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I'll never understand the stupidity of studios/streaming platforms (DRM/Widevine). DRM only hurts legit customers, period. Any TV Show or Movie you want to watc

I'll never understand the stupidity of studios/streaming platforms (DRM/Widevine). DRM only hurts legit customers, period. Any TV Show or Movie you want to watch is going to be on Torrents/Usenet within hours at most of release, their DRM has completely and utterly failed to stop piracy, instead it punishes paying users. I still remember a good decade ago getting a DVD from Redbox and trying to watch it with some friends. Tons of unskippable ads, FBI warnings, etc. Partway through the hell of enforced watching I started a torrent, before we got to the title screen it was done and we watched the downloaded version instead. Furthermore, look at the state of TV today with all the streaming platforms. I'm excluding "live" TV because I can't imagine why anyone would subject themselves to that cesspool. Having to jump between streaming services/UIs/UX/etc is terrible. "What platform was that show on?", "Wait, weren't we watching this on service X? That's why it lost our place in the season", "Oh, did they remove Y show?", and the list goes on. It's incredibly sad the the best TV experience is some combo of Plex/Jellyfin+*arr-type software. Music piracy is practically non-existent in my friend groups (the same could not be said 10+ years ago), Spotify and friends did that. Not any laws, not any enforcement, not any crackdowns, etc, no a /paid/ service beat music piracy. Why? Because it was better, it was easier, and it had everything. As long as we only have a choice of disjointed services and platforms TV/Movies will never be better than piracy. Things like Amazon Channels and Apple TV (yes the app, not the device, not the service, come on Apple...) are somewhat of a step in a better direction but Plex is still bar none. No ads, instant playback, no BS.

AlwaysRock 5y ago
Sometimes it really is easier to torrent a show and know you will see it ad free and without buffering than to find it on any given streaming service and suffer the ads. Recently I've seen even ad free, paid or unpaid, streaming options that still force ads into their shows at the beginning or the end. There is a new Nerdwallet ad that says, "Enjoy this ad free break before getting back to your show - brought to you by nerdwallet" I almost screamed at my tv when I saw that. If your name is plastered on the screen and the show/movie I'm watching is disputed to display it its an ad...
- joshstrange 5y ago
  I literally took a screenshot of the top banner of Imgur the other day (I tried turning off all my blockers because it kept failing to upload images in an album, it didn't end up helping) that said "Enjoy an Ad Free Day brought to you by the Toyota Corolla Cross". Similarly I wanted to scream "That's not what that means!". Not that I'd be caught dead listening to the radio but from other's or from a long time ago I remember "enjoy this ad-free hour provided by X", if I have to hear your name then it's not ad-free.
  - AlwaysRock 5y ago
    Anti ads must be the new ads. At least its better than my TV screaming at me about competing car insurance ads for minutes at a time.
nihilist_t21 5y ago
> I'm excluding "live" TV because I can't imagine why anyone would subject themselves to that cesspool. Live sports.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  Sports are conundrum for sure and one of the only valid reasons to watch "live tv". Personally I don't care for sports but my parents do. The landscape there is pretty terrible as well IMHO. Cable or Satellite are probably the best picture while something like YouTubeTV is probably the best experience (but damn that picture is not good, at least to me it looks blocky often and there are a ton of artifacts on the picture). Game blackouts are something that I just don't understand to this day, like I understand them but how are we still living in the dark ages (pun intended)? IPTV is another option but it's temperamental and has similar picture issues to YTTV in my experience. TV/Movies can be solved with piracy. Sports can't be solved with money or piracy.
  - nihilist_t21 5y ago
    I just watch the NFL, but I get the majority of games each season for free over-the-air in HD with a $20 antenna.
  - op00to 5y ago
    Cable and Satellite really don't have better picture than YouTube TV, in my unscientific yet somewhat curious opinion. I compared YouTube TV to DirecTV as well as FIOS. I felt FIOS had the best picture quality out of all the services prior to YouTube TV, but YouTube TV seemed "crisper", even for sports and other high motion content.
    - CincinnatiMan 5y ago
      I have found DirecTV Stream to have the best picture. Slightly better than YouTube TV, much better than FuboTV and Fios.
    - joshstrange 5y ago

AlwaysRock 5y ago

Sometimes it really is easier to torrent a show and know you will see it ad free and without buffering than to find it on any given streaming service and suffer the ads. Recently I've seen even ad free, paid or unpaid, streaming options that still force ads into their shows at the beginning or the end. There is a new Nerdwallet ad that says, "Enjoy this ad free break before getting back to your show - brought to you by nerdwallet" I almost screamed at my tv when I saw that. If your name is plastered on the screen and the show/movie I'm watching is disputed to display it its an ad...

joshstrange 5y ago
I literally took a screenshot of the top banner of Imgur the other day (I tried turning off all my blockers because it kept failing to upload images in an album, it didn't end up helping) that said "Enjoy an Ad Free Day brought to you by the Toyota Corolla Cross". Similarly I wanted to scream "That's not what that means!". Not that I'd be caught dead listening to the radio but from other's or from a long time ago I remember "enjoy this ad-free hour provided by X", if I have to hear your name then it's not ad-free.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Anti ads must be the new ads. At least its better than my TV screaming at me about competing car insurance ads for minutes at a time.

nihilist_t21 5y ago

> I'm excluding "live" TV because I can't imagine why anyone would subject themselves to that cesspool. Live sports.

joshstrange 5y ago
Sports are conundrum for sure and one of the only valid reasons to watch "live tv". Personally I don't care for sports but my parents do. The landscape there is pretty terrible as well IMHO. Cable or Satellite are probably the best picture while something like YouTubeTV is probably the best experience (but damn that picture is not good, at least to me it looks blocky often and there are a ton of artifacts on the picture). Game blackouts are something that I just don't understand to this day, like I understand them but how are we still living in the dark ages (pun intended)? IPTV is another option but it's temperamental and has similar picture issues to YTTV in my experience. TV/Movies can be solved with piracy. Sports can't be solved with money or piracy.
- nihilist_t21 5y ago
  I just watch the NFL, but I get the majority of games each season for free over-the-air in HD with a $20 antenna.
- op00to 5y ago
  Cable and Satellite really don't have better picture than YouTube TV, in my unscientific yet somewhat curious opinion. I compared YouTube TV to DirecTV as well as FIOS. I felt FIOS had the best picture quality out of all the services prior to YouTube TV, but YouTube TV seemed "crisper", even for sports and other high motion content.
  - CincinnatiMan 5y ago
    I have found DirecTV Stream to have the best picture. Slightly better than YouTube TV, much better than FuboTV and Fios.
  - joshstrange 5y ago