You mean “boycott all privative culture and start learning how to not depend on entertainment to have a fulfilling life” right?
Is there not a service like Bandcamp, but for movies and TV?
I want to pay for stuff, so the creators are rewarded, and then I own a copy.
Pirate Everything at This Point
Way ahead of you.
I pay for an emby share personally.
Plex/emby/jellyfin, there are a ton of paid shares out there that are cheap.
Is Emby totally self hosted (like Jellyfin)? Or do they host your stuff (like Plex)?
Aliexpress summer sale started. Getting a 150 eur ryzen mini pc and slapping some hdds onto it for a cheap media server/nas with 4 digit nas specs.
This seems like it could be a fun project. Mind making a post about the build sometime?
So far it’s; genmachine 5500u pc barebones, will get random ram and steam decks 256gb ssd, fedora server and some rabdom twin drive hdd enclosure with used 4tb disks to start with. 8gb of ram should be plenty as going 16gb ddr4 to 32gb ddr5 made no difference at all on my main gaming/dev/3d rig.
Total cost: 158 for mini pc, twin drive enclosure 60, 4tb drives: 50 eur each, ram 15 eur or around entry level twin drive nas price.
Id if there’s any build thread to post about “i shoved an external drive up the ass of a chinese mini pc and labelled it homelab”
Honestly, those are the most interesting builds to me. As an American, I’m waiting for tariffs to die before buying stuff of AliExpress, but one can hope.
I have built and maintained all manner of home servers using inexpensive used hardware. Any PC or old laptop can do this stuff. Unless you’re doing something crazy on them, I’ve not encountered a lot of situations that I could not sort out. Usually throwing some more memory and storage into them solves most issues.
I ran a used desktop machine with an i3 processor (retired school system) for YEARS as my NAS with zero issues beyond adding a little cooling. Did the same with a firewall, worked for ages with no issues.
Getting a mini pc is nice if you are putting it in your living room, but there are still many choices for small form factor devices. Not quite as small, but still pretty small. Lots of them were used as POS terminals at stores. Wipe 'em, reload and start fresh.
That’s weird, which is cool.
That’s pretty much the self-made home media system I’ve upgraded to some months ago, only mine has an N100 CPU (which is nicer from a power consumption point of view for an always on system since its TDP is 15W).
It’s wired to my TV, running Kodi on the foreground, runs qBittrorrent on the background over an always on VPN and serves as my home NAS.
From Aliexpress I got a wireless remote that let’s me control Kodi as if it was a TV box, so from my sofa I handle it as a TV box whilst from my PC I can ssh to it and to any computer kind of management.
Probably one of my best purchases ever.
Depending on how much space you want the HDDs will probablybe the biggest cost
I pay for an emby share personally.
I read this as “enby share” and thought, “Is that like a queer polyamorous social group? If so, I want in.”
(BTW I use emby share to pirate too, so no need to explain. My brain just expects the word “enby” first.)
Do I misunderstand emby or does it just not seem like a good deal on the basis of it being an ongoing subscription? I use the free version of emby and it’s really great. There was at least one feature that required payment to unlock. I like emby already and when I tried using jellyfin, the core features that were on both it and the free version of emby worked far less reliably and the paid feature on emby that was free on Jellyfin, worked extremely unreliably. Obviously resources and development had been spent to make something that worked very well and their paid feature probably would too. I use emby to make it easier to cast media locally to my chromecast and to access media on my computer, from my phone in my bedroom, so for me, it’s a fancy file browser and media player. The feature I wanted was to do with free to air tv streaming and I was thinking I’d be happy to pay for the Emby software to unlock this since they made good software that works. But here’s the thing, it’s FREE to air TV and yet they want me to pay, ongoing, in a perpetual arrangement to use it. I don’t get it. I use it to play media, but the media is my media stored on my machines. I understand software development isn’t free, I was happy to pay ONCE, but why would I keep paying when they don’t actually produce the media I use it to play? That seemed unjustifiable.
Now with paragraphs.
Do I misunderstand emby or does it just not seem like a good deal on the basis of it being an ongoing subscription?
I use the free version of emby and it’s really great. There was at least one feature that required payment to unlock.
I like emby already and when I tried using jellyfin, the core features that were on both it and the free version of emby worked far less reliably and the paid feature on emby that was free on Jellyfin, worked extremely unreliably.
Obviously resources and development had been spent to make something that worked very well and their paid feature probably would too.
I use emby to make it easier to cast media locally to my chromecast and to access media on my computer, from my phone in my bedroom, so for me, it’s a fancy file browser and media player.
The feature I wanted was to do with free to air tv streaming and I was thinking I’d be happy to pay for the Emby software to unlock this since they made good software that works. But here’s the thing, it’s FREE to air TV and yet they want me to pay, ongoing, in a perpetual arrangement to use it. I don’t get it.
I use it to play media, but the media is my media stored on my machines. I understand software development isn’t free, I was happy to pay ONCE, but why would I keep paying when they don’t actually produce the media I use it to play? That seemed unjustifiable.
If you were going to pay, the one-time $119 sub is the only thing that makes sense.
Historically, I’ve never been sad about a lifetime software purchase. That said, none of them continued to work unchanged for a lifetime, but I’ve always felt I’ve gotten my money out of them.
In the end, everyone eventually enshitifies their product to make more money.
Playon stopped supporting their old model which just stopped working slowly over the following year as streaming companies changed their tech, while their “new product” which only had monthly fees kept working. I used it for enough years it ended up being something like $2 a month.
Plex nixed their plugins, then screwed over their offline viewing and offline sharing, then their watch together. My original lifetime was somewhere around $70 and I’ve used them for 15 years, that’s $4.60 a year :)
Always gotta overcomplicate things.
Sickbeard and dozens of drives is far more complicated.
Question, what even is a “Generative AI ad”?
Is the lead actress of the horror movie I’m watching look into the camera and tell me about the new coca-cola while she waits for the monster to come get her?
I actually haven’t seen one yet. I just assume it’s an AI voice, reading AI generated text, about something that Netflix’s data about you says you might like.
Maybe AI just manipulates the shows you’re watching so that the drink they have is branded or the cars on the road all seem to be Kias…
Oh like that one episode of The Boys
Stremio is everything I could ever want and more.
Yep, link it with real debrid As you are, sailing the seas in style… Great UI. Evan has a calendar to keep track of your series.
I am an old pirate and I cringe when people bash debrid services for their pirate pride, honestly it is a life changer if you are willing to switch to fully stream (I still seed the content I gather with the Arr stack for my Plex).
It just seems silly to be like “I’m not going to pay for streaming, so I’m going to pirate” and then paying someone to do the piracy for you.
Isn’t the problem that legal streaming services don’t provide a good enough service/content? Even if you put the cash out to subscribe to all services, searching each one, one at a time, they still might not have the video content you want. The market failed us, and culture is locked away.
It’s because paying isn’t the issue. I’m not rejecting streaming on the basis of price (though, the current price of paying for even a couple at once doesn’t help), I’m rejecting it on the basis of it being a fractured, inconsistent and lacking service that fundamentally acts against the interest of its users. If a streaming service offered the same things stremio+debrid does I’d happily pay 10x the price.
People used to pay others for burnt DVDs and CDs back in the day if they didn’t have a pc with a burner themselves. Same thing really.
It’s basically a seedbox, people have been using those for piracy for years. It’s a convenient way to have access to an Internet connection that has several times more throughput than your home connection. You can configure Stremio to just grab torrents directly if you don’t want to use a debrid service.
It might be silly, but do you know what else is silly? The price of the service, honestly 3 bucks per month should save you a ton of headaches that you would get if you want to stream torrents.
Trakt too 🫡
Yeah… Trakt also started in the enshitification path though (for some it has been there for a while).
idk its free and it lets me subscribe to lists so I can find stuff easily. Until they break that I won’t notice.
My only criticism is that they have the big bang theory as the main thing shown right when you go to the website. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few people just left as soon as they saw that.
Why would that be an issue? It’s a tv show like any other one.
I agree it’s full of stereotypes and bad jokes, but it’s a show that’s easy to watch and that doesn’t require concentration. I am a Physicist and an Engineer myself, very much a geek and generally considered to have a very twisted sense of humor, but I still enjoy watching this show, generally while doing other things on the side.
I love Stremio it is so simple to use and relatively easy to set up, I like the set it and forget it format it has (and your settings and setup are synced across all the devices you like).
With that said, geek me can’t leave aside Kodi for good, I have a Nvidia Shield TV Pro 2019 and that is where I use it, even when the setup I’ve for it is somewhat heavy (it makes my Shield struggle sometimes) I love thinkering with it, because… there is fun thinkering right?
My gf does Stremio almost always though.
Is this how everyone used to say “use plex. It’s easy!” But plex was actually a piece of crap that most people couldn’t run properly?
No it’s like Netflix for torrents /real Debrid and really very simple to set up.
Download stremio.
Optionally pay for a Debrid service such as real Debrid (this will basically give you a smoother experience for a couple dollars a month)
Search torrentio
Choose the options (very self explanatory) and install the addon.
You’re literally done. Start playing any show/movie you like. It’ll work.
Plex is a solid meh/10 back end wise, provided you have the knowledge to run the docker container it’s not that bad.
Running it standalone is potentially effort.
My main issue with plex is it’s transition into enshittification as a service.
I used Stremio for a while and then I discovered it doesn’t seed and it is just a leech. Since then we have a Jellyfin server at home and we are able to watch everything in 4K without having to worry if the movie will play smoothly.
If I could, I would stop seeding to all the Stremio clients out there. Whenever someone brings up the seed issue most of the people say they don’t care.
Well, hopefully people will install the plugin, right?
Most won’t but that’s just reality.
I love it, but I wish there was a way to still seed while using it.
When using Stremio you are seeding. There’s a cache size that holds a specific size that you will be uploading back. As long as Stremio is running in the background you will be seeding.
While using Stremio alone without a debrid service?
I think you do… perhaps not in the healthiest way, but it is something.
Stremio is great.
Installed jellyfin this week, it is awesome. My roku found the server and streamed a movie without buffering.
Did Plex enshittify recently? I’ve seen a lot of people switching to jellyfin.
Yep, big time. Basically dead at this point, forcing payments to stream your own content.
I started setting up my homelab last month and immediately went to Jellyfin because Plex just screamed “corporate bullshit” to me. Sure enough, it was the right call.
Basically dead at this point
For free users though, there are some of us who paid for Lifetime Plex Pass tier a long time ago… I do wonder if Lifetime really means forever though.
Narrator voice: “But it did not last forever…”
Plex is completely enshittified at this point.
- You need to pay if you want to share your movies with friends
- They spy your watch list, and share what you watched with your friends by sending them emails
- They released a new half broken app
- They removed the “party” option that let you watch a movie together with friends remotely
- They’re actively trying to hide the personal streaming features in order to push people to their legally (and ad-riddled) streamed movies
So Jellyfin is now the best solution afaik
They made it so server owners need a plex pass to stream to anyone outside the same LAN. Or the clients need to pay $2 a month if the server owner doesn’t have one
2 dollars just for providing the tunnel service, mind you. A subscription for glorified port forwarding.
The glorified port forwarding issue is even worthless if you are a CGNAT user, and it is 2025 so I’ll assume everyone is.
For those with preexisting lifetime memberships, things haven’t changed yet (outside of basically trying to make Plex a social media thing), but in my eyes it’s only a matter of time. Made the switch to Jellyfin this week after having used Plex for 5 years. If I wanted to invite new users to join my server, they’d have to pay $2 a month to be able to watch on their phone instead of the one-time payment of $5.
Pair it with the arrsuite and chef kisses
And nzb360
🤘 Nice
It’s the way of all subscription based entertainment. To increase profit eventually the choice comes down higher subscription fees or introduce ads.
And once ads are there, it’s a one-way street. Until adpocalypse.
If it’s in your systems in an open format it’s yours, if it’s outside your systems or wrapped in some kind of locked format that forces you to go through somebody else’s software it’s de facto theirs.
Due to my own experience in software development with 3rd party solutions from way back, I never adhered to Streaming solutions (even though I was tempted) and always stuck to getting my entertainment in a media format I controlled (legitimately for a long as I could, not so much once even physical media started having DRM) because I was aware that it’s risky to outsource so much control over one aspect of what you do (in this case entertainment) to an entity which, frankly, sees you as nothing else that microscopic fraction of their bottomline.
(The funny bit is that if Netflix would sell me their Series in an open file format that I could download and at a reasonable price, I would have sent lots of money their way, same as I spent lots of money on DVDs and even VHS tapes back in the day. In fact all throughout that period I was doing something like that for games: as soon as I discovered GOG with their DRM-free downloadable installers, I started acquiring all my games by buying them from GOG)
In the fullness of time, my caution seems to have been proven right.
I agree and I think games are a good example, especially with the Cloud Gaming trend that is trying to apply the same model from video streaming including both the advantages (to be fair, in particular instantaneous start, in theory) but also huge disadvantages (privacy, connectivity needed, no sovereignty, price increase, etc).
I totally get the anger with Netflix. I fucking hate them as a filmmaker. But I really don’t think a long term solution is pirating content.
BUY CONTENT YOU LIKE
Is it more expensive? Of course it is, that’s part of an equitable society. Also it means you end up with content you really like and not a bunch of junk.
I was. Until they made that so difficult and time consuming that the barrier to entry was too high. Not because of the price. But because of availability. When Google play music was a thing? I bought music. When streaming took over I moved to Bandcamp. But Bandcamp doesn’t have everything. There’s no music stores anymore where I can just go and buy music. It’s all Amazon and similar.
I’d love to own the ghibli collection. But to get it I have to buy the DVD’s (and have a DVD player to play them on), or I have to pirate them. No digital store front seems to have the whole collection. This happens all the time with media that I’m willing to pay for.
Buy the dvds and rip them…
Yeah, just buy yourself a dvd/blu-ray player just to rip it, wait for the disk to arrive, connect it to your computer and set aside the time to rip it (if you even know how).
Such a reasonable alternative to setting up radarr one time and watching the movie immediately. Can’t have a digital storefront where I get to own my digital copy.
deleted by creator
Most companies stopped making both the discs and the drives/players. Not a long term strategy.
Man. Google play music. Fucking miss that service.
Found so much good music… Still hurts me it died.
Me too boss
Along with bandcamp, there’s Qobuz, 7digital, and HDTracks that I can recommend for digital music downloads. Those other three often have what bandcamp does not, much more common songs. Many in 24-bit.
So… buy the DVDs? Or any other Ghibli merch.
I’d love to know what you do when you can’t find a DVD still in print? Media companies like Disney and Paramount etc have been deliberately limiting the number of DVD’s and other physical formats available, putting whole movies and series “in the vault” for the purposes of manufacturing scarcity. Piracy is largely a matter of economic affordability and ease of access. I can pirate. The point is when I had these titles available to buy, I bought media rather than pirate it. I preferred to. And when it’s not easily available or locked to specific services I’m boycotting etc there’s few avenues left. I can appreciate that you were trying to give me a legal avenue to obtain what I want, but I feel like you missed the forest for the trees here.
I mean, if they really don’t want your money…
Like I said, other merch. Or mail them a check if you really really want to send them money.
Pretty sure all of Studio Gihibli is on Fandango/Vudu.
Looks like from a cursory search only 12 of them available of about 22.
I pay for the streaming services, but don’t stream. Maybe this is me trying to justify “theft”, but how I like to think about it is this: I pay for the streaming services. I have the technical know-how to either download directly or rip (screen record) any shows I want from any of the popular services, as well as to write the scripts myself to roughly automate this. I also have spare computers to do this 24/7. However, it’s actually better for the streaming service that I don’t do this myself, since they still get my money without me using the bandwidth. I pay for AMC Stubs A-list but don’t often see the movies in theaters, so I don’t feel bad pirating new releases. As for movies/shows not on streaming services, I could buy used dvd/blurays, rip them myself, then sell them back, but that would ultimately result in a near-net-zero cost anyway, so what’s the point of going through all that? In my mind, as long as I’m paying for these subscriptions pirating feels like it’s no longer an ethical/moral gray area.
Note that I only do this because I can afford to. When I was younger, I would pirate everything without worrying because if I couldn’t afford to pay the streaming service, they didn’t lose a potential customer if I pirated anyway. Now that I am better off and would definitely be paying for these subscriptions, I might as well, but still get to own the content I’m paying for. 120TB and counting!
I’ll buy music directly from artists on bandcamp and such, especially since they offer unlimited DRM-free FLAC downloads, but any other media at this point is just absurdly inconvenient. Everything’s just tied to dogshit streaming platforms.
If there were a DRM-free option to buy and download movies or shows for life, I’d definitely be buying what I can here and there. But everything is so locked down or encumbered with other bullshit that it’s not a viable option.
buying physical media and ripping yourself is the only viable option but it’s so inconvenient
Which works for some content, but a lot of childrens content is only available through subscriptions to Netflix/Disney+/Max.
If there was a Bandcamp for film and TV, then I would buy stuff there. DRM free.
But until then…
To some extent you’re right. There’d be less content if nobody paid. But imagine current society without treats. I don’t know if capitalism without “panem et circenses” would start to crumble real fast.
If the argument is talk with money then giving them 0 and taking from them is the strongest argument you can have morally speaking. Piracy is more convient regardless.
Nah fuck that. Ignore this guy, everyone pirate everything until they fix it again.
People don’t pirate music, guess why?
Vote with your wallet? This has never ended Google, Apple or Microsoft. These capitalist fantasies never work in the real world 🤣🤣
I buy vinyl and buy flac music from artists I like.
But if your digital content isnt available in my region imma pirate it and assume the racist fucks have enough money.
Pirracy is a service issue. People gladly pay when it’s not a shitty experience.
It’s made intentionally hard though. Try buying The Expanse Blu Ray collection for example. Season 4 literally only comes region A locked, and is not playable on non modified Blu-ray players if you’re in the EU. I was excited to buy it after getting a decent Blu-ray player so I could rewatch it with my partner who hasn’t seen it, but something dumb like that does put a damper on things, so we haven’t even bothered with it, despite downloading it.
IMO focus on purchasing physical content from creators or distributors who NEED to get paid.
It’s one thing to foolishly throw money at these big companies for blurays of an already very successful series while they’re throwing their old libraries in the trash or ‘the vault’ or just shoveling most of their money towards low quality reality garbage.
It’s another to buy a Criterion or BFI or Vinegar Syndrome bluray of something out of print that they need to recoup the costs of restoring and scanning.
If someone buys a bluray of an MCU movie they are a chump, firstly for liking that stuff, secondly for giving Disney more money for it when those things already earn piles of cash in theaters and that alone would be enough to keep them paying salaries and producing that stuff.
Spend money on independent film-makers/releases, on restorations, on series you like on the verge of cancellation.
Sadly I think the conclusion is already written, physical media’s days are numbered, the big companies are going to shut down the overwhelming majority of bluray and dvd production within 5-10 years is my feeling because why sell you for $20-$30 a copy of something when they can get your rent in the form of streaming monthly payments for the rest of your natural life?
And best of all with the rent they can push ads which further increase their revenue. That bluray is a one-time payment, ads for watching the movie on streaming are a continual revenue stream. I predict that they will either have completely killed off ad-free tiers of streaming to push most of their audience into an even bigger and more valuable ad pool to sell to advertisers OR the prices of the ad-free tiers will grow dramatically away from the ad-supported tiers. Right now it’s a few bucks a month, I suspect within 10 years it will be 170-300% the cost of the ad-supported version.
Can’t consume it, can’t buy it.
Buy food, copy data.
Well, it’s not that difficult to cancel a subscription…
Don’t give them any ideas
Already doing it
Way ahead of you, Mr. Rossmann.
Soon they’ll just tap into your partner and make them speak ads throughout the day.
You may want to watch the newest season of Black Mirror
Unfortunately I dont have a subscription to StreamBerry
Eh I wasn’t that impressed. The episodes seem so predictable now where I can basically guess it within the first couple minutes as soon as you realize what the episode’s gimmick is.
Is that a bad thing?
I think this season was the best one yet. Sure, some episodes have been better in the earlier seasons, but this one as a whole had a much better baseline quality than the rest.
Except the fucking star trek episode. Can’t get myself to give half a shit about that.
You know, you and Black Mirror are laughing, But my wife sends me links to products off TikTok all the fucking time and I’m not even on TikTok.
Divorce time
I would, but they’d probably recommend her a good lawyer.
edit: even worse, I look at the fucking stuff and go ohh fuck that’s nice! Wait, I don’t want that… but wow, and it’s cheap too…
It doesn’t matter how much you loose financially. It’s not worth it to be tied down to someone who makes you so miserable.
And its better to do it sooner than later. Or you’ll regret it later.
lol
i mean people already do this thanks in part to the hyperindividualism where people build their identity through the brands they consume.
An example, i only knew about MCU latest movie because a friend i have is walking MCU ad, he couldnt stop talking about going to watch this Thunderbolts movie. In farming on one side you have guys who are john deere extremists and in the other side you got massey ferguson fundamentalists, rarely you find someone that objectively uses both.
heck people build their identities based on the car brand they drive or the console brand they play instead and thus become walking ads for the brands.
Peak chad is when you build your own open source tractor
Coming Soon: A free Netflix offering will be AI-created drivel that is basically 30 ads jammed together into some incoherent plot.
/s but not really
–cut to living room–
Stephen: Hey guys I’m going to the kitchen anyone need anything?Rachel: I’ll take a diet coke, in a glass with ice.
Stevie: Ohh that sounds refreshing
Greg: I’ll take a fanta, glass, ice
Stephen: Orange or that new vanilla cherry flavor?
Greg: Ohh you have that, I though it was sold out everywhere! Yes PLEASE!
–cut to kitchen–
- stephen gets 4 frost glasses from the freezer places perfect icecubes to just above the rim and starts to fill each glass.
–cut to glasses, close microphone on the scene–
- the coke products fizz into the glasses magically creating just enough head as the ice clinks down into the glass. You head an almost subliminal sigh of pleasure plays just barely in the white noise of the carbonation.
–cut to living room–
- stephen walks in with a tray of glasses stephen: ohh I forgot mine!
*replays the scene again with a vanilla coke and he puts a sprig of mind on the glass.
arent sitcoms basically this already
I will personally rally an economic war against ALL for-profits!
Netflix rapidly becoming Interflix from Black Mirror
Netflix selling us a caricature of the evil company they were thought of becoming, as they are and further become the evil company in the pisode that they sold
