4 ms·

OTOH - TV, radio, and YouTube are all unlimited and free. Why not streaming? There are lots of people alive who grew up during the days of broadcast TV and rad

OTOH - TV, radio, and YouTube are all unlimited and free. Why not streaming? There are lots of people alive who grew up during the days of broadcast TV and radio. I get why they might not understand the difference.

weberer 3mo ago
There are a ton of legitimately free IPTV streams. You can watch them through most media players like VLC without having to download anything shady. https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv
- nuxi 3mo ago
  Two things: - How are these "legitimately free"? For example AMC is a commercial TV channel and as far as I know, they don't offer free streaming. Same goes for MGM, FilmBox etc. - Strictly speaking this isn't IPTV, it's just web streams. IPTV is usually delivered via multicast (MPEG-TS/RTP/RTSP streams, over UDP mostly).
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
- nvme0n1p1 3mo ago
  Ok but have fun explaining that to the average person. Buying a dongle is easier than installing software or typing URLs into their TV ("my TV doesn't even have a keyboard"). To most people IPTV is a bunch of gibberish letters, indistinguishable from the gibberish brands on Amazon. Someone's grandma from Colorado doesn't deserve to get scammed because she didn't research the acronyms.
- kube-system 3mo ago
  That is chock-full of pirated content.
  - crote 3mo ago
    Most of it seems to be first-party streams of content which is also available as unencrypted over-the-air broadcasts. It is paid for via ads or subsidies, so there's no reason to block access to the stream, so they just don't bother, and make life easier for anyone building streaming devices wanting to integrate their channel. Someone accessing the stream directly is not the originally intended use case, but it isn't any different from someone accessing it via their smart tv.
bluedino 3mo ago
Most people who buy these want to watch free movies, sports streams, etc that aren't on OTA or free services
- Scoundreller 3mo ago
  Or straight up unavailable on paid services. There’s often no way to legitimately subscribe to programming from $HomeCountry, especially if you’re not in a big Diaspora country.

weberer 3mo ago

There are a ton of legitimately free IPTV streams. You can watch them through most media players like VLC without having to download anything shady. https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv

nuxi 3mo ago
Two things: - How are these "legitimately free"? For example AMC is a commercial TV channel and as far as I know, they don't offer free streaming. Same goes for MGM, FilmBox etc. - Strictly speaking this isn't IPTV, it's just web streams. IPTV is usually delivered via multicast (MPEG-TS/RTP/RTSP streams, over UDP mostly).
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
nvme0n1p1 3mo ago
Ok but have fun explaining that to the average person. Buying a dongle is easier than installing software or typing URLs into their TV ("my TV doesn't even have a keyboard"). To most people IPTV is a bunch of gibberish letters, indistinguishable from the gibberish brands on Amazon. Someone's grandma from Colorado doesn't deserve to get scammed because she didn't research the acronyms.
kube-system 3mo ago
That is chock-full of pirated content.
- crote 3mo ago
  Most of it seems to be first-party streams of content which is also available as unencrypted over-the-air broadcasts. It is paid for via ads or subsidies, so there's no reason to block access to the stream, so they just don't bother, and make life easier for anyone building streaming devices wanting to integrate their channel. Someone accessing the stream directly is not the originally intended use case, but it isn't any different from someone accessing it via their smart tv.

bluedino 3mo ago

Most people who buy these want to watch free movies, sports streams, etc that aren't on OTA or free services

Scoundreller 3mo ago
Or straight up unavailable on paid services. There’s often no way to legitimately subscribe to programming from $HomeCountry, especially if you’re not in a big Diaspora country.