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I find it interesting that the author never even mentions people that torrent movies. He complains that Netflix and Hulu don't have such a large collection as

I find it interesting that the author never even mentions people that torrent movies. He complains that Netflix and Hulu don't have such a large collection as some video stores, especially rare movies. But I have never not been able to find a very rare movie via a torrent. And it is rather unusual that this large contributing factor to the downfall of his industry is never mentioned.

gkop 11y ago
Funny you and I had the opposite thoughts about torrents. My thought was, "Ya know, the really good indie movie rental places are special; they have films I can't even find [seeded] between TehConnection and Karagarga". Maybe I should look at other trackers...
- ryan-allen 11y ago
  The pay per view rental model like iTunes often has a lot of harder to find movies. A few times for me it's the last port of call when I can't find a title anywhere digitally, at at least then you're getting the best quality sound and picture!
  - iofj 11y ago
    As a non-American I'm really frustrated that what you don't get is translations. Disney movies for the kids have been translated into 100 or so languages, yet buying one on iTunes gets you English and -maybe- Spanish. And then when you get to Europe, they suddenly have English-French languages on the same page. It'd be really nice if when I bought a movie that they're selling the translated version for would be accessible everywhere. Same problem on Amazon, Google play, iTunes, even Netflix.
    - RightWingRabble 11y ago
      Then you should definitely try bittorrent. Not only can you play those files (or transcode those files to play) on literally anything, but fans themselves do subs in roughly all the languages. If any of those services you mentioned above would allow user submitted subtitles, it would remove a large reason to torrent instead of buy.
    - anon4 11y ago
      Isn't the translated version only licensed for sale in the specific country of that language? So even if they wanted to they can't sell you a movie with all audio tracks?
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Yeah, not if you are an Australian. At one stage you couldn't even get Star Trek TNG on iTunes. There's a thriving industry in Australia of people designing services to bypass geoblocking measures. It's pathetic that I can't watch a movie just because of my nationality. Hell, one day I wanted to buy the Dragon Book on compilers, I put in a U.S. address and I got an email from Amazon telling me that I couldn't purchase the eBook because I'm not an American. They asked for a U.S. passport. And they never refunded me. Consequently, Australians pirate more content than pretty much any nation on earth. Yet when we get the content, we pay up. Whenever I hear someone say that pirating content is a crime, I think - discriminating against me because I'm an Australian should also be a crime.
    - saiya-jin 11y ago
      I don't think you guys can seriously compete with countries like Russia, India etc. where apart from all you mention there is financial side too (for many at least). But I wholly agree that unless pirating will make things HARDER/content less appealing, it will be ripe. Currently it's the opposite, and I see no good reason to not just get a 1080p yify torrent with proper subtitles from scene 1-2 days after bluray release (sometimes even before). There is something about having my few TB external HDD full of my personal collection of movies and documents...
- kristofferR 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure the movies you're looking for is on PassThePopcorn. They have 121,937 movies in their collection, and thousands of their members are the same kind of movie geek as the author of this article.
  - benten10 11y ago
    Does it still need invitations? I uhh, would be grateful for one, if ANYONE had it..
hellofunk 11y ago
I still buy DVDs online for many movies I cannot find anywhere on the net using any method. It's the only reason I still have a DVD player, unfortunately.
- test1235 11y ago
  "It's the only reason I still have a DVD player, unfortunately." Don't blu-ray players play DVDs?
  - rincebrain 11y ago
    Most, but it is not (AFAICS) a required portion of the spec - I'm pretty certain you'd need something similar to the multi-laser strategy that CD/DVD combination drives use. The Blu-Ray Association says[1] that they expect it to be the case in practice, but that it's a market decision for each implementer, which sounds like it's not a requirement. [1] - http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_backwards_compatible http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_backwards_compatible

gkop 11y ago

Funny you and I had the opposite thoughts about torrents. My thought was, "Ya know, the really good indie movie rental places are special; they have films I can't even find [seeded] between TehConnection and Karagarga". Maybe I should look at other trackers...

ryan-allen 11y ago
The pay per view rental model like iTunes often has a lot of harder to find movies. A few times for me it's the last port of call when I can't find a title anywhere digitally, at at least then you're getting the best quality sound and picture!
- iofj 11y ago
  As a non-American I'm really frustrated that what you don't get is translations. Disney movies for the kids have been translated into 100 or so languages, yet buying one on iTunes gets you English and -maybe- Spanish. And then when you get to Europe, they suddenly have English-French languages on the same page. It'd be really nice if when I bought a movie that they're selling the translated version for would be accessible everywhere. Same problem on Amazon, Google play, iTunes, even Netflix.
  - RightWingRabble 11y ago
    Then you should definitely try bittorrent. Not only can you play those files (or transcode those files to play) on literally anything, but fans themselves do subs in roughly all the languages. If any of those services you mentioned above would allow user submitted subtitles, it would remove a large reason to torrent instead of buy.
  - anon4 11y ago
    Isn't the translated version only licensed for sale in the specific country of that language? So even if they wanted to they can't sell you a movie with all audio tracks?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Yeah, not if you are an Australian. At one stage you couldn't even get Star Trek TNG on iTunes. There's a thriving industry in Australia of people designing services to bypass geoblocking measures. It's pathetic that I can't watch a movie just because of my nationality. Hell, one day I wanted to buy the Dragon Book on compilers, I put in a U.S. address and I got an email from Amazon telling me that I couldn't purchase the eBook because I'm not an American. They asked for a U.S. passport. And they never refunded me. Consequently, Australians pirate more content than pretty much any nation on earth. Yet when we get the content, we pay up. Whenever I hear someone say that pirating content is a crime, I think - discriminating against me because I'm an Australian should also be a crime.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    I don't think you guys can seriously compete with countries like Russia, India etc. where apart from all you mention there is financial side too (for many at least). But I wholly agree that unless pirating will make things HARDER/content less appealing, it will be ripe. Currently it's the opposite, and I see no good reason to not just get a 1080p yify torrent with proper subtitles from scene 1-2 days after bluray release (sometimes even before). There is something about having my few TB external HDD full of my personal collection of movies and documents...
kristofferR 11y ago
I'm pretty sure the movies you're looking for is on PassThePopcorn. They have 121,937 movies in their collection, and thousands of their members are the same kind of movie geek as the author of this article.
- benten10 11y ago
  Does it still need invitations? I uhh, would be grateful for one, if ANYONE had it..

hellofunk 11y ago

I still buy DVDs online for many movies I cannot find anywhere on the net using any method. It's the only reason I still have a DVD player, unfortunately.

test1235 11y ago
"It's the only reason I still have a DVD player, unfortunately." Don't blu-ray players play DVDs?
- rincebrain 11y ago
  Most, but it is not (AFAICS) a required portion of the spec - I'm pretty certain you'd need something similar to the multi-laser strategy that CD/DVD combination drives use. The Blu-Ray Association says[1] that they expect it to be the case in practice, but that it's a market decision for each implementer, which sounds like it's not a requirement. [1] - http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_backwards_compatible http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_backwards_compatible