to be worth it like this? Ugh.
Last year they brought Andor to Hulu and every time I played it on my brand new LG TV, the video would be completely green while I could hear the audio underneath. It only happened to Andor because apparently they had some super special DRM, which ostensibly would restrict people who weren't authorized from viewing it, but had the effect of also preventing authorized people from viewing as well. So in the end, they can't even satisfy willing customers who have their wallets open. Of course they're going to turn to piracy.
Of course, the rights holders got my money and as far as they're concerned, their DRM move was great for the bottom line.
The country in question is left as an exercise for the reader.
Part of the appeal of streaming services back then was being able to cherry pick what you wanted so you only paid for what you actually wanted to watched.
Because of how fragmented all the shows are, people sign up for multiple streaming services just to watch the shows the want to watch, and then wish for everything to be bundled together...again. Also, each streaming service charges a hefty premium compared to what you're actually getting, so it's not as worth the money.
Unfortunately, that excitement didn't last long. Shows started disappearing from Netflix, so we signed up for another service, then another, and so on. Prices kept going up, and I eventually realized I was paying a lot of money for very little in return.
At the start of the year, I cancelled everything. With the help of a few scripts, I've essentially replaced Netflix and the rest, without any downsides and at virtually no cost. I now have 4K streaming, instant playback, no device limits, offline viewing, and access to what's essentially the world’s entire media library.
The moment a company offers all that at a fair price (I’d even pay $50+ per month), I’ll gladly switch back.
I was always wondering about how this approach could provide "instant playback". This is the one feature that keeps me ensnared to the big streaming services TBH. It's hard to get into the matter if one does not have much time to scoop information from the web.
CBC Gem - free public broadcaster, but I want to remove ads
Shudder - $50/year, cheap as chips
Netflix - cheapest way to watch WWE pay-per-views live
Crave - got a year for 50% off on a Black Friday deal. I don't know if I'll renew
TSN - only during hockey and football season
AppleTV - wouldn't subscribe separately, but they throw it in with my Apple One family plan
Honestly my Jellyfin server sees more action than any of them. The biggest reason to pay for streaming is live events, which I believe is why Netflix is pushing to get more into them. And I've been increasingly annoyed at how many things I want to watch are simply not available at all, or not available without subscribing to yet another service in the hopes they might have it. I'm planning a Sergio Leone spaghetti western binge. The only place I found what I wanted was usenet.
Great place to stream cartoons and anime for free, no account. It feels like they have almost everything, as I found anime as far back as the 1970s on there.
When I discovered Food Wars was split between two streaming platforms, I hoisted the sails.
50 years from first publication. No more.
15 years or less from the date of first public consumption.
A second one is subtitles. Somehow the streaming services decides which subtitles I need and which I don't.
It is funny how we went from pirating content being normalised, then being frown upon, and now getting normalised again.
The last 6 months I’ve been building what I believe is one of the best high-quality streaming platforms out there.
My inspiration was exactly the reasons listed here in the comments.
I’d love to get your honest feedback on the design, features, and overall user experience.
Thanks! GIzmo
> “enshittification” of streaming
I've been a happy paying Spotify user since 2010 or so. I'm still mostly happy with what I get out of it... they did try to shove podcasts down people's throats, but backed off pretty quickly. One thing that recently infuriated me though, was something they call "smart shuffle". Like, you press shuffle on your playlist, it starts shuffling. You press it again, it should turn off the shuffle, and just keep playing in order, right? Not according to Spotify's amazing designer team. With Spotify it's a tri-state switch. If you press it again, it activates a "smart shuffle" which has nothing to do with shuffling, instead it adds extra suggestions to your playlist.
There is a way to turn this "feature" off on mobile, and they've been promising a way to turn it off on desktop for many months now. As a paying user, being treated like an idiot this way definitely makes me resentful and is the most enshittified thing I've seen Spotify do.
The most recent example: every Star Trek (TNG, Voyager, etc) on Netflix simply doesn’t work on my Chromecast.
After a minute the video goes all screwy, split 1/3 across the screen and loses half its colour. But this doesn’t happen with Plex.
Clearly, new shows aren't getting Blu-ray releases, so this won't work for you if you care about new shows. My wife and I are so over the dystopian view from modern science fiction that we started focusing on shows from the late 1900s (80s/90s) to get more of a positive outlook from our entertainment. We are now going through Stargate SG-1.
I have been trying to put my data hoarding data days behind me, but like the article, I’m being pushed back that direction. Doubly so since I use Linux and they restrict quality to 1080p. The only thing preventing me from it right now is a lack of a computer/server with ECC support (so I can run ZFS). Though encrypting a bunch of data and archiving it into Amazon Glacier seems more and more reasonable as time goes on.
Wait, isn't that their own IP? I get shows not running on 3rd party streaming services due to IP rights and stuff, but how/why would they be in a position to not stream their own IP?! That's like going to Netflix and not being able to see Stranger Things. It's insane!
I ask because I'm over 40 and I've had enough of this too.
Also check out cafedvd.com.
Another reason is availability. Apple TV+, for some reason, isn't available in my country. I've heard great thing about Severance which is available only there. I can't legally watch it even if I were to pay it. I'd have to pirate it if I want to watch it.
For example, i wanted to watch the new south park season. I get paramount plus. It doesnt work on smart tv app. Ok fine shouldnt be using that anyways, hook up laptop. Still doesnt work. Use a different adapter and still doesn’t work. Airplay from phone, that works but i dont want to give up phone and website has major jank.
5s google search later and i am streaming on the 7 seas from smart tv browser.
To be fair, netflix is almost always solid. The rest are glitchy, slow, janky piles of dung.
I never had a problem with "garbage" on private trackers, and if they are "nuked" fairly quickly.
Both torrent and usenet can be automated. (Sonarr, radarr etc.) If you want to watch a specific series, new episodes will be automatically downloaded, added to the torrent client, maybe moved and renamed and you get a ping your discord server / telegram / whatever.
I was trying to put on a show for background noise this morning. Just two nights ago I was able to sign in with my cable provider and watch it. Now it's telling me there's a network (as in the channel the network is on) authorization error, customer support can't tell me why it doesn't work and they are not authorized to issue me a credit.
So I pirated that too.
And what the fuck is up with Netflix? Why do I have to install a browser extension to hide the games? I don't want games I want to watch The Big Short.
But with prices going up and there now being so many services, I find it hard to justify more than a couple.
I pay for Apple TV+ and Disney+ with zero hesitation since I get a large amount of content from both of those that I actually enjoy. I added Hulu to Disney plus because why not.
Outside of that I just can't bring myself to subscribe to Netflix, whatever HBO is calling themselves now, paramount, etc etc anymore. It added up too quickly and there are alternative solutions.
It isn't even necessarily about the cost anymore; I have spent way too much on the hardware for my media server and I am nowhere near any concept of breaking even. But I no longer need to think about where something may be accessible just to be disappointed that I can't stream it.
Stremio, classic torrents?
What’s the current state of PopcorTime / successors?
First, I'm amazed that they exist at all. I don't understand how they do it for both legal and monetary reasons. Serving thousands of gigabytes of video daily cannot be cheap! And their domains continue to stay active despite what I'm sure is legal barrage from rights holders.
Second, the UX of these sites is better than any commercial service, hands down (as long as you use an ad blocking browser or VPN). The GUIs are super clean and provide all the features you'd want: Sortable lists, the ability to search how you like, clickable links for actor, director, year, etc. to get a list of just those shows, links to Trailers on YouTube, constantly updated new releases carousel and more. And again, this is content that's streamed straight to your browser - no torrenting or external downloading, etc. Just tap and watch.
Third, as mentioned in the article, the pirate sites have a catalog of every video and TV show/series you can imagine. Just about anything that's ever been on physical media or streamed, it's there. Every time I read about how such and such show or movie is unavailable on any streaming platform because of licensing disputes or other reasons, I go check my preferred pirate streaming video site and it's always there.
Bonus: There are live streaming sites as well dedicated to sports. Everything from BBC Olympics coverage to subscription only Soccer/Baseball/NFL etc.
Bonus 2: If you're impatient or too broke to see a newly released movie in theaters, decent quality cam recordings always appear within a day or so, and are replaced when the original is published.
Seriously, if any company were to provide the same level of service, they could charge tons of cash for it and have millions of subscribers. They're that good.
Again though, how do these sites exist!? Where is the data stored? How is the bandwidth paid for? Who is updating the sites daily with new content? So many questions.
What baffles me in this market is that there is all this unmonetized content that remains exclusively locked up in archives that is still very watchable earning almost next to nothing. The notion of cross licensing content between these networks seems controversial.
Take Game of Thrones for example. Exclusive to HBO. Some people in Germany may or may not have pirated that back in the day. Because HBO was not available in that market and there was no way to watch that legally even though world+dog was talking about that. Now it's old news of course. But Germany is probably full of people that might have payed for watching that when it wasn't old news yet. There are decades worth of high value series that you can buy (in some cases) but not stream. And I bet sales aren't all that great. Judging from the lack of marketing.
In the same way the BBC is sitting on decades of quality content. Same for most public broadcasters. Very hard to get your hands on any of it. Why are there no multi billion deals with Amazon, Netflix, Apple TV, etc. being closed about that content. Netflix is back filling their catalog with cheap Korean action movies and other filler crap instead. And they are cutting the budgets of the exclusive content that made them big.
Another example is that movie studios have been publishing 3D blockbuster movies for about 15 years now. These are almost all very expensive movies that only ran for a short time in cinemas. 3D only kicked off with the first Avatar movie. None of the big streamers offer any 3D content whatsoever. What's wrong with content publishers that they are allowing a good investment to go to waste like that? It's not a technical problem. TV makers have been trying to flog 3D tvs for ages. But without any content (not counting obsolete things like blue ray) there never was a reason to buy those.
Music has figured it out. I subscribe to one of the major services. In exchange for my money, I get access to music. For my purposes, I get access to effectively all music from that one service. When I want music, I open that app and play it. End of story. If I don’t like that service for some reason, I can pick a different one.
Obviously, the logistics for long-form video are not exactly the same. But still, surely this is possible.
I'll start: Piratebay. Oldie but still good for most of the limited tv show and movie watching I do. I get the feeling there's a lot more out there though.
One of the major selling points of streaming was convince outweighed the cost. But cost keeps going up.
As tech companies that once prioritized “growth at all costs” try to become more and more profitable I expect you’ll see this in other spaces as well (it’s already happened to AirBNB, on demand services not far behind, nor is Amazon. And off on the horizon are AI-services)
It just has to be cheap enough and you have to have enough free time to pay for media. Not something you can do when your utilities and taxes are 100% up from 3 years ago and you’re constantly boarded with layoff news.
The entertainment industries are going to need to come up with a solution fast.
If they can't find a way to make it so that you can sign up once and get all the content you need, they are screwed.
I cancelled Netflix years ago when they started blocking VPNs, limiting me to their extremely limited Australian library.
"" What's the point of robbery when nothing is worth taking?
== Stuart Leslie GoddardNo commercials, bigger selection, no geo locked content, high quality, and you're not paying out the ass for 3+ subscriptions for just a curated selection/UI.
If I took those ripped copies and wanted to stream them, what would be the best platform to do that?
Buying the Zatoichi box set has been one of my proudest purchases.
The infra is there already, just charge 5 bucks for high quality streaming. I'd gladly pay for that!
Plus my usenet subscription.
I have to wonder if Amazon bought them just to stop playing the game. (I doubt it)
Now the audience is used to that pricing and doesn't like pricing relative to the price of the content.
Transmission is peer-to-peer, being the ping to distributions hosting positivities.
My husband is a non-tech person. I set up radarr and jellyfin, and now he has a website he can go to request any piece of media ever created, and then it magically pops up in the jellyfin app in like half an hour. He can watch it anywhere, at any time, for any amount and number of times. And there are no ads from the service we already pay for. Quality is better, streaming is flawless since it's on the local network. No one is monitoring his views and using it to profile him.
This is everything we all wanted streaming to be, before capitalism (inevitably) ruined it.
And honestly the fact that it's free is irrelevant. Most of us would happily pay for a service that operates this way. But such a business cannot possibly exist under capitalism so we must pirate.
But really, think about the experience of your favorite streaming platform. On radarr, you plug in a search term and you get a flat list of items matching your query and nothing else. The thing you wanted is always in the top three results. When you look at the library, you get a flat alphabetical list of everything available to you at that exact moment. No animated garbage, no endless multi-dimensional scrolling, no dickless executive trying to force you to watch whatever reality slop they're pushing that week.
Simple, respectful, and it shuts the hell up and gets out of your way. You can have anything that humanity has ever produced. There is simply no way for any business to compete. Capitalism just does not know how to make such a thing work.
Oh well, it's not like movie studios and record labels were giving that money to the artists anyway. I'd rather take $30 from Sony than give 15 cents to an artist and $29.85 to Sony.
I get the inflation and all that, but honestly, I don't want to fund a business that is either squandering money or not growing, by paying more to it. And I have to admit, it is not getting any better either. The AI generated/ drone music slop is probably an industry issue, but the recommendation algorithm hasn't been able to work out that it isn't my taste.
I feel like that’s a bit disingenuous. You can rent anything on Prime for a couple £ (I focus on rent as the “buy” has the deletion problem) in multiple video qualities.
I am not disagreeing with the service issues, but a large part of the problem is people not willing to pay what studios deem as market value.
Case in point - early streamers had less fragmentation and still had the same service problem, but they could consolidate at low price due to vc subsidy. And piracy went down.
Let’s not forget Netflix and Spotify were not profitable for ages.
So my money would be on price actually being the cardinal problem.
Also the Linux experience for every streaming service typically sucks because of DRM, capping resolution to 720p.
I'm not interested in feeding someone else's lust for behaviour profiling and 'analytics', mainly, but I also don't want to be shut down entirely because there's a main power or coverage issue.
Though I'm considering making an exception for https://www.cultpix.com/, because I'd like to support their rather niche business.
And then most of streaming services actually stream stuff, so if my internet is bad im gonna sit there annoyed. I have a small samsung projector and its literally freezing all the time (something to do with wifi and qos, i have other things in my life more interesting that sysadmining a router).
Then up until last year, i could not even watch Dr. House legally.
And then the content changes over time. I remember seeing a scene, that i no longer see. Like wtf?
Its 98% (made up number) that its the service fault.
Don’t get me wrong. I pirate my self. But I’m honest about it. It’s theft. I steal because I’m a cheap ass thief. Why can’t you admit that about yourself?
If someone makes their product annoying and hard to access that’s really their free will and desire. Enshittification is not a crime. When you choose to pirate that work you’re doing something morally unethical.
Yet every pirate here tries to justify it. Just admit it.
In Switzerland the media companies just make it so hard, and piracy is so easy. And I'm just not willing to jump through hoops for this shit.
If it's a small independent filmmaker I will make _some_ effort to try and pay for it but usually it's just not worth my time.
Gimme a website where I can hand over $10-$20 and easily watch a film on my TV and I'll happily pay. This was easy with 2000s tech. But the industry is too up it's own arse to deliver something this simple.
Yes I understand that we have content available on far more devices than 30 years ago, when all we had was the TV in the living room. But should I have to pay in perpetuity to show my kids Moana?
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/browse/movies_at_home/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/browse/tv_series_browse/
Note: Use the filters at the top to select the networks and streamers you have access to as well as your genre and rating prefs. They'll be stored in a cookie.
Using Netflix's own program guide, I keep watching less and less on Netflix because I can't easily get a sense of what anything is and value my time a lot more than $20/mo. And now I'm seriously thinking of canceling after being a sub since the discs-by-mail days because they're actively making it harder to identify IF I really will like something before watching it - and wasting my time is the one thing certain to make me cancel. I remember back when Netflix was running contests to optimize their recommendation algo to be as close to psychic as possible. I'd seriously pay more for a service that was that psychic about my preferences but also honest enough to occasionally say "Hey, sorry but this month we've got nothing you're really gonna like, so out of respect for your time, come back next month when we'll have two movies we're 91.5% sure you're gonna love."
Based on what Netflix is doing, I assume I have a significantly higher bar for content quality and fit to my prefs than most of their viewers, that I value my limited entertainment time more highly and I have much lower tolerance for content which isn't a fit. I'm not very price sensitive and I don't judge a streaming service's value on hours consumed but rather on the quality, suitability and convenience of finding the content I do watch. I'm also unusual in that if I'm watching media, I am 100% focused on it with no distractions and never have a second screen active - I guess that's one reason my quality bar is so high. This also makes me hate when they "stretch" content for longer running times, like padding three hours worth of tight story into eight hours of glacially slow script. I find myself increasingly 'self-editing' by skipping forward past scenes that should have been edited out. To me, just ONE really good thing which respects my time and that I didn't have to hunt for is worth far more than a dozen unknown things with a hit/miss ratio that averages to "meh".