I rarely watch whatever's on. I prefer to watch specific movies from a list of recommendations. This was simply impossible.

Sometimes I couldn't find the movies I wanted. Sometimes they weren't available in my country. Sometimes they weren't available in their original language, or with the right subtitles. Sometimes the streaming platform didn't like my hardware. Sometimes it didn't let me watch the movie over more than 24 hours.

Paying to watch movies felt like paying for making the experience more grating.

Piracy gives me any movie I desire in around 20 minutes. I get a file. I own this file for as long as I want. I can play that movie offline, put it on any device, share it with anyone, or transform it as I please. It's mine.

I don't think I'll be paying for streaming again. Movie tickets absolutely, but not streaming.

One can get HDCP bypass solutions no money at all, but the technology should never have existed in the first place.

Worse yet, despite failing so horribly, development is still going into it, with major players like Netflix pushing it as well.

Ever since the mid-2000s through to today there's a load of TVs, displays, etc on the market that claimed to be DP and HDMI compatible but failed on the edge-cases (e.g. pumping 4K@60Hz down a DisplayPort 1.2 pipe). In my experience the gear that was HDCP compliant tended to perform better (but by no means perfectly cough Philips...).

Compare that to the mess of compliance and functionality with SCART connectors in the 1990s. I had a TV with a true RGB SCART input and a bunch of devices claimed to offer RGB SCART output, yet didn't actually support it (I assume because few consumers knew how to take advantage of RGB SCART, given the default was Composite-over-SCART and at SDTV it looks good enough).

In reality, HDCP causes issues with DisplayPort and HDMI link by being one of the weakest links (HDCP signalling is usually the problem in long or cheap cables). Any issue makes HDCP kill the connection and renegotiate content protection, which takes time where there is no content.

We still to this day have trouble with SCART-like features. It's just now called HDMI-CEC, and is very much a hit-or-miss scenario, even within the same brand. Case-in-point: I have an older Philips Android TV, where CEC in my setup works fine. The same setup does not work at all on a slightly newer iteration of Android TVs from Philips, despite both running a similar Android Oreo build.

----

Also note: The default for SCART was composite, with optional S-Video and RGB support, and very rarely, component (which quality-wise would be somewhere around RGB). S-Video was the common "quality" setting that "just worked", which is close enough to component (and thus RGB) in quality for the material of the time.

Plus, getting suboptimal image is not as bad as getting no image at all, or missing features. HDCP and CEC is arguably a huge downgrade from SCART in that regard.

... this comment is longer than I intended ...

There are certain adapters that do other things, but can also be used to strip HDCP.

It's often used as part of a setup to capture the HDMI output from Macs, since those sometimes have HDCP as well.

* one service to pay for

* what they want to watch

* on the device they choose

* on their schedule

* at their location.

Content holders want: to restrict, distinguish, and control every one of those.

And frankly, just having an easy accessible way to rent any motion picture if it's not on a streaming platform. There's no reason for digital copies to be so inaccessible. Some things are literally only available on dvd/blue-ray or pirated.

Wouldn't whatever this "easy accessible way" is be the one service you're skeptical people want? I don't think anyone saying "I want one service" means "I hope to be locked in to one provider", but rather "I want one easy interface, and not to have to worry about surveying and paying for lots of siloed libraries."

It's a thin line, is what I'm warning.

> I want one easy interface

Definitely this.

We have various non-standardized interfaces currently for home entertainment with machines running their own enterprise software. The playstations, xboxes, apple TV, smart tvs, etc have their own mediocre ways of cobbling things and allowing you to rent / buy / stream.

Perhaps an open-source alternative is what's needed, but that's often so late to the game.

My Spotify subscription is £9.99 and gives me access to unlimited music from all artists (within reason - it’s very unlikely I find something not on there).

I’m willing to pay more for a video subscription that gives me access to unlimited tv and movies.

But to get everything on streaming I have to buy: - Amazon Subscription - Netflix Subscription - Apple TV subscription - Disney+ Subscription - Now TV - TV licence (iPlayer)

And after I have subscribed to all of these, there are still loads of movies and TV shows not covered.

I would pay for one subscription that had the content mixed in. It would be better to have a single £25 contract and get everything rather than this crazy fragmentation where you pay for 80% of the content 4 times and have to get an additional subscription if there is one series you want to watch on a different service.

The problem is that the software part of it is comparatively easy; a perfect platform from the point of view of code, robustness, and useability means nothing unless you can get the rights-holders to agree to make their content available on it.

Right, that's sort of what I mean—accessing it isn't the point. Once you've paid for and subscribed to every different streaming service today, and checked that there aren't a few more that have sprouted up overnight, then access is a solved problem, in the browser or prettified on the desktop. The hard part, and what I think people mean when they speak of wanting one service, is not having to curate, seek out, and pay for all those different streaming services in the first place.

Of course it's way better if you steal without consequence, but this is not a scalable approach.

Which music streaming service is that?

[Not snarky, genuinely interested.]

Not all. There are many songs I had on CD that I can't play anymore.

Businesses are in the game of enticing customers. If your homeware store is so bad that double-digit percentages of the population choose to steal glasses and cutlery from local bars rather than shop at your store, you need to take a long hard look at your business and figure out what the fuck you're doing so wrong.

You can bitch and moan about how it's wrong for people to steal from the bars if you want, but that's reality denial. It will not get you more customers.

Any other way you look at it digital media distribution should be a couple of dollars and an http (or torrent if they want to skip the bandwidth costs) file transfer away.

Why do you feel so indignant about something that doesn't effect you? If you want to pay for a dozen different streaming services, nobody is stopping you.

I am a little bit indignant because it does affect me. When a small number of people abuse the system it means the rest of us can't have nice things.

If there were not rampant piracy, I would not have to know what is DRM and all of its associated inconvenience, because it wouldn't have to be a thing.

Not that the current solution isn't broken -- I do pay for (nearly) a dozen different streaming services. But I can't help feeling that I'm subsidising your lawless, anti-social approach, and it doesn't seem exactly fair that you get the better experience.

You have to acknowledge that if everyone did like you, then the whole thing wouldn't be able to sustain itself. It only works because most people take the hit and play by the rules.

Except there's no data proving that people pirating movies/music/... are not also paying the industry.

Anecdotally, the persons I know in the habit of pirating entertainments are also some of the biggest spenders I know on the same things.

So, it's entirely possible that if everyone did like him, the whole thing would sustain itself. And if you have something tending to prove the contrary, I'm quite curious.

I still have a large list of games that I have legally bought but can't play because some manner of native drm or protection - having to practice piracy is the only way I can play those games.

Denuvo, the Sony rootkit, the finite number of installs that was a thing for a while, the list goes on.

Why would DRM be a thing even if piracy weren't? Because the companies that employ it are control freaks who, among other things, would like to sell people the same product numerous times.

> I do pay for (nearly) a dozen different streaming services.

This truly is a 'You' problem. Getting upset with other people because you choose to do that is senseless. It's doubly senseless to be upset about this since dozens of streaming services would be a thing even if piracy weren't. Dozens of streaming services are a thing because these companies are control freaks that want to reinvent Netflix rather than license their content to Netflix. They want complete control over how their media is promoted and distributed, they don't like delegating any of that control to another company. Bittorrent really has jackshit to do with dozens of streaming services existing. If anybody is to blame, it's the clueless pliant consumers that reward media companies for creating netflix clones.

I rarely pay for a movie bar a few cinema trips and blu-rays for something I really wanted to support . The reasons:

I want a well encoded DRM free file.

I don't want to be ripped off, or at least the "Steam Sale" model should be there so you can get it at a reasonable price a few months later.

I absolutely want the high quality download option. Steaming is fine for music. I'm confident I could find my Spotify playlists fairly easily elsewhere if I needed too (legally or otherwise). Maybe they are 500GB max.

I wouldn't be confident I could replace terabytes of my favorite movies quickly. I want those archived for myself without DRM.

I will pay when the product is better than a torrent site, it is possible when the lawyers and execs allow it to happen.

Consumers want convenience. I have convenience in the cinema so I pay for movies there quite often.

As for digital distribution, I don't feel confident in any platform. You basically pay to be severely inconvenienced. Plus what happens if you want to load up 10-20 movies on your laptop and go camping? Tough luck.

The movie industry should stop trying to sell us the same thing several times. If I paid for a cinema ticket once I should have the right to download that movie and have it stored offline forever.

Almost nobody who pirated movies (of those I spoke with) did so out of being cheap or poor. Almost everybody told me "I can't even figure out how I can download the movie I paid for" and just opted for torrenting.

Sure some people will do anything and everything to pirate. But I argue they are much less compared to those who are unhappy with the current streaming offerings.

No, you're subsidizing rich CEOs and their shareholders.

yeah thanks bro

It's really quite saddening to me that some classic cinema is essentially dead, completely inaccessible.

I eventually found Mubi, which is a relatively cheap arthouse movie streaming/rental service. So at least I have that for now. Until they go out of business because they're not popular enough.

At lest the German version that I get to see. I want to know how much that costs but it only offers me a 7days free subscription. Even when I go to the gift option it asks me to sign in...this is terrible.

    maandelijks €9,99 per maand
    jaarlijks €7,99 per maand
    Afgeschreven in één betaling van €95,88

Might have to give this a try.

This is just bad.

I assumed that I'd have to create an account before I get to know the prices and therefore I lost interest.

It doesn't even have to be something as niche as that. Even popular productions can be impossible to watch if the rights holders aren't interested.

Try to find 77 Sunset Strip. It was a massively popular television series that ran for years on TV. It simply doesn't exist anymore. Not on broadcast, cable, streaming, DVD, or any other platform. You can't even torrent it.

I have a relative who lives off the grid. He has this massive collection of thrift store VHS tapes that he watches. I'm so envious every time I see it. So much quality material that simply cannot be watched anymore by any means because they never made the transition to digital.

You sure? Seems to be around on torrent sites these days. (At least, most of it.)

But yes, it's frustrating that there's media out there with no legal way to watch it. At least, not unless you're lucky enough to stumble upon a secondhand physical copy.

I have that issue as well and i'm happy I see more and more vintage stuff (shows and movies) on Archive.

Its like PT on steroids with add-ons.

The only caveat is taking 5 additional minutes to install add-ons (TPB+ can be your first choice to get you going)

There is one that list IMDB TOP 250, in order, ready to stream

I have Netflix and Disney+ just to buy moral credit; but since ~1y torrent at will again. Thank you MPAA for enlightening me

When you decided you don't give a damn, the Torrentio plugin is where It's at, scrapes way many public trackers.

"IMPORTANT: We do not collect any history or logs of what addons/sources you use for streaming! Furthermore, if you login as a Guest User, no personal data will be collected whatsoever." - https://web.archive.org/web/20200514142904/https://www.strem... (Their own privacy page doesn't load for me)

That clause has not always been there.

    .consent-banner { display: none; }
    ion-tab[tab="new"] .content-header { display: none; }
    ion-tab[tab="popular"] .content-header { display: none; }

eg. I use instantwatcher.com

uBlock Origin is not the same as uBlock. I prefer Origin.

How to open the Dashboard https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard

Guess what, it does not just disappear from my Plex/Emby server...

Online stream services was suppose to resolve the CableTV problem of paying for 1000 channels to watch the 5 you want.

Now Every network, every media company, every one is creating their own streaming service with all of their content "exclusive" so I would need to sign up for like 20+ services to get access to about 60% of the content that I want to watch as the other 40% is simply not on any streaming service at all it is either too new or too old

Justwatch.com has more than 85 Streaming Services in their database... that is crazy

e.g. I explicitly disliked a show and anytime I'd open Netflix, for days/weeks, it be on top either a banner or one of the first in one or many categories. Felt almost like mocking :)

If your libraries is shallow (which anyway consisted of mostly r trite subpar content) it's your problem - don't hit me with your pathetic dark pattern. Their support kept giving robotic answers. It was outrageous.

They had a really good short lived comedy series called "Party Down" that I loved. Had a great cast! https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1073507/

I think Outlander might be one of its more popular series now. Based on a book series and brought to TV by Ronald D Moore who did Battlestar Galactica (which personally I am cautious about because the last season or 2 of BSG was not my favorite)

About ten years ago, Starz had a deal with Netflix to stream their content next day. I remember watching some of Party Down that way as it aired.

WOW. I had netflix once for a few days, I paid for netflix just to watch House MD, a week into netflix, they removed House MD from my region, I cancelled subscription and moved to PT. Never came back to netflix, I just no longer trust them, too much effort and too much legal complications. I can imagine paying for one portal, but more than two? That's more expensive and less user friendly then cable TV.

1. No, I don’t want to get rewatch suggestions.

2. Yes, I’d like to have always the same thumbnail for the same show.

3. Yes, I’d like to tell you "Never show me this show again".

4. No, I don’t want any automatic screen movement.

A cherry on top would be having a toggle to only show me shows with English subs.

1. The content is nicely organised;

2. There's a button for it on my TV remotes; and

3. The UX is way more accessible for the elderly members of my family.

I run a local media server for things I have on BluRay or DVD, I used to archive shows I could also get on one of those 2 platforms but it became major hassle because they would remove and add the shows my family wants access to all the time... When I started tracking it, it was amazing how much churn there was on popular titles

My current frustration is stargate. It is not available digitally in my region in any legal way because mgm is trying to negotiate a buyout by apple and doesn’t want any streaming rights to get in the way. I wanted to show it to my son and my options are limited to ordering a physical disk for a one-off viewing, or piracy.

How would you feel to rent a car, go halfway to destination, take a nap in a hotel, then you wake up , car has no wheels, because wheels you had couldn't be used on that specific road, and you weren't warned about it. Breach of trust? Waste of time? Disappointment?

They [netflix] ended that about the same time they ended their Public API and starting becoming a "Media Company" instead of a tech company, this is also the point in time they became less consumer centrist.

The short term thinking of modern business to chancing as much quarterly growth has humanly possible long term health be damned was the investor pressure they were / are under.

This will short term thinking will be (and has been) the cause of major problems not just in netflix but many companies

Netflix have the data, he has the money, what's the problem?

The problem is "too much legal complications" and that problem does not exist on Popcorn Time.

So you sold a license to a local broadcasting company to for a time window and number of runs for a show. Not more you can do with no back channel for customers to request individual shows and pay for them. By only granting one license per are you can enforce some scarcity and get your money & hopefully users liked it. Channels could the compete who gets the best time based licenses, who gets the new hot stuff first, etc.

Now here we are with a global network with basically any user being able to request any show and pay for it (or get a subscription for a channel carrying it) and yet the media companies still carry one like one had to win an auction to get one of the broadcast masters, drag in on top of a hill to broadcast it and then return it back to someone else to do the same thing.

Yhis is just a service that fills yet another gap from all this fragmentation, but in a way it's better than some media company having a monopoly on anything we can watch.

Now Netflix has a higher market cap than most Hollywood Studios, and Spotify has a higher market cap than most if not all record companies.

But this is the classic case of not listening to your customers and innovators dilemma.

Old models of business are very slow to change and it has happened time and time again. Movies, music, newspapers, and so forth.

JustWatch tell me that AMC on demands had it to rent for 5.99$, is it possible that you missed that? It could be them that got the exclusive right for it... that had to be expensive for sure if it's the case.

All of the convenience arguments are gone now, it’s just about $15 you didn’t think you should have to pay. Super weird thing to admit!

I get doin it, but I don’t get defending it.

I regularly tell my kids no when there's a movie we have to pay full price for. They can wait a few months.

It wasn't sold in any of the stores I usually go to and already pay a considerable subscription cost for.

It was only sold in some other store for 3 times the price chocolate usually goes for.

That store also refused to just sell me the chocolate, they required that I eat it inside of their store under their watchful gaze to make sure I wasn't sharing it with anyone that didn't pay.

They also made sure I ate it on a plate and using a spoon and definitely didn't touch it with my hands.

It's only available at this store under these conditions because I assume greed.

So I used my powers of PsychoKinesis to create an atom-for-atom clone of the chocolate for sale so I could eat it at my convenience.

Then the police arrested me because I violated Nestle's ownership of their recipe for making chocolate.

+100 upvotes.

Just buying Nestle's "raw chocolate mix", melting it, putting it into trays and then letting it harden in the fridge is too hard?

>So I stole it instead.

Is a leaky abstraction.

Reality would be (in a sci fi universe): "So I brought out my trusty replicator and made a molecularly identical copy of it, leaving the original behind for whoever wanted to buy it."

And, yes, I would download that chocolate bar. Especially if i was already paying three different services to to deliver chocolate bars to me on demand.

Then you have chosen to exclude yourself from watching literally hundreds of thousands of hours of quality entertainment that didn't make it to streaming and never will.

There is also the point GP may have already seen the movie in theaters, why should he have to pay to watch it again. Also gp wanted to rent the movie, not purchase it,and on top of that has multiple streaming services he is subscribed to, none of which offered the movie.

People are tired of having to hunt down what they want to watch, and many would happily pay for one service that had the full catalogaavailable regardless of region. Until this happens the MPAA will never win by greed and shooting themselves in the foot.

Because that wasn't included in the ticket price. If it was, cinema tickets would be more valuable and they would charge more.

Let's reword that as:

"I couldn't get this thing for the price I wanted so I stole a copy"

Seriously? Imagine going into a box store and doing that. You would face a high probability of being arrested for theft.

Speaking of CDs: the music industry (maybe RIAA was involved, I don’t know) seems to have figured out digital content delivery. I’ve got exactly one subscription for music: Spotify. I can get all the music I want to listen to with this, more than I could ever get when I used BitTorrent (public trackers were sometimes limited, and seeding on ADSL was hard). If they were to raise the price, I’d still use it. There are issues with how artists are remunerated for their work, but the problem of distribution is basically solved. Why can’t the film industry do this?

You deprived someone of the revenue generated by their property. Still theft.

If you squat in an apartment, is that theft?

Revenue from a purchase that I'm not going to make is non-existent. It can't be lost or gained.

You have not; that revenue never existed.

Squatting is sometimes legal (in the UK at least) and squatters can end up owning the property if they live there long enough.

It's not theft.

Even if he was authorized to make the copy he would have still needed to pay to use the copy.

He's not authorized to make or use the copy.

It's not a useless distinction though. One can argue that stealing is bad because when I steal your car, you don't have access to your car anymore. If I were to copy your car I wouldn't harm you.

That doesn't mean it's okay to illegally copy something, but comparing it to theft is unhelpful at best and misleading at worst.