I was a happy Netflix user until 2018, before that I haven’t really pirated any movies (with very rare exceptions) for almost a decade but I recently started again. I’m was doing my monthly budgeting and realized I was paying for too many subscription services. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Shudder, Disney+, Hulu and Crunchyroll. My family likes to watch different types of content that is distributed on many different platforms.

I was never subscribed to these many services until a couple years ago. I was thinking which service I should cancel when I realized I had the option to cancel all of them this entire time. I’m torrenting again and I started saving a considerate amount.

The only service I’m paying for is Spotify which I think it’s fairly priced and offers all the music my family listens too (and it’s convenient). All the competitors pretty much offer the same content and that’s how streaming services should be.

I remember back in the day using eMule and BitChe (to look for torrents). Now I’m using Deluge as my torrent client and I I get my torrents from 1337x. What sites are you guys using?

  • finestnothing@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Expanding from just torrents - I highly recommend looking into usenet! Downside, you have to pay for a good indexer. You can get a one time purchase depending on what site you go to, mine is ~$80 per year. After that, set up your nzb/Usenet download client (I recommend sabnzb, these are all free), then you can troll through that for movies, tv, etc like a torrent site. Generally it’s more reliable, and if you find something on there you can download it and it’ll max out your download speed (if you let it) instead of getting single seeder torrents that get stalled.

    Want to get (slightly) techier but much better? Get Radarr for movies, Sonarr for TV shows, lidarr for music, and readarr for books. (There’s also whisparr for porn, mylar3 for comics, Bazarr for subtitles and others, but I haven’t felt a need to run these yet) Basically you can find movies, tv, etc that you want and “monitor” them, and let the program do the rest. They scan multiple sources (Usenet and torrent sites) that you setup for the content you want, compare it to filters you put in place (quality, number of seeders, age, number of other downloads, etc) and download it for you. New movie that isn’t hd yet? It can grab a webrip or lower def version for you, and automatically replace it with a 1080p version when it’s available. You can also grab prowlarr to manage your indexers (nzb site torrent sites) across all of your apps so you have one source of truth.

    My setup:

    • Indexers in prowlarr Nzbgeek (paid, mentioned above) 1337x Pirate bay (Some other misc torrent sites)
    • Download clients Qbittorrent (for torrents) Sabnzb (for usenet)
    • Frontend apps Radarr - movie manager Sonarr - tv manager Readarr - book manager Lidarr - music manager - no longer use, switched to paying for Tidal Plex - media server to aggregate and stream the video files from above Calibre - media server for ebooks only

    I may be a pirate, but I do it with class and comfort.

  • lichtmetzger@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Very similar situation here. Around 2017/2018 I had Netflix and Prime Video. I was able to watch 95% of the content I wanted to watch and only had to download some obscure 90’s SciFi series they didn’t have.

    But the industry had to fuck it up and create too many platforms. We have Netflix, Prime, Disney+, HBO, Paramount Plus, Apple TV+ and many more. I am not subscribing to your service because one or two titles might interest me. It’s way too much cost for a lot less value I had in 2018.

    I even wanted to make an exception for Apple TV+ because their series are absolutely amazing. But they force you to buy an expensive Apple device to watch the content in 4K on the Safari Browser. Go fuck yourself, Apple. It’s not even a technical issue, because they play the trailers in 4K but then switch to 480p with a terrible bitrate.

    Don’t go to the big media outlets and start crying that piracy is too damn high if you make it more inconvenient to watch your programs legally than just downloading an MKV file from somewhere.

  • Sheltac@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I wish streaming companies would take notes from Spotify. It’s not too expensive, non-exclusive, acceptable quality even on higher end gear.

    Doesn’t shove idiotic recommendations on my face, doesn’t bug me about my address, doesn’t randomly drop in quality because my neighbour is taking a piss. Looking at you, Netflix, you expensive useless piece of shit.

    (I’m fact, Spotify’s recommendations are so good that I’m constantly finding new stuff I actually like.)

    • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Personally I find the recommendations really bad lol, I never stray outside of my library or playlists. I find music looking at artists I like then seeing other songs they wrote, or search what I hear playing in the world around me, or what I’m watching.

    • float@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      The “exclusive content war” already started with podcasts. Wait a few years and let’s say Miley Cyrus will sign an exclusive contract with Apple Music and there you have it.

  • Virual@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    1337x is my favorite right now for TV/movies and Nyaa for anime. Between that and Usenet, I can get 99.5% of what I want.

    I use qbittorent and Sabnzb for downloads.

    Since you’ve been out of the piracy game for awhile you may consider looking into *arr apps (radarr, sonarr, prowlarr, etc). They can auto download movies/tv you want and format them in a way that Plex/Jellyfin like, so you can get a whole library of content with just a few clicks. There’s a bit of a learning curve to the setup though.