This is my small rant against the ‘features’ that big streaming services provided vis a vis the convenience of pirating the same thing.
I have a mobile data connection only where the carrier offers me free data for six hours post midnight. I can queue torrents on my phone(Yes, I torrent mainly on phone via Flud for Android) for downloading at night; then transfer the downloaded files to my laptop much later for viewing on a slightly larger screen. I couldn’t have done the same with say, Amazon Prime Video. Even if I could get these streaming services to queue at certain time, due to DRM restrictions, the content would only remain playable on phone.
I know, my use case, is very unique and niche since most folks probably already have access to fast broadband networks. But Atleast, piracy, hasn’t let go of my hand even for such use cases. I appreciate it.
Also, I am not sure Amazon Prime Video even goes above 720p on Firefox for Linux due to Widevine certification thing; the last time I tried I was running into issues, hence, I stopped bothering with it.
Piracy is a service issue. If the streaming providers are going to punish me for using my preferred browser and operating system by limiting the quality, I will keep my money and get the video elsewhere.
There is also the issue of never knowing when the show will just disappear from the streaming service while you are in the middle of watching it because the licensing changed.
I know, my use case, is very unique and niche
It’s not. It’s as simple as “download and watch”, but thanks to DRM you can’t simply do it. Then pirating is the only way for you.
I concur. Streaming isn’t an option for everybody. Paid services removing the option to download thus force all those people who can’t stream, to pirate. They create the problem and provide no legal solution 🤷
What Piracy isnt legal?
DVD/Blu-ray sitting on my shelf; quicker to download & start watching, than it is to get up, find the disc, pop it in the machine, skip the disclaimers, ads, trailers, menus, etc.
I use multiple paid streaming services but still pirate any movies that I enjoy so that I have everything in one place (Plex). It feels redundant until I’m constantly looking online to see which service has whatever I’m wanting to watch.
for me, Plex is all about the subtitles. so goddamn customizable
FYI, JustWatch will tell you which services have whatever you’re trying to stream.
Google will do that if you just tell it what services you have. Google “watch (blank)” and it’ll show you all of them in descending order by price, if some of the options aren’t free.
Even better, Plex does have this feature integrated. So you can just search on Plex whether a streaming service or a server has that movie for you
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Now imagine if the DVD/Blu-Ray didn’t have any of that bullshit on it, and it just went to a menu, and just played when u clicked play.
Imagine it just had a video file named NameofMovie(YEAR).mkv
And then Special 1.mkv, Special 2.mkv, Menu.mkv
My use case is also impossible or impratical with payed services. And pirated content just gives so much freedom with plex and jellyfin, start watching on my phone then resume on my tv, going rural?download that. I currently share my music with friends and viceversa so there’s a new album every week that I’ve never even heard!
But what really makes me not care, is the constant push and greed of payed alternatives. CD 15$? A book written centuries ago 20$? The same book but digital…also 20$. Netflix used to not have ads at all and was profitable. Then you learn that the tiniest amount of that money goes to the creators…for me it just makes sense to pirate.
Agreed. Wife and I are going to start budgeting to save for our wedding + owning a home and the streaming services are a huge bill. Plus half the shit she wants to watch is being removed off services anyway so I gotta get them through other means. Annoying is what it is!
@kirk782 i pay for prime video too, and have to go to torrents because amazon refuse to go above 720p in linux.
Also my kids like a show that airs in english in april but in our country until september (because dubbing), and they want to watch it ASAP so, torrents again with community subtitles…
Corporations doesn’t care for user needs much less special cases.I think Edge is the only browser on Linux that can display 1080p videos, not even chromium does.
But yeah I won’t install Edge, ever.
This is still a thing? Fucking wildvine and the low security thing?
Absolutely unfathomable that this has been going on for this long.
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Sounds weird, I get 1080p on FreeTube app and that’s just a browser underneath.
He meant 1080p videos with DRM
Not 1080p videos in general
Oh, thanks.
Videos from Amazon Prime, Netflix etc., not general videos. I can watch 4k videos in Firefox without any problems, if there’s no rights management in place.
I actually tried Edge on Linux when it was in preview stage(because MS Teams wasn’t fully compatible with Firefox, all features didn’t work) and it started as a rather okayish fork of Chromium with features like vertical tabs integrated. Then it only got worse as additional features were piped in from top. It became bloated and a cursory glance at it’s right click menu just gives it all(which isn’t customizable in Edge but can be done in Firefox via userChrome.css file).
I too took my speeds for granted before I learnt many people I know have a cable connection worse than mobile. It’s 2023, in a big city. How does it make sense?
What I dislike about all these services is all of them have their own app\UI, many of them are awful and take time to figure out. There are plenty of refined software solutions for playing music and videos, they have plugins you can put your DRM overseer in, they exist for decades. Yet every one of them see their mission in reinventing the bycicle once again. I want my experience and my hotkeys to be consistent, to have the same quality whatever I consume. The only way to achieve that is to invest the same money into a big hard drive and then leech and seed.
We still use cable TV because of the way wi-fi is packaged. So we have a decent selection of free movies/tv that I never watched and could watch through tv. It’s the incessant ads that make me pirate the most. It’s worse than watching the same movie on a live dvr recording. Funny, since some of the movies they say are free were also just dvr recordings with the TV station logo in the corner still in tact.
Also, Netflix went away too a year or so ago because the cheapest teir made the movies/shows look like they were in 480p every time. It was unwatchable.
I dropped Netflix as soon as they did their password thing.
the only reason I learned how to pirate in the first place is so I could see the Star Wars films in their original versions without having to use a VCR. I immediately realized how much better the subtitle options on Plex were and have pirated everything ever since whether I had legal access to it or not
So you use VI, huh?
Hey, I’m thinking of switching my Jio SIM to VI. How’s the coverage and speeds for you? Is it cheaper and/or offers some actually useful side-perks?
The coverage will depend on the geographical area. For urban or semi urban, it doesn’t matter since both will likely work. However, rural is a different scenario. Jio does have a much wider 5G network, I guess.
In terms of perks, unlimited data for 6 hours each night and a weekend data rollover thing where unused daily data from weekdays is made available to you for consumption on weekends.
dang, rural people talk about data like we talked about text messages in 2006
It is slightly more expensive than jio 50rs more for each plan. Speeds depend upon your region. I get good coverage and peak speed of 11MB/s and usually around 2 - 3 MB/s. If you want the unlimited data then it is well worth it to port
I mean, technically, I could afford paying for all the needed streaming services I would need to pay for, to watch all the media I watch, as well as all the games I want to play, but I would not have enough money left for food for the month. And on top of that, I will get an inferior experience.
I have a mobile data connection only where the carrier offers me free data for six hours post midnight. I can queue torrents on my phone(Yes, I torrent mainly on phone via Flud for Android) for downloading at night; then transfer the downloaded files to my laptop much later for viewing on a slightly larger screen. I couldn’t have done the same with say, Amazon Prime Video. Even if I could get these streaming services to queue at certain time, due to DRM restrictions, the content would only remain playable on phone.
Why are you not able to download shows that are on Amazon Prime Video? It’s not like those videos are special. They don’t have any DRM, you’re just downloading an mp4 or mkv.
