4 ms·

really? Have you considered how difficult it is to obtain media legally nowadays? Even Netflix is a pain in the butt, what with ISPs purposely throttling it in

by kbar13 13y ago

really? Have you considered how difficult it is to obtain media legally nowadays? Even Netflix is a pain in the butt, what with ISPs purposely throttling it in addition to an incomplete library due to licensing and incompatibility due to silverlight.

forrestthewoods 13y ago
Bull. Fucking. Shit. It has in fact never been easier in the history of time to legally acquire media. It takes approximately 4 mouse clicks in iTunes to purchase and start downloading any movie, TV show, or music. You can start streaming it in after about 30 seconds, or you could let the whole thing download. The quality is also higher than pirated content because they have a fantastic encoding off of source material. If I gave you an iTunes account with free access to to everything on iTunes it would be far faster and easier to use than even Pirate Bay. Toss in a cheap $99 AppleTV and you can get it in your living room hassle free. The only downside, of course, is that it costs money. Of course renting a movie on iTunes is faster, easier, and cheaper than renting a VHS from the store 15 years ago but when you can pirate it for free who gives a shit? <insert snarky comment about not all media being available on iTunes or in all countries>
- zorpner 13y ago
  >>> <insert snarky comment about not all media being available on iTunes or in all countries> Oooh, I like this new feature where poorly-thought-out comments include their own rebuttal. Can't wait 'til it rolls out to the rest of HN.
  - GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
    This feature won't be available in your region
- kbar13 13y ago
  oh yeah? what happens if you want to watch that video on your nexus 7 tablet in bed?
  - adidash 13y ago
    Keep the tablet aside and use your hand :)
    - kbar13 13y ago
      oh cmon :)
- girvo 13y ago
  Come live in Australia, where we have a lot of money and content from overseas is a pain to get legally. Personally, I just stick to local content instead. Much easier.
- __david__ 13y ago
  > The only downside, of course, is that it costs money. No, the only downside is that iTunes Movies are DRMed BS. I have to buy an Apple TV to watch it on my TV. I have to use an iPhone and copy the movie to the phone, wasting my precious flash space. With the .mkv files I get from a .torrent, I can stream them to my TiVO with pyTivo [1], or I can host them on a server [2] and use StreamToMe [3] to stream them to my phone, ipad, computer across the cell network or local wifi with no restrictions. I can stream to non Apple devices with Subsonic [4]. It means when I'm visiting friends or family house we have access to all my movies without me having to plan ahead. It means when I accidentally arrive 40 minutes early to a meeting I can kill time in my car by streaming an episode of a TV show. To me that is the reason to pirate. I'm happy to buy stuff. I just want to actually be able to use the stuff that I buy. There is no service out there that does everything I can currently do. [1] https://github.com/armooo/pytivo https://github.com/armooo/pytivo [2] https://github.com/caldwell/stm.js https://github.com/caldwell/stm.js [3] http://zqueue.com/streamtome/index.html http://zqueue.com/streamtome/index.html [4] http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
  - jamespo 13y ago
    You could buy the DVD and rip it yourself
    - lmm 13y ago
      Sure, but by the time I've walked to the store the torrent would already be done. And I'd still have to break the law to rip the DVD.
      - fixedd 13y ago
        The most significant bit of that being that you have to break the law in order to use the content you've payed for.
- erikpukinskis 13y ago
  Except iTunes only has a tiny fraction of films available to rent. Bittorrent has basically all of them.
- Cor 13y ago
  > 'The quality is also higher than pirated content because they have a fantastic encoding off of source material.' This couldn't be further from the truth. x264 .mkv encodes look significantly better than the iTunes versions. For example, from Pacific Rim; x264 - http://imgbox.com/abwySllC http://imgbox.com/abwySllC iTunes - http://imgbox.com/adgle3KK http://imgbox.com/adgle3KK x264 - http://imgbox.com/abm2Jr9l http://imgbox.com/abm2Jr9l iTunes - http://imgbox.com/acpmeiCt http://imgbox.com/acpmeiCt The difference is night and day, in my opinion. The homebrew encodes usually come with higher quality audio, too. Funnily enough, I have a Netflix account, an Amazon Prime account, and a Lovefilm account (UK based DVD/Blu-Ray rental service). Despite having all these services, I still prefer to pirate movies because it's simply more convenient and the quality is better.
- ubercow13 13y ago
  i mostly agree except...the quality is better? not even slightly true. itunes will just mass encode batches of files they receive from studios with carefully chosen but probably speed-optimised encoder settings using GPUs probably. many people who encode pirated movies spend hours or days, or for tv series even weeks or more, on a single movie or show, tailoring the encoder settings to squeeze every last bit of quality they can manage out of the filesize they are aiming for, and some will even encode different scenes using different setting and then stitch them together. its not even close. not to mention you can easily pirate full Bluray discs without any reencoding.
  - forrestthewoods 13y ago
    Straight blu-ray rip is currently the best quality. But very few torrents are for the full 50gb disc. It's usually an 8-12gb 1080p or ~4.5gb 720p re-encode of the blu-ray encoding. Painstakingly done to the best that can be done, but it's still a double compression. iTunes on the other hand is encoding off raw source material so it can get higher quality at smaller size than what you see on torrents.
    - ubercow13 13y ago
      It just doesn't make a difference though, blu ray is easily high enough quality that the recompression matters much less than the specifics of the encoding when the iTunes files are about the same size
- mintone 13y ago
  I agree with you on this - I actually believe that the main issue is timing. Let's take The Great Gatsby as a quick example: Google shows the US release date as May 1 2013 in cinemas, with the DVD release on August 27 2013 - nearly 4 months after it's first out. By this time people will have been downloading a version of the film for at least a couple of months. Very few cinemas will still be screening the film after 3 months, so where does one go to see it in that period? The easy answer is to the internet. I believe that people will pay, and Spotify has huge success in releasing albums either early, at the same time or very shortly after physical release. Whilst this wouldn't be possible with films due to the fact that there isn't much of a secondary market (bands now taking the attitude that albums are a support to merch/shows), there is a need to rethink how quickly people can get access to films. If an HD rip is available after 2 months then perhaps iTunes should be ready to release the film at a higher price point (as they already do for some early digital releases) for those who are willing to pay the extra.
- fixedd 13y ago
  iTunes isn't available for my many platforms, now what?

by kbar13 13y ago

forrestthewoods 13y ago

Bull. Fucking. Shit. It has in fact never been easier in the history of time to legally acquire media. It takes approximately 4 mouse clicks in iTunes to purchase and start downloading any movie, TV show, or music. You can start streaming it in after about 30 seconds, or you could let the whole thing download. The quality is also higher than pirated content because they have a fantastic encoding off of source material. If I gave you an iTunes account with free access to to everything on iTunes it would be far faster and easier to use than even Pirate Bay. Toss in a cheap $99 AppleTV and you can get it in your living room hassle free. The only downside, of course, is that it costs money. Of course renting a movie on iTunes is faster, easier, and cheaper than renting a VHS from the store 15 years ago but when you can pirate it for free who gives a shit? <insert snarky comment about not all media being available on iTunes or in all countries>

zorpner 13y ago
>>> <insert snarky comment about not all media being available on iTunes or in all countries> Oooh, I like this new feature where poorly-thought-out comments include their own rebuttal. Can't wait 'til it rolls out to the rest of HN.
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
  This feature won't be available in your region
kbar13 13y ago
oh yeah? what happens if you want to watch that video on your nexus 7 tablet in bed?
- adidash 13y ago
  Keep the tablet aside and use your hand :)
  - kbar13 13y ago
    oh cmon :)
girvo 13y ago
Come live in Australia, where we have a lot of money and content from overseas is a pain to get legally. Personally, I just stick to local content instead. Much easier.
__david__ 13y ago
> The only downside, of course, is that it costs money. No, the only downside is that iTunes Movies are DRMed BS. I have to buy an Apple TV to watch it on my TV. I have to use an iPhone and copy the movie to the phone, wasting my precious flash space. With the .mkv files I get from a .torrent, I can stream them to my TiVO with pyTivo [1], or I can host them on a server [2] and use StreamToMe [3] to stream them to my phone, ipad, computer across the cell network or local wifi with no restrictions. I can stream to non Apple devices with Subsonic [4]. It means when I'm visiting friends or family house we have access to all my movies without me having to plan ahead. It means when I accidentally arrive 40 minutes early to a meeting I can kill time in my car by streaming an episode of a TV show. To me that is the reason to pirate. I'm happy to buy stuff. I just want to actually be able to use the stuff that I buy. There is no service out there that does everything I can currently do. [1] https://github.com/armooo/pytivo https://github.com/armooo/pytivo [2] https://github.com/caldwell/stm.js https://github.com/caldwell/stm.js [3] http://zqueue.com/streamtome/index.html http://zqueue.com/streamtome/index.html [4] http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
- jamespo 13y ago
  You could buy the DVD and rip it yourself
  - lmm 13y ago
    Sure, but by the time I've walked to the store the torrent would already be done. And I'd still have to break the law to rip the DVD.
    - fixedd 13y ago
      The most significant bit of that being that you have to break the law in order to use the content you've payed for.
erikpukinskis 13y ago
Except iTunes only has a tiny fraction of films available to rent. Bittorrent has basically all of them.
Cor 13y ago
> 'The quality is also higher than pirated content because they have a fantastic encoding off of source material.' This couldn't be further from the truth. x264 .mkv encodes look significantly better than the iTunes versions. For example, from Pacific Rim; x264 - http://imgbox.com/abwySllC http://imgbox.com/abwySllC iTunes - http://imgbox.com/adgle3KK http://imgbox.com/adgle3KK x264 - http://imgbox.com/abm2Jr9l http://imgbox.com/abm2Jr9l iTunes - http://imgbox.com/acpmeiCt http://imgbox.com/acpmeiCt The difference is night and day, in my opinion. The homebrew encodes usually come with higher quality audio, too. Funnily enough, I have a Netflix account, an Amazon Prime account, and a Lovefilm account (UK based DVD/Blu-Ray rental service). Despite having all these services, I still prefer to pirate movies because it's simply more convenient and the quality is better.
ubercow13 13y ago
i mostly agree except...the quality is better? not even slightly true. itunes will just mass encode batches of files they receive from studios with carefully chosen but probably speed-optimised encoder settings using GPUs probably. many people who encode pirated movies spend hours or days, or for tv series even weeks or more, on a single movie or show, tailoring the encoder settings to squeeze every last bit of quality they can manage out of the filesize they are aiming for, and some will even encode different scenes using different setting and then stitch them together. its not even close. not to mention you can easily pirate full Bluray discs without any reencoding.
- forrestthewoods 13y ago
  Straight blu-ray rip is currently the best quality. But very few torrents are for the full 50gb disc. It's usually an 8-12gb 1080p or ~4.5gb 720p re-encode of the blu-ray encoding. Painstakingly done to the best that can be done, but it's still a double compression. iTunes on the other hand is encoding off raw source material so it can get higher quality at smaller size than what you see on torrents.
  - ubercow13 13y ago
    It just doesn't make a difference though, blu ray is easily high enough quality that the recompression matters much less than the specifics of the encoding when the iTunes files are about the same size
mintone 13y ago
I agree with you on this - I actually believe that the main issue is timing. Let's take The Great Gatsby as a quick example: Google shows the US release date as May 1 2013 in cinemas, with the DVD release on August 27 2013 - nearly 4 months after it's first out. By this time people will have been downloading a version of the film for at least a couple of months. Very few cinemas will still be screening the film after 3 months, so where does one go to see it in that period? The easy answer is to the internet. I believe that people will pay, and Spotify has huge success in releasing albums either early, at the same time or very shortly after physical release. Whilst this wouldn't be possible with films due to the fact that there isn't much of a secondary market (bands now taking the attitude that albums are a support to merch/shows), there is a need to rethink how quickly people can get access to films. If an HD rip is available after 2 months then perhaps iTunes should be ready to release the film at a higher price point (as they already do for some early digital releases) for those who are willing to pay the extra.
fixedd 13y ago
iTunes isn't available for my many platforms, now what?