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.
the only big shortcoming to DVDs was the region locking …
That’s why we had a market for region-free DVD players!
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.
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"
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.
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)
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
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
Trust me. You do not want to watch Halo.
Pay $100+ to get all streaming services or use my favorite site through my smart tv with adblock from my phone for free and get it all… hmmmm
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.
Spotify and audible are the only ones I pay for. Too convenient. I would be open to dropping audible if there was a good alternative.
If your UK based try BorrowBox Library, it’s free to rent audiobooks, all borrowed from your local Library.
It has its limitations; like only a certain number of people can borrow a book at any given moment, but you can’t beat free!
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
For me it hasnt been for along time. The site I use has everything as soon as its available, stores which episodes and at which time I was last time, has intro skip, autoplay and autonext. When i want to watch a series i just type the name in my browser, auto-complete the URL and i’m done. On netflix i have to tap through multiple menues, have to login and might even get blocked because im not on my home device. I get a better service in every aspect for free.