I’ve been a good boy for 5 years or so but the seas call to me. Are streaming sites the way to go now or is torrenting still a better bet for mainstream movies and tv? I’d imagine all of my accounts have been deleted on those sites so I’d be starting over.

  • Mountain_Mike_420@lemmy.mlEnglish
    70·
    6 months ago

    Commenting to bring awareness to the ‘arrs. Radarr sonarr and lidarr will get you all the media you need organized perfectly. It runs on any device but take a few days to figure out. Once setup it’s a set it and forget it thing. Uses torrents and or usent so use a vpn. Mine runs on a 10 year old raspberry pi 2 and a few usb hdds. Been going strong with very little maintenance for 6 years at this point.

    • faercol@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      23·
      6 months ago

      Agreed. Combined with a jellyfin instance and you will never want to come back. As said before, it takes a while to setup at first (especially if you download animes which aren’t exactly handled the same way), but when it’s done you’ll see you weekly episodes magically appear with nothing to do on your side, and that’s just great

      • massive_bereavement@kbin.social
        19·
        6 months ago

        Jellfyfin is the reason why I do this. I went from spending 30 minutes dumpster diving through terrible movies in one of the streaming platforms to now spending 30 minutes trying to choose from a selection of movies that I actually want to watch.

          • massive_bereavement@kbin.social
            2·
            6 months ago

            Living the dream ~

            Which is 5TB of movies I think I should watch, 1.5TB of stuff I already watched and think I would watch again and the rest of stuff I actually want to watch.

      • IronKrill@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        Have you seen a good method/guide to prioritise release groups for anime? I looked into it but it was super confusing to me and didn’t beat just grabbing a nyaa rss feed.

    • Gilgeam@lemm.eeEnglish
      8·
      6 months ago

      I’m super old school and just started finding my way back to torrenting. Would you have a recommendation on how to read up on these arrs? So far I still manually pull my torrents from a search engine and run it through my vpn hardened Pi in the cellar. It works, but I do wonder if there’s a more streamlined approach.

  • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    39·
    6 months ago

    Torrents and usenet will get you high quality videos if that’s what you want. Streaming sites are usually only have low bitrate videos.

  • blindsight@beehaw.orgEnglish
    28·
    6 months ago

    I use Real Debrid with Stremio + Torrentio. I just need to figure out how to add the manual torrent search & download plugin for Real Debrid since I watch a lot of obscure British TV, not everything is hosted already.

    For mainstream stuff, it just works. For obscure stuff, it’s about 50-50 if it’s on there.

    Manually downloading torrents is just for stuff I’ll be transferring to a mobile device, like audiobooks. And cracked software, I suppose. I needed Adobe Acrobat for something and torrented it.

    • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      I use Real Debrid with Stremio + Torrentio. I just need to figure out how to add the manual torrent search & download plugin for Real Debrid since I watch a lot of obscure British TV, not everything is hosted already.

      If you mean caching content to RD I think you can do this with the Unchained app, if you use Android, or you can do it pretty much anywhere you like using the RD website.

      Then you can use the DMM addon to watch it on Stremio, or probably it will show up with any addon that supports RD, or if not then you can simply use the Debrid manager that is available at Torrentio, or as a standalone addon.

  • Coasting0942@reddthat.comEnglish
    22·
    6 months ago

    Depends on your hardware.

    Streaming is more accessible, but you’re stuck at 720p usually.

    If you can afford a vpn and the storage then torrenting gets you better quality.

    Don’t forget to seed

    • realitista@lemm.eeEnglish
      31·
      6 months ago

      I find it easier to get 4k streaming than to download such large files.

      • Coasting0942@reddthat.comEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        The newer AV1 codec has me very interested in HQ streaming. You need a monster machine to make the file, but then it’s 2GB for a high quality 1080p movie.

        • realitista@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          I find 4k streaming to be absolutely good enough for general tv streaming. It’s a bit better on some services than others. Amazon and Netflix do it the best, but it’s generally pretty good on all of the,.

      • Bigfoot@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        The large files are such better quality, though (if you care about such things and have a TV that allows you to appreciate the extra detail).

        • realitista@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          For movies I will go the extra mile and break out Kodi and go with the big file as I will usually watch it right away and then delete it. For TV, 4k streaming is plenty good enough.

  • gila@lemm.eeEnglish
    201·
    6 months ago

    Pay for real-debrid and set up a kodi addon like Seren on a streaming box. You’ll get an equivalent experience to paid/official streaming platforms without having to pay for them all, including browsing popular shows without having to download them ahead of time or manage a home server. It’s still torrenting under the hood, just a lot more convenient

    • Evkob@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      6 months ago

      Kodi + add-ons is great if you like tinkering, otherwise I would recommend Stremio with the Torrentio add-on. Stremio + Torrentio + Real-Debrid is the easiest way to consume pirated media IMO.

      • gila@lemm.eeEnglish
        4·
        6 months ago

        I’ve heard good things about Stremio + Torrentio. Does it have trakt integration or similar equivalent? I think the discovery in addons that have this makes a big difference. I have many different categories to browse that might sound similar, e.g. Trending, Trending New, Most Watched, Most Popular. But each one has a specific and plainly disclosed ranking methodology and that’s very useful to avoid constantly being recommended to watch The Office, Breaking Bad, cowboy soaps etc

        • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          Does it have trakt integration or similar equivalent?

          It has a subpar integration, if you care too much about this kind of stuff (getting a whole working multimedia center, and thinkering in general) and have a proper device that can handle Kodi in a lagless manner, I’d say you stick with it.

          If you want a set it and forget it kind of solution and have less sophisticated hardware Stremio + a Debrid provider is golden.

          (My Nvidia Shield TV Pro 2019 struggles with Kodi and a Debrid/streaming setup, also is significantly slower than Stremio).

          • Zintag@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            How does a shield struggles with kodi? It’s my main setup (kodi+fen+trakt+real debrid) and I have no problem with it.

            • kratoz29@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

              It doesn’t right away (after a fresh reboot) but it fails eventually, as Kodi is my heaviest app, it could be due to my skin, but man, some ppl say Stremio is ugly, but Kodi with stock addon is way uglier that is not even pleasen to use, my skins aren’t the heaviest, Arctic Horizon 2 and Fuse.

              It also could be because the Shield TV is my secondary Plex Server and that would bring some background load (even when it is not serving media), but I have done tests with and without this, same for the PlexKodiConnect addon.

          • gila@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            I’m mostly only using CCWGTV, both the original 4k model and the budget 1080p one. Neither have performance issues for me (except before filtering out 4k releases on the 1080p model)

            I’m just aiming for the simplest/smoothest experience as possible, not so much for myself but so that I can mail it out to my mum who lives out in the bush and just tell her to enter her wifi password and open kodi. She’s able to manage from there without having to worry about hdr/dv content compatibility with her display, or default audio language/subtitle display etc.

            In kodi you can edit settings.xml for IPTV Simple Client addon to point playlist items to a given category in Seren, make a playlist linking to those categories a favourite, and configure Kodi to open to the favourites menu on launch. That way she has a fully on-rails and custom experience based on her preferences from the point that she runs it.

        • Evkob@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          There is also a Trakt add-on, like the other commenter said the integration isn’t as seamless as a well-maintained Kodi setup, but it’s definitely good enough that I’ve switched from Kodi to Stremio with Trakt being the way I organise my TV/movie watchlists.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.netEnglish
      7·
      6 months ago

      And you can use it for any torrents, like games & software. It’s way cheaper than any streaming site and so much more worth it.

  • Perhapsjustsniffit@lemmy.caEnglish
    11·
    6 months ago

    We do both honestly. Stream for TV and crappy movies, I don’t need to see every nose hair and skin pore. Movie night is torrent. 17 years with no traditional tv or paid services in our house.

  • ta00000 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    6 months ago

    Does anyone have a one click piracy stack setup with all the *arrs that takes mullvad yet? Someone should make that happen.

    Maybe a nix config? Docker?

        • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
          6·
          6 months ago

          Without port forwarding you’re limited on connections and can only connect to those who do have it enabled.

          When they dropped support, I switched to AirVPN and have been satisfied. Prices are about the same I believe. Mullvad was great and even refunded me my remaining time after the switch. I’d totally use them again if I didn’t need port forwarding or if they brought the feature back.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Mines all in a docker conpose:
      *arrs
      sabnzbd and/or a seedbox + resilio/syncthing/ftp(s)
      Jellyfin
      a reverse proxy of your choice (mines traefik)

      for DNS I utilize pihole and it’s CNAME feature.

    • loutr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      I used a compose file from reddit and made a couple of adjustments, it was pretty quick and works great. I dont have a VPN though.

  • Bigfoot@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    6 months ago

    Torrenting will have everything you want within 48hrs (at the longest) as long as your tastes are relatively current and mainstream. If you are into older or more niche content you’ll still likely need Criterion or Canopy etc.

    • BruceLee@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      I’m into older content but I’ve never done any torenting. If I were to start would it by harder for me because of the time of content i search, or would it be like any torrenting?

      • Bigfoot@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        I’m not sure what you’re asking exactly, but the reason older and niche content is harder/slower to find sometimes is because there are fewer people out there sharing (“seeding”) the files.

        • BruceLee@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          5 months ago

          ok. Thank you for the explanation. Honestly, I’m don’t know what I’m saying myself. Like I said, I’ve never done torrenting but I’m curious to try.

          • Bigfoot@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            It’s not that hard. The easiest way to start is probably get qBittorrent, which has built-in search of several major torrent sites at once.

  • Stright@kbin.social
    3·
    6 months ago

    If I’m just trying to watch something right then and there, I’ll usually use my IPTV subscription or a streaming site, but if I plan on watching later, I’ll download a nice high quality torrent

  • itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
    3·
    6 months ago

    I used to use a kodi box. Every month or so I’d have to find a new source. I might have to dig it out and give it another try.

  • Night Monkey@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    21·
    6 months ago

    I used to use the arr applications and use Usenet but as time went on I needed more and more space. I pay a guy once every six months to get access to a Plex library that has everything you can think of. I even have the ability to request things if they aren’t there.