I don’t want to pirate. I want to pay for content. More importantly, I want to pay for content that I am able to play even after some random entity decides to change their licensing agreements. No...
I don’t want to pirate. I want to pay for content.
More importantly, I want to pay for content that I am able to play even after some random entity decides to change their licensing agreements.
No matter who owns the licensing for Blazing Saddles, that DVD still plays. I buy physical media for my TV shows and my music literally any time they are available.
If you, as a media producer, are unwilling or unable to let me pay to buy your product (I did say buy, not rent) then I have no moral problems with getting a copy that plays offline.
As I’ve gotten older, the important of physical has become greater for me. I gameboy games from my childhood that I still play, and my son will be able to play when he’s old enough. At the same...
As I’ve gotten older, the important of physical has become greater for me. I gameboy games from my childhood that I still play, and my son will be able to play when he’s old enough. At the same time, I have digital games and media I’ve lost access to, money completely down the drain.
GBA emulators might not be forward-compatible with future OSes, and patching the OS or emulator is out of their control (probably). In contrast, their physical games can always be played, assuming...
GBA emulators might not be forward-compatible with future OSes, and patching the OS or emulator is out of their control (probably).
In contrast, their physical games can always be played, assuming reasonable care and maintenance, which is within their control.
My point was that using emulators would still rely on the goodwill of continued support from its developers, which echoes the original issue of having to rely on Amazon/Disney/etc's goodwill in...
My point was that using emulators would still rely on the goodwill of continued support from its developers, which echoes the original issue of having to rely on Amazon/Disney/etc's goodwill in hosting TV shows.
Physical copies would reduce such dependency on third parties, especially if you store it properly with humidity control and such. It is not expensive and more importantly it is entirely actionable by the average person.
Sorry, but that truly is a non argument. It simply isn't reasonable to expect to be able to maintain every product you use. So you still will need to rely on others there.
Sorry, but that truly is a non argument.
It simply isn't reasonable to expect to be able to maintain every product you use.
So you still will need to rely on others there.
It's not realistic for the average person (or even the average incredibly talented software developer with no day job) to maintain a full suite of free software applications. However, it's not...
It's not realistic for the average person (or even the average incredibly talented software developer with no day job) to maintain a full suite of free software applications. However, it's not unrealistic to expect a popular, high-quality free software application to pick up new maintainers if the current ones lose interest or otherwise step away.
"You, personally, could fork it" is not a strong defense of free software; but, as @cstby says, it's nothing like relying on corporate-backed proprietary software.
Would you call 20 year old portable video game emulation "popular", though? At some point, interest fades and isn't replaced. And/or possibly some less altruistic people can simply fork and...
However, it's not unrealistic to expect a popular, high-quality free software application to pick up new maintainers if the current ones lose interest or otherwise step away.
Would you call 20 year old portable video game emulation "popular", though? At some point, interest fades and isn't replaced. And/or possibly some less altruistic people can simply fork and maintain their own not FOSS portion of that software.
FOSS is still made of people, and even talent people can be fickle or simply become sabeteurs. Some of the biggest dramas I've seen in the scene have been from fan modding; both among modders and the customers using the mods. After seeing some of the entitlement I can't blame modders when they decide to start putting stuff behind some sort of pay wall (literal or not). Similar to Craigslist, you charge even a single dollar and suddenly you get much nicer clients than when you try to give away something.
The SNES was released in North America in 1991 (30yr+) and its quite popular to emulate, relatively speaking. The most hardware accurate emulator for it, higen (formerly bsnes), is a multi system...
The SNES was released in North America in 1991 (30yr+) and its quite popular to emulate, relatively speaking. The most hardware accurate emulator for it, higen (formerly bsnes), is a multi system emulator which covers a bunch of old systems, including portables Game Boy (original, color, advance) and Game Gear. The original still has some commits since the death of the original author, and there’s some forks (plus a new bsnes)
Game emulation is, if anything, one of the more popular areas within Open Source development due to the fondness and nostalgia people have for particular games they played when they were younger....
Game emulation is, if anything, one of the more popular areas within Open Source development due to the fondness and nostalgia people have for particular games they played when they were younger. The task is much less thankless than maintaining useful but not flashy open source software because of that. It is a very active scene even for consoles far, far, FAR more niche than a Gameboy.
For now. Nothing is forever. At some point those emulators will just be toys students make in their free time to prep their portfolio for industry work. Similar to how cartridges aren't made to...
For now. Nothing is forever. At some point those emulators will just be toys students make in their free time to prep their portfolio for industry work. Similar to how cartridges aren't made to last 80+ years in the future.
These sorts of niches tend to rely a lot more on 1-2 people than you expect. And people are prone to all sorts of quirks, from corruption to dying to simply moving on in life.
You say "these sorts of niches" in a way that I suspect means you aren't actually familiar with many emulation projects in this space. Even if a given project is run by one person who loses...
You say "these sorts of niches" in a way that I suspect means you aren't actually familiar with many emulation projects in this space. Even if a given project is run by one person who loses interest, these projects are so overwhelmingly open source that all it takes is one other person who's both interested and technical enough to pick it up. You as an individual don't have to rely on your own ability to do so, but just on the likelihood of someone else who is able and willing existing. And currently? There are a lot of such people in the videogame emulation space.
Unless you're worried about all other open source software that you rely on failing imminently (better not install VLC, they might suddenly lose interest and stop maintaining it), you seem to be under the impression there's something uniquely transient about people's desire to emulate retro videogames as opposed to other tasks people accomplish with software. I'm not convinced there's any evidence of this that you can point to. I've already brought up many reasons I think they may in fact even be less likely to suffer from the "oh no we lost our only maintainer" problem than more practical open source software. In any case, there are currently tons of people working to prevent old games from becoming shovelware and I'm convinced there will still be enough of them when I'm dead, absent some sort of cataclysm that radically alters most people's priorities.
By contrast, the batteries in Gameboy cartridges last 15 (+/- 5) years. And even if you're able to easily replace such batteries, that disregards the increasing difficulty in finding physical cartridges for particular titles, especially those that didn't originally sell very well. It's often possible to make new physical cartridges, of course... but it's subject to all the same problems are creating emulation software is, plus some more.
The biggest risk to being able to play your games in the future, regardless of whether you use a physical cartridge or a download, is games that rely on a connection to particular servers. Those are the games that are truly at risk of genuinely not being playable anymore. You are far more at risk of Nintendo shutting down an online service needed to run your game (or if you're lucky just some of its features) than you are of there no longer being a working emulator of your game. Heck, the biggest risk to the existence of working emulators is ALSO Nintendo (or whoever else depending on the relevant system) shutting them down.
I say "these sorts of niches" in a way that I am very familiar with true abandon-ware and lost media. which still happens to this day. I'm not saying one day soon that SNES emulation will...
You say "these sorts of niches" in a way that I suspect means you aren't actually familiar with many emulation projects in this space.
I say "these sorts of niches" in a way that I am very familiar with true abandon-ware and lost media. which still happens to this day.
I'm not saying one day soon that SNES emulation will collapse. I can't predict that and to be frank, it is made up of franchises still supported to this day. So I wouldn't bet on it. But talking in a more general sense, I simply want to warn of the false security in relying on the goodwill of the gray hats to maintain everything you love (I expanded upon this in another reply I just made). If you only really like popular hardware, software, and franchises, you can disregard my comments.
you seem to be under the impression there's something uniquely transient about people's desire to emulate retro videogames as opposed to other tasks people accomplish with software.
Not particularly, no. Outside of Video games being the hardest medium to preserve in a way that is easy to playback, this applies to all medium. music, movies, books, even (or especially) the online gaming era.
But I just want to remind everyone that it is still a niche and that most people aren't clamoring to emulate retro games. It may not fail, but it is far from "too big to fail". I'm not particularly arguing with anything in this thread so much as hoping to have people know that not every piece of software is valued equally (which you can see by simply browsing the compatibility list of your favorite emulator). And if you happen to like those less valued pieces of softwware, you may be headed to disappointment if you rely on the sentiment of "someone cares enough AND knows enough to preserve this".
But honestly still not a huge argument against. If you get a steam deck now and install every known video game up to ps2 with emulators, you have that working until the machine dies. I think it's...
But honestly still not a huge argument against. If you get a steam deck now and install every known video game up to ps2 with emulators, you have that working until the machine dies.
I think it's enough reason to buy the old systems for the way they look and fit in your hand honesrly. I don't think the 'buy it for life' argument holds water though. Emulation now is so good and open source the only way you can't have it is if x86 computers dissappear and if thar is the case I bet some of the first open source code for the new pc of the future will probably be emulators.
Less an argument and more of a warning. I've been a part of several niches and there's no worse feeling than hoping something is saved/preserved but the audience is too small, lacking the passion...
But honestly still not a huge argument against
Less an argument and more of a warning. I've been a part of several niches and there's no worse feeling than hoping something is saved/preserved but the audience is too small, lacking the passion nor expertise to properly do that. You are always used to someone picking up the mantle for your loved works. and then one day it just doesn't happen.
And when that happens: sometimes you end up with a surprisingly talked about game not being localized for 20 years despite there being an audience (not for the lack of trying, but enough drama to scare off the talent). Or some game server going down without hopes of enough assets to make a private server. Or some piece of media just wasn't properly uploaded to a publicly accessible place and is lost to time, becoming lost media despite being from a surprisingly popular brand that may be on someone's mom's laptop in an attic. That can still be the case for some media in the future that is commonplace today.
People who care about emulation/preservation are inherently in a minority so this should always be in the back of their minds. Software requires maintenance and unpaid maintenance requires interest. Interest isn't anymore eternal than hardware
If you get a steam deck now and install every known video game up to ps2 with emulators, you have that working
With some quirks, but sure. Enough of the popular games have full compatibility with PCSX2 that it will satisfy 95% of players. My tastes seem to hit that 5% surprisingly often in various scenes, though.
Those are some good points for sure. I think I do really take for granted the internet and its preservation. I've always had the opposite experience where I thought things I knew of were lost to...
Those are some good points for sure. I think I do really take for granted the internet and its preservation. I've always had the opposite experience where I thought things I knew of were lost to obsucrity only to see them perfectly preserved and easily found.
I am probably biased as well that despite having a basement full of old consoles starting from atari, most of them are just not working in one way or another where as the emulated versions of them have been running perfectly on various hardware for years. We even have a smashed 3ds that we can't play anything on and I feel bad because my kids never got to really see the games in 3d (they were younger when we had it so I had the 3d effect off). I know citra and and VR can get it there but still it doesn't have that wow factor of the original setup.
I also am strongly on the side of digital preservation and outright ownership too, I really don't like the direction digital sales are going in lately and I hope that we continue to own our stuff. I don't like that a generation of us accept powerful mobile computers where there is a whole concept of needing to 'root' your computer. I can't imagine installing windows and being locked out from a portion of it, that would be insane.
But yeah for sure I see and agree really in most of your points and you are right my answer is definitly biased towards past posative experiences rather than having dealth with a severe digital loss at any time.
Exactly. You don't actually have to maintain the FOSS stuff yourself. You just need to be plugged into a community that maintains it and benefit as a free rider. I have lots of FOSS tools I've...
Exactly. You don't actually have to maintain the FOSS stuff yourself. You just need to be plugged into a community that maintains it and benefit as a free rider. I have lots of FOSS tools I've used for years and never really worried about maintenance. They just steadily get updated as someone in the world gets a bug up their butts about something and addresses it.
With hardware, you will need to maintain it yourself. And, eventually, you need to figure out how to get spare parts after they stop selling them. Eventually they won't even make the tooling and equipment to make the parts anymore.
Why are you bouncing from one extreme to the other? You seems to gloss over a bunch of nuance here. Yes eventually hardware will also have issues, but until it does it "just" works and isn't in...
Why are you bouncing from one extreme to the other?
You seems to gloss over a bunch of nuance here. Yes eventually hardware will also have issues, but until it does it "just" works and isn't in need of the same sort of maintenance software emulators need to keep up with things like OS changes and all that. Which is where you came in with the argument that they could "just" learn to maintain it themselves. Stating that someone needs to become a full blown software developer in order to keep playing certain games is, as I already said, a non argument.
I would even go as far to say that maintaining old hardware is indeed easier. Even more so for the 40± old hardware you mentioned as components in there are bigger and easier to swap out. With a whole less knowledge and experience compared to what is needed for software development.
So when working hardware is still a good reliable option I fully understand some people not wanting to dive into the realm of emulators.
And then I haven't even touched on the process of researching what emulators are out there. Which ones are still maintained, which ones are working properly with the games you want to play, etc.
It's not hard. Most emulators out there that are easily accessible aren't deprecated. Most emulators made in the past fifteen years will run on most laptops that aren't fifteen or twenty years...
It's not hard. Most emulators out there that are easily accessible aren't deprecated. Most emulators made in the past fifteen years will run on most laptops that aren't fifteen or twenty years old. Some will, though if you have a really, really old desktop or laptop. If that's the case, then you might have more issues on hand than figuring out an emulator though.
That isn't taking into account rom carts you can just plug into the original hardware if someone isn't too braindead to put roms onto a cart and plug it into a console and then navigate to the roms to play them. That applies to consoles and handheld consoles, too these days.
If that's too hard, there's always Nintendo Switch Online Plus which is $50 a year to emulate whatever Nintendo decides your $50/year is worth on a Switch, mostly with the exact same roms you can get for free online.
Acting like you have to research emulators in 2024 is kinda weird, it's not like you can't just search for help across tons of threads all over the internet for almost any emulated video game system. Mabye in the early to mid 2000s, you'd have to do some digging but it's long past that point.
Sticking to hardware these days is more aesthetic than practical. I can buy a rom cart for my Sega Genesis that can run every game ever made for it, for a fraction of the price of buying one or two two first party physical carts. There are plug and play mods for most popular newer consoles now that require nothing more than a screwdriver and the willingness to plug in something. Sometimes all you have to do is flash some firmware, if you're so inclined. The PS2 and PS3 are very easy to crack that way.
Anyone buying straight up physical games for old consoles has more money than sense these days, considering the inflated price that "classic" physical games are seeing at the moment.
I am not sure if I just failed to write coherently or if we are back at reddit as far as discussions go where things get fought over based on things that haven't been said. I'll give it one more...
I am not sure if I just failed to write coherently or if we are back at reddit as far as discussions go where things get fought over based on things that haven't been said. I'll give it one more try.
It's not hard. Most emulators out there that are easily accessible aren't deprecated.
I didn't say it is hard. But I did say there is still effort involved. You still need to research what emulators are out there and which ones are the good ones. And, no, that isn't always straightforward. For a well-supported platform like the NES there are multiple options where it isn't always clear what the difference is. Not to mention that if you google for emulators you also get a ton of shady websites.
That isn't taking into account rom carts you can just plug into the original hardware if someone isn't too braindead to put roms onto a cart and plug it into a console and then navigate to the roms to play them.
Ignoring the unnecessary "braindead" aggressive jab here. You are right, this can be a good in between approach.
However, I do think you are operating a bit from the curse of knowledge bias here again. For starters, people first need to know that this is also a possibility. Then still need to research what ROM carts there are, how to obtain them, etc. Which is doable, but does require time and effort. In the original comment, they are talking about games they bought as a kid, not buying cartridges for old consoles. This means that all of the above is extra effort that is not needed as they already have the cartridges they care about. They are effectively making the argument that if they can they buy new media physically whenever possible so they know they won't lose access to it through companies fucking around.
Additionally, their argument was more about them having lost to digital media they no longer have access to. Which is a reality in the context of this entire post, media on online services isn't around forever.
And finally, personal preference is a thing. Something that in this context is also very much a valid argument.
Starting off, I'd like to apologize. I wasn't trying to fight although I think my tone was certainly not conducive to constructive conversation. I'm sorry if that came off that way. I guess that...
I am not sure if I just failed to write coherently or if we are back at reddit as far as discussions go where things get fought over based on things that haven't been said. I'll give it one more try.
Starting off, I'd like to apologize. I wasn't trying to fight although I think my tone was certainly not conducive to constructive conversation. I'm sorry if that came off that way.
I guess that doesn't help when people are trying to learn about emulation because I've been engaged with that community here and there for probably close to twenty years so I sometimes make assumptions that people may know about options available when they're just looking for more information in general.
This means that all of the above is extra effort that is not needed as they already have the cartridges they care about. They are effectively making the argument that if they can they buy new media physically whenever possible so they know they won't lose access to it through companies fucking around.
Certainly. We can't trust our games will be available forever as a digital service/live service or what have you. In that case, I'd suggest that the OP with the games they'd like to keep, find a device online that will allow them to rip the games and safely store or play them on their preferred device. It also does make a case for buying physical games, but that can be challenging based on system, availability, or price gouging if it's a popular title in the "retro gaming" market.
As for modern digital games, if you want to own them, than GoG is kinda the only way to go as far as I know in terms of DRM free "what you see is what you own" sort of purchases in the digital space.
I'm pretty sure ROM files aren't specific to specific emulators. Even if an individual emulator no longer works on a new OS, another is likely to rise to take its place. As far as digital media...
I'm pretty sure ROM files aren't specific to specific emulators. Even if an individual emulator no longer works on a new OS, another is likely to rise to take its place.
As far as digital media goes, an emulator and ROM are pretty long-lasting. Your specific save file might get lost, but you can usually replace the ROM or emulator pretty easily.
Yeah the logic in those old games was literal connections between circuit boards. This is a gross oversimplification, but the ROM is basically just a virtual version of that circuit board. The...
Yeah the logic in those old games was literal connections between circuit boards. This is a gross oversimplification, but the ROM is basically just a virtual version of that circuit board. The emulator simulates all the work and abstraction involved in interpreting that board into stuff.
There's quite a bit more to it, obviously. But that's the ELI5 version.
Even as a simplification, I don't think that's very accurate. Most ROMs are just dumps of ordinary code and data, possibly with a small header identifying what additional hardware the cartridge...
Even as a simplification, I don't think that's very accurate. Most ROMs are just dumps of ordinary code and data, possibly with a small header identifying what additional hardware the cartridge contained. The logic in those old games was coded in Assembly code, not by physical manipulation of hardware connections. It's true that they often contained custom hardware (sometimes a lot in the case of arcade machines), but that isn't what makes up the bulk of a ROM dump. After all, ROM is short for Read-Only Memory.
Yes and no. Cartridge-based games had all sorts of quirks, like varying amounts of memory, or even embedded co-processors. You do need to hardcode support for that stuff.
I'm pretty sure ROM files aren't specific to specific emulators.
Yes and no. Cartridge-based games had all sorts of quirks, like varying amounts of memory, or even embedded co-processors. You do need to hardcode support for that stuff.
Example isn't too weird to me since I think they're talking about games purchased through Steam or console eshops. The Gameboy games can be passed down physically as long as you don't lose them...
Example isn't too weird to me since I think they're talking about games purchased through Steam or console eshops. The Gameboy games can be passed down physically as long as you don't lose them and can find a Gameboy to play them, but you can lose access to your entire digital library with little recourse. All sorts of horror stories about hackers and being banned, and even spiteful family/partners or parents trying to discipline their kids by deleting their Steam accounts without understanding that.
While I agree that it's less of a risk than getting hacked or banned, it is not true that physical Gameboy cartridges will work forever as long as you have a Gameboy to play them. Gameboy...
While I agree that it's less of a risk than getting hacked or banned, it is not true that physical Gameboy cartridges will work forever as long as you have a Gameboy to play them. Gameboy cartridges contain batteries that will die. Over time it will get harder and harder to find a working one and it will eventually be pretty much impossible. Digital media isn't eternal either, but pirated ROMs are much more secure than their physical counterparts because they don't physically decay in the same way.
With a soldering iron and new batteries it's pretty easy to replace the battery in a Game Boy cartridge. I done it a few times myself when I upgraded my childhood Game Boy Colour with a backlit...
With a soldering iron and new batteries it's pretty easy to replace the battery in a Game Boy cartridge. I done it a few times myself when I upgraded my childhood Game Boy Colour with a backlit LCD screen a few years ago.
It's not impossible, but it's certainly not trivial. Depends highly on your skillset and what tools you have available. I certainly wouldn't trust myself to do it as someone who has never soldered...
It's not impossible, but it's certainly not trivial. Depends highly on your skillset and what tools you have available. I certainly wouldn't trust myself to do it as someone who has never soldered before! The Gameboy Color with a backlit screen sounds super cool -- a used Game Boy Color was my first ever console and I remember getting the little light attachment so I could play when it was too dark out.
I respect people who prefer physical media, I just want to push back on equating the existence of digital media with the "you don't actually own anything" system of legally monetizing it. There are genuine advantages to it, and there can be pretty wacky problems with physical media too. It's the shitty monetization that's the problem with streaming, not necessarily the fact that they're digital.
I get that, I'm just pushing back on your point that it'll eventually be impossible to own working physical Game Boy games when it's not too difficult to change the battery yourself with a bit of...
I get that, I'm just pushing back on your point that it'll eventually be impossible to own working physical Game Boy games when it's not too difficult to change the battery yourself with a bit of research, patience, a soldering iron and replacement batteries. If you're not comfortable doing that, there's probably a computer or electronics repair shop nearby most people that could do it for fairly cheap.
I agree though, I have a huge digital library of movies, music, podcasts, TV Shows and YouTube videos on a 10TB NAS in my office that uses Jellyfin as a frontend. I also have a giant library of 300+ video games from the NES up to PS2 that I can emulate on my PC. These are all also backed up on a 500GB hard drive in my home.
I own a mixed bag of physical and digital media. But the vast majority of my media is digital.
I get that. Again, I think the comment is more about owning digitally purchased media. All forms of media ownership run a risk of it being lost over time, but a digitally purchased library tied to...
I get that. Again, I think the comment is more about owning digitally purchased media. All forms of media ownership run a risk of it being lost over time, but a digitally purchased library tied to specific accounts feels a lot more flimsy, for lack of a better word.
If you lose a device with a GBA or DS rom downloaded to it, you can easily find another download to replace it. I've done that when my old laptop went kaput. If I were to have my Steam account suddenly banned or deleted though, I'd have no way of getting those games back. That's hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of purchases gone in a single instant.
Physical media can also be lost en masse, but digital libraries do feel a lot easier to suddenly lose for trivial reasons beyond our control. Like you said in another comment, it's how it's monetized that make it feel so risky. We're basically dependent on these companies A) acting in good faith forevermore and NOT screwing with our libraries, and B) not suddenly going bankrupt or shutting down. The second point is unlikely (and would probably have plenty of warning for people to figure out how to preserve their libraries), but the first one is a bigger concern. There's a lot of ways companies could screw with our accounts and libraries.
oh yeah absolutely 100% agree on this about digitally purchased content. I just also saw the person above arguing against pirated ROMs elsewhere in the thread, so I was partially motivated by that...
oh yeah absolutely 100% agree on this about digitally purchased content. I just also saw the person above arguing against pirated ROMs elsewhere in the thread, so I was partially motivated by that in my response
Louis Rossmann put it best. I'm willing to pay for content but I will go out of my way to pirate, adblock, etc. if I get a better experience when "stealing" content.
Louis Rossmann put it best. I'm willing to pay for content but I will go out of my way to pirate, adblock, etc. if I get a better experience when "stealing" content.
I won't even go as far. But for example, when I already pay for content, I don't want to then see ads. And it's not like Amazon starts this only now, even before that they have always shown 1+ ads...
More importantly, I want to pay for content that I am able to play even after some random entity decides to change their licensing agreements.
I won't even go as far.
But for example, when I already pay for content, I don't want to then see ads. And it's not like Amazon starts this only now, even before that they have always shown 1+ ads for other shows or movies of theirs, and of course they ignore the language I set my content to and play it in my country's language based on IP.
As always, if pirates get a better service despite having to content with rips and reencoding and streaming and shit, then companies should not be surprised that the combination of "no need to pay money" + "better service than if you had paid" leads to people pirating their content.
There's a reason that in the early days before hyper-fragmentation of the market, Netflix utterly curbed piracy of shows and movies. Now with everyone carving their own little piece of content into their own little service and also constantly degrading the quality of said service and muddling their design (see Netflix providing games, of which some are nice but wtf Netflix, I don't associate you with games and I don't want to do that, either!), it's no wonder the value proposition of each individual service has declined enough to make piracy superior again.
I have a similar issue. I want my kids to learn our language, Hindi. That content in that language in India is available but I can't pay for that dub in the US. But I pay for Disney+ and others...
I have a similar issue. I want my kids to learn our language, Hindi. That content in that language in India is available but I can't pay for that dub in the US. But I pay for Disney+ and others that have the content in other Geos.
I will pay extra money for specific languages but they don't want my money. So I have to spin up Jellyfin and figure out how that works and find trackers for kids shows in Hindi and that's a wild ride.
I remember that for many anime on Netflix I had to VPN into the US in order to get English subs or dubs because I live in Germany, and they only deign to give me English subs on content that...
I remember that for many anime on Netflix I had to VPN into the US in order to get English subs or dubs because I live in Germany, and they only deign to give me English subs on content that doesn't have originally English audio occasionally. My wife is Norwegian and has an even more frustrating time on that front, as if she wants to show me something from her childhood with Norwegian dubs we have to just pray Netflix included them in our region.
One pet peeve of mine: streaming services don't offer English captions that are not designed for hearing impaired people, when viewing English content. On the other hand, pirated content does...
One pet peeve of mine: streaming services don't offer English captions that are not designed for hearing impaired people, when viewing English content. On the other hand, pirated content does...
I will say that I've had mixed luck finding good captions in non-English when pirating. But it depends a lot on the film; I have captions for Kimi No Na Wa in way more languages than Netflix has...
I will say that I've had mixed luck finding good captions in non-English when pirating. But it depends a lot on the film; I have captions for Kimi No Na Wa in way more languages than Netflix has ever offered me at once for anything.
This hasn't been my experience. Sometimes there's the descriptive captions for Deaf and HoH people but basically everything has English subtitles and I'm in the US. Is there something I'm...
This hasn't been my experience. Sometimes there's the descriptive captions for Deaf and HoH people but basically everything has English subtitles and I'm in the US. Is there something I'm misunderstanding about what you mean?
I don't live in the US. Content on Netflix, Disney or HBO either has a range of captions, English + local language or just the local language. It varies. On these three services, all the English...
I don't live in the US. Content on Netflix, Disney or HBO either has a range of captions, English + local language or just the local language. It varies. On these three services, all the English captions are closed captions (for hearing impaired). They're never simply English captions, without "DOOR CREAKS", "EXPLOSION IN DISTANCE", etc.
Gotcha, this is definitely some sort of local choice or function of the streamers showing/owning rights to different content as those subtitles exist on every show I've watched in the US.
Gotcha, this is definitely some sort of local choice or function of the streamers showing/owning rights to different content as those subtitles exist on every show I've watched in the US.
I had not even considered this issue. That would be incredibly frustrating as a parent. I hope that your kids (eventually) find and appreciate the effort that you put in to help them learn the...
I had not even considered this issue. That would be incredibly frustrating as a parent. I hope that your kids (eventually) find and appreciate the effort that you put in to help them learn the language.
I find it interesting to contrast movies/TV with music. We can pick from many different music streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, etc) and in general you can listen to the...
I find it interesting to contrast movies/TV with music. We can pick from many different music streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, etc) and in general you can listen to the same music on any of them (I'm sure there's exceptions). I just want that for movies & TV. I want to be able to just go to "my preferred streaming service" and type in the name of any show and binge it. Better yet if you could just download the files and stick them on a Jellyfin or Plex server instead of relying on a third party service.
I mean, this is why Blockbuster succeeded way back in the day. And then premium cable packages (emphasis on "package"), and then sreeamun. Most people don't care to do more than experience a work...
I mean, this is why Blockbuster succeeded way back in the day. And then premium cable packages (emphasis on "package"), and then sreeamun. Most people don't care to do more than experience a work more than once. So it doesn't make a difference if it's a $20 purchase or a $5 blockbuster rental. And if there's no difference to that customer, the cheapest option wins.
Steaming can get away with all this because it's still the cheapest and most convinent option. The charts I see in one of the sources doesn't exactly look like anything that a business would freak out over, so it's just business as usual to account for it, not an alarm bell to reverse course.
The last straw for me was when my mother finished season 1 of Manifest on Netflix and found out that Netflix only carried seasons 1 and 4, they didn't own the rights for the others. I can't think...
The last straw for me was when my mother finished season 1 of Manifest on Netflix and found out that Netflix only carried seasons 1 and 4, they didn't own the rights for the others. I can't think of a more perfect illustration of how fragmented the streaming industry is than that.
I saw that video it was surprising (because it is not exactly about games), but awesome. He made fun of the ultra-fragmented streaming ecosystem in his trademark sarcastic style that very few...
I saw that video it was surprising (because it is not exactly about games), but awesome. He made fun of the ultra-fragmented streaming ecosystem in his trademark sarcastic style that very few other people like Ryan George can pull off.
Netflix does this a lot, at least in my country. If it's not a Netflix original you can bet there are missing seasons. What's the point? Just being able to lure people in by saying they have the...
Netflix does this a lot, at least in my country. If it's not a Netflix original you can bet there are missing seasons. What's the point? Just being able to lure people in by saying they have the show without having to spend as much money on licensing?
I bet the copyright holders are incentivized to do this. Each streaming service might pay a lot for one season and less for subsequent seasons as they know just having one is enough to get people...
I bet the copyright holders are incentivized to do this. Each streaming service might pay a lot for one season and less for subsequent seasons as they know just having one is enough to get people to sign up for a month. So theoretically the copyright holder would actively try to sell each season to a different service.
I remember watching a series on Netflix and the series disappeared when I was in the middle of a season - I was watching it one day and the next day when I wanted to continue, the whole series was...
I remember watching a series on Netflix and the series disappeared when I was in the middle of a season - I was watching it one day and the next day when I wanted to continue, the whole series was gone. If I remember correctly, that was the last time I ever watched Netflix.
This article looks like it's just taking a study from September and dressing it up for clicks in the wake of advertisements coming to Prime? Here's the original reporting on the study per...
This article looks like it's just taking a study from September and dressing it up for clicks in the wake of advertisements coming to Prime?
In previous studies, a clear downtrend was visible, suggesting that piracy had seen its peak. While this may still be the case, the most recent data suggests that there was a notable increase in piracy levels over the past two years.
Overall, the latest study shows that piracy traffic started to grow again at the start of 2021, after years of decline.
...
Current piracy levels are still nowhere near what they were five years ago. However, a trend reversal is notable and may suggest that we’re at a pivotal point in time.
Yeah I feel like a lot of these just have a thesis and work backwards. In particular, this is just something that seems to be assumed? I don't think that's what happened at all, though. They...
Yeah I feel like a lot of these just have a thesis and work backwards. In particular, this is just something that seems to be assumed?
They finally realized they needed to compete with piracy and focus on consumer satisfaction whether they liked the concept or not.
I don't think that's what happened at all, though. They weren't competing with piracy, they were competing with Netflix. They saw Netflix both find new viewership cable didn't have access to and take significant portions of their owner customer base year by year. To say it was about "piracy" isn't just something you can put out there like it's an assumed truth of the world.
And that's the underpinning of the entire argument.
The actual sources don't even really prove that poit well, with multiple sources saying "although it's not hit the peak of 5 years ago, it is slowly pivoting"....
The actual sources don't even really prove that poit well, with multiple sources saying "although it's not hit the peak of 5 years ago, it is slowly pivoting".
I was just reading an article about this. https://www.vg247.com/pokemon-tv-shutting-down-anime-series-streaming-services no endorsement of this site, I just agree with this quote: "I cannot begin...
no endorsement of this site, I just agree with this quote:
"I cannot begin to explain how baffling it is that the Pokemon anime is distributed across streaming services. It's easy enough to watch the first season, it's on Netflix. After that you'll need to move over to Prime Video for season two, though this is under Prime Video Channels, which typically charge an extra fee. Through that, and some seasons that are just outright available on the service, you could technically watch up to season 22 on Prime, then switch back to Netflix for season 23 through 25. Otherwise, you'll have to bounce between Hulu, the Roku Channel, Tubi, Freevee, and… Hoopla? Yeah, I'll pass thanks."
I know where you CAN watch all of the Pokémon anime in one place, and completely for free...
I just wish piracy protections wouldn't affect the paying customers. For example I like to screenshot anime or series that I'm watching on my tablet. But just like banking apps when I do it gets...
I just wish piracy protections wouldn't affect the paying customers. For example I like to screenshot anime or series that I'm watching on my tablet. But just like banking apps when I do it gets turned into a black picture. So the only choice that I have is either installing some weird software or just pirating it. :/
Very timely. After Amazon Prime just announced their addition of ads to their service, in addition to Netflix and Youtube Premium's price hikes, I recently spun up my NAS again and downloaded a...
Very timely. After Amazon Prime just announced their addition of ads to their service, in addition to Netflix and Youtube Premium's price hikes, I recently spun up my NAS again and downloaded a couple shows I wanted to watch. I've had it with what the streaming industry has become.
I just recently bought an old Enterprise PC and stuck some hard drives in it to create a media library. I've been ripping some of my DVD collection on to it the past month or so and even added a...
I just recently bought an old Enterprise PC and stuck some hard drives in it to create a media library. I've been ripping some of my DVD collection on to it the past month or so and even added a couple shows and movies me and my partner have wanted to watch via torrent.
I stopped pirating content in 2010 when I was using Steam and got Netflix, Now I'm back pirating some content purely because I'm spending £40 a month on streaming services that have fractured content all over the place and are now going to start charging me extra to watch this fractured content without ads.
The straw that broke the camels back for me was buying Die Hard on Amazon Prime for £4.99 to watch it with my girlfriend (I have Die Hard 1-4 on DVD but they're in a big box in the spare bedroom and I'm lazy). I then realised I couldn't actually download the film to watch offline anywhere I wanted and that I had to install a separate app to watch it encrypted offline that I realised I'd only bought a licence to watch the film under very specific circumstances.
I'm switching back to physical media with torrenting for content I struggle to get with an offline backup on my NAS.
Gabe Newell said it for games, right ? But it applies here. Currently, piracy offers an overall better service than paid streaming. You can get all seasons of any show or any movie you want on any...
Gabe Newell said it for games, right ? But it applies here. Currently, piracy offers an overall better service than paid streaming. You can get all seasons of any show or any movie you want on any torrent or pirate stream site of your choice......for free. AND, if you download it, it is preserved with you as long as you can maintain your storage devices. You don't have to give a fuck about license agreements expiring and paid-for content no longer being available. I have a library of my most cherished movies and tv shows saved across several storage devices. They will remain available to me till i die.
Exactly this is my feeling about all this. I downloaded before Netflix, but when its library online became bigger I switched. I was happy to pay $10 a month for good content on demand, and I don’t...
Exactly this is my feeling about all this. I downloaded before Netflix, but when its library online became bigger I switched. I was happy to pay $10 a month for good content on demand, and I don’t even want to keep the content forever. I just want easy access and a service that recommends stuff that I might like.
Today, I’m no longer a customer. Stuff is too fragmented and there’s no one service that provides all the content I’m interested in. And I refuse to subscribe to more services to end up with even more content I’m not interested in, only because each provider has some content I do want to see. And the services themselves are becoming worse and worse: Netflix removing the option to rate content, removing suggestions that actually fit my preferences, ads….ads wtf. They totally shittyfied the space, and I have a feeling it started when Disney decided they weren’t making enough money and had to join the party.
Is that true though? Streaming is: easy to set up easy of use (search, press play, remembers where you left off,, etc) relatively inexpensive (compared to movie theatres) fine quality Where piracy...
piracy offers an overall better service than paid streaming
Is that true though? Streaming is:
easy to set up
easy of use (search, press play, remembers where you left off,, etc)
relatively inexpensive (compared to movie theatres)
We still have permanence in digital purposes. But few who stream shows care and it never seems to come up in these discussions becsuse no one wants to pay $20 for a box set of every season of...
We still have permanence in digital purposes. But few who stream shows care and it never seems to come up in these discussions becsuse no one wants to pay $20 for a box set of every season of every show they want to watch.
If more people valued permanence, then streaming wouldn't have taken over. But the fact is that few do. Very few people even beat a video game, let alone do a repeat playthrough. Very few people re-watch a movie. Few reread books. Music may be a bigger exception to this, but most music never has thst urge to be looped.
And sure you CAN get banned from a service you buy from... But is anyone really thst concerned about being banned from Steam? From Apple? From Amazon? I imagine less than 10% do much more than order a product or go through automated refunds. How are most people getting banned? It's simply not a worry for them.
Another huge one for piracy (as well as physical media, which is my preference, but the selection is getting to be very poor) that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone, but it sure as heck...
Another huge one for piracy (as well as physical media, which is my preference, but the selection is getting to be very poor) that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone, but it sure as heck applies to me: You can still access it while offline or while your internet access is otherwise spotty.
These are the times I most want something to watch — when I'm traveling, when the power is out and I have nothing to do (but my laptop still has juice), etc.
Also, don't forget lack of ads and assorted UI annoyances (depending on the streaming service it's compared to).
That's the big one for me, especially with music. I'm cheap, I have no data plan for my cell phone. I have internet at home, and wifi at work and on public transit if I need it (with a VPN of...
That's the big one for me, especially with music. I'm cheap, I have no data plan for my cell phone. I have internet at home, and wifi at work and on public transit if I need it (with a VPN of course). My music library at home is currently 19,347 songs I've been gathering since I was 14. I have whatever songs are in a playlist synced to my phone, about 3000 of em. Whenever I have no internet I can still listen to pretty much whatever I want. At home I also have about 200 of my favourite movies and a couple dozen TV series. Not to mention every NES, SNES, GameBoy, and GBA game and a bunch for N64, PS1 and PS2.
I live in Toronto and while it's been mostly fine for a while now, I've been burned too often in the past (obligatory f*ck Rogers, Bell and Telus). Plus I started my media collecting before the internet was fast enough for streaming to be an option ;)
Piracy also gets you more choice, sometimes a ridiculous amount more so. Usually with streaming you’re stuck with a single release (TV/movies) or if you’re lucky a couple (albums). Enthusiast...
Piracy also gets you more choice, sometimes a ridiculous amount more so.
Usually with streaming you’re stuck with a single release (TV/movies) or if you’re lucky a couple (albums). Enthusiast torrent trackers on the other hand will offer many more. For example, the page for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on a certain notorious now-defunct music tracker offered nearly every release of the album that’s ever existed across nearly every medium it was released on in several different qualities and formats, so regardless of your preferred release you could probably get a copy.
Even if a legitimate streaming service or online marketplace wanted to try to do that they wouldn’t be able to, due to licensing absurdities.
I think this is part of why a lot of people originally switched to streaming and stopped pirating. But if streaming gets worse (more expensive, less content available, more annoyances like ads),...
I think this is part of why a lot of people originally switched to streaming and stopped pirating. But if streaming gets worse (more expensive, less content available, more annoyances like ads), the scales tip further in favor of piracy. Different people have different places where they switch over, but the scales have definitely shifted enough that a nonzero amount of people are doing it.
I wanted to watch a show recently and it literally was not available anywhere to stream or rent in my region. At all. So what option did I even have there besides piracy?
Depends on what exactly sort of content you're after. An example from this thread: to watch the entirety of Pokémon you need to have to bounce around seven streaming services due to how the...
Depends on what exactly sort of content you're after. An example from this thread: to watch the entirety of Pokémon you need to have to bounce around seven streaming services due to how the seasons are licensed. There are many other shows that have seasons split across platforms due to weird licensing agreements.
Meanwhile, streaming is easy to set up and use if you're willing to pay for an account. There are so many services now, and content can be sparse due to them competing with each other so heavily. A lot of times people will be interested in one single show or movie from a streaming service, so subscribing just for that one show/movie is kind of ridiculous. The original advantage Netflix had has diminished since a lot of distributers have withdrawn their programs from Netflix to use as a draw for their own streaming service.
Streaming isn't easy to set up for many. Not everyone had a credit card or other acceptable way to pay, there's also hardware constraints. If I want to watch legal streaming on my computer I have...
Streaming isn't easy to set up for many. Not everyone had a credit card or other acceptable way to pay, there's also hardware constraints. If I want to watch legal streaming on my computer I have to use specific browsers to get actual HD content for example. Installing a torrent client on a device isn't difficult nor is it hard to simply search for a torrent site and begin downloading, in fact it can be done far quicker than signing up for netflix.
Ease of use? How is scrolling through netflix easier than scrolling through a page of torrents? I can also take my pirated media anywhere, can I do that with streaming? Also most media players on PC like VLC contain an option to begin where you left off.
Inexpensive? Well piracy is free...
Fine quality? Again depends on hardware and use case but ultimately no streaming service is doing what a bluray rip is and I've never had a torrent demand I install Edge to view it in HD.
In every way piracy is the superior way to view content.
I haven't sailed in a very long time, any direction you can give to point me in the right direction for where to start again? I don't know the rules about posting this kind of thing publicly so if...
I haven't sailed in a very long time, any direction you can give to point me in the right direction for where to start again? I don't know the rules about posting this kind of thing publicly so if you want to DM me instead I'm good with that.
I'd also greatly appreciate some onboarding, so to speak. I'm not very tech savvy and I haven't done it in so many years I don't even remember where to start.
I'd also greatly appreciate some onboarding, so to speak. I'm not very tech savvy and I haven't done it in so many years I don't even remember where to start.
I've been doing this, big films or shoes with a ton of seeders I normally stop when I hit a certain ratio but there's a few films and shows I've downloaded where it took a week+ to finish because...
I've been doing this, big films or shoes with a ton of seeders I normally stop when I hit a certain ratio but there's a few films and shows I've downloaded where it took a week+ to finish because the lone seeder or two was barely ever on so I'll leave those on my list for at least a couple months to help out.
Only problem is I think my list being bogged down with uploads slows my downloads at times.
On shoddy internet connections, piracy just makes more sense. You can't pre-download videos on sites like YT and Netflix anymore, so they will start compressing the crap out of your video. They...
On shoddy internet connections, piracy just makes more sense. You can't pre-download videos on sites like YT and Netflix anymore, so they will start compressing the crap out of your video. They should give customers a 'surfing mode' which downloads as needed and 'movie mode' option which downloads your entire video. What if my connection gets lost? What if the traffic is heavy in my area so I have to share bandwidth with my neighbors. I would like some assurance that my movie is 'ready' and will be solid and clear for the next 2 hours.
I'm a fairly lazy guy. When I want to consume content, I'll take the route that seems the most reasonable in regards to cost and effort. I don't really care one way or the other about the profits...
I'm a fairly lazy guy. When I want to consume content, I'll take the route that seems the most reasonable in regards to cost and effort. I don't really care one way or the other about the profits of corporations. Not saying that it doesn't matter, just that I personally have not chosen that as one of things I'm particularly invested in.
Payment screens, keeping track of what's on what service, subscription tiers, advertisments, etc. - these are things that get in my way of consuming content.
Searching, downloading, seeding, finding subtitles, organizing, etc - these are also things that get in the way of consuming content.
If the amount of effort it takes to get something legally is greater than pirating, I will pirate it. If the amount of effort it takes to get something legally is equal to pirating, I will pirate.
Right now, I pirate most movies and tv shows I watch, but I pay for Spotify. Video games are mixed bag, but if I need to install an additional launcher, there's a good chance I'm gonna pirate the game.
This was always inevitable and is basically what already happened with cable and satellite. The lessons the execs learned is “you can make a fuckload of money and get away with it until the next...
This was always inevitable and is basically what already happened with cable and satellite.
The lessons the execs learned is “you can make a fuckload of money and get away with it until the next paradigm shift”, and while people were happy with the early streaming situation they’ve been lobbying for worse and worse laws
From the viewpoint of the industry, streaming is already too good of a deal. For instance I saw a review of "streaming services for sports" that all were some version of the cable bundle that cost...
From the viewpoint of the industry, streaming is already too good of a deal.
For instance I saw a review of "streaming services for sports" that all were some version of the cable bundle that cost upwards of $80 a month. Well, lately I subscribed to Peacock because I like Premier League Football and found it has a lot of other good international sports like the rugby world cup. And this is just $6 a month.
I was at the AT&T store this afternoon and got reminded that you can pay a lot more than $80 a month on cable!
From the viewpoint of those companies, they really can't afford people to give up a $200 a month spend on pay TV when for $20 you can get more than one streaming service. So they definitely will feel justified further tightening the screws on people.
For $6 a month, it's a no brainer to get to watch the live sports/teams you're interested in. But for other packages for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, etc, the prices are absurd and they usually...
For $6 a month, it's a no brainer to get to watch the live sports/teams you're interested in. But for other packages for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, etc, the prices are absurd and they usually blackout your local team because of broadcast rights. The entire paradigm is flawed. I've been pirate-streaming NFL games this season and the quality is absurdly good. With various adblockers in place, I see no ads on the sites at all. Just HD-quality football streams. I don't care that there's obscene amounts of money involved in professional sports, that's not my problem. I'm not paying the insulting monthly fees and enduring blackouts to watch. For $10 a month and no blackouts, they'd have me without a second thought. Otherwise, the other option is working just fine.
I'd say that us fans of smaller spots (in the US) have it pretty good. I paid $1 a month for Peacock to watch soccer occasionally, and with that got WRC, Indy, and all sorts of niche sports....
I'd say that us fans of smaller spots (in the US) have it pretty good. I paid $1 a month for Peacock to watch soccer occasionally, and with that got WRC, Indy, and all sorts of niche sports. Stateside F1 costs about $70 a year for all F1 content ever created and live streams with multiple channels including unedited cockpit video from every driver.
But as Simplify said above, any of the national leagues of American sports are painfully expensive. Fortunately I've been able to use a free trial to watch the super bowl halftime show (partners like to see the musicians, I'll glance at a football game if it's on but no interest in paying for the privilege.)
On the other hand, for a while, the NWSL streamed on Yahoo, twitch and I think it was CBS sports... No apparent rhyme or reason to which games were where. Just a "good luck" I do think they might...
On the other hand, for a while, the NWSL streamed on Yahoo, twitch and I think it was CBS sports... No apparent rhyme or reason to which games were where. Just a "good luck"
I do think they might have broadcast rights figured out a bit better now. But the women's World cup just got sold independently for the first time so it's a work in progress
I'm really happy to have my seedbox back again. This time around, I'm even sharing Plex streams with friends and family and taking requests. It's a fun hobby. I've been in this hobby since OiNK,...
I'm really happy to have my seedbox back again. This time around, I'm even sharing Plex streams with friends and family and taking requests. It's a fun hobby. I've been in this hobby since OiNK, but took a bit of a step out for a while when legit streaming was just so cheap and easy (though you never truly leave when you're on certain trackers). But they're just pushing too much lately, so here we go again.
As an aside, I think I need a voice of reason. So some years back I got rid of my old Synology because it was no longer receiving the latest DSM updates. I instead opted for a SFF machine with Proxmox, kitted out with a 4TB NVME and an 8TB SSD for storage (no RAID). But now that I'm back, I'm thinking about another Synology. I've always really wanted the Synology DS620slim, x6 2.5" bays. I know it's crazy. But I have that 8TB SSD, and the idea is I'd buy x2 more 8TB SSDs, maybe stick in another 4TB SSD I have languishing, maybe get a couple more 4TB SSDs on the cheap (or maybe just eventually go x6 8TB SSDs). I just don't know. My concern is that the DS620slim is now about 4 years old, with an older Celeron (still has an iGPU, so Plex is good, and it's not a bad chip for a NAS), and can only take 16GB of DDR3L RAM. These concerns melt away with that form factor. Small, silent, so sleek. When I think about grabbing a newer 4 or 5 bay Syno for 3.5" disks, I just feel kind of meh about it. It would be okay. But when I think about the DS620slim... I feel lust. Any input?
Do you have any other servers and how much is price a concern? If you already have a plex server, it doesn't really matter what celeron is in the synology. I have a 920+ but my plex server is a...
Do you have any other servers and how much is price a concern? If you already have a plex server, it doesn't really matter what celeron is in the synology. I have a 920+ but my plex server is a nuc (the synology was the plex server for awhile, it was fine for direct streaming and usually did fine to transcode a single 1080 stream). With that being said, I also use a firestick now because it'll direct stream anything (and as of such even a really shitty processor would be fine) including less commonly used subtitle files which are notorious for needing transcoding.
My SFF server is a Lenovo Tiny M90q 10th gen i5 with 64GB of RAM running Proxmox, which I will keep because I have many things running on it, including Plex. The Synology would simply be storage,...
My SFF server is a Lenovo Tiny M90q 10th gen i5 with 64GB of RAM running Proxmox, which I will keep because I have many things running on it, including Plex. The Synology would simply be storage, so the processor isn't that important. Money is a concern so much as I don't want to drop $3K at the outset to get this going; $1.5K is more palatable. So I would probably get the DS620slim, x2 new Samsung 8TB QVO SSDs (er... I'll wait until they drop in price again), and then move data from the 8TB SSD in my Proxmox server (currently 5.52TB used on that drive), and then migrate that drive over to the Syno. At that point I'd have x3 8TB, so ~14.5TB usable, which would be great as my current usage is 7.8TB used. I might then consider adding another 8TB SSD, drop in my already-owned 4TB and another 4TB in for a second partition for a file server, backup, etc. So x4 8TB (21.8TB usable in SHR) and another partition with x2 4TB (3.6TB usable in RAID1). I think this setup would last me a long time.
No offense, but why SSDs? You wont even max a spinning disk on 1gbps connection. Is it a sound issue? If you've already got a plex server, then this is pure storage and the processor doesn't...
No offense, but why SSDs? You wont even max a spinning disk on 1gbps connection. Is it a sound issue? If you've already got a plex server, then this is pure storage and the processor doesn't really matter (nor the RAM frankly but you could always throw another stick in there for good measure).
Yes, I’m leaning toward an all SSD NAS for sound and form factor. My previous NAS was spinners and while it wasn’t terrible, there were times when the sound was annoying. I live in an apartment...
Yes, I’m leaning toward an all SSD NAS for sound and form factor. My previous NAS was spinners and while it wasn’t terrible, there were times when the sound was annoying. I live in an apartment and I don’t have many places a NAS could sit, all of them public enough that the sound could be irksome. I value a small footprint just so I have more options on where it could go. I also want to put the SSDs I already have to good use in it. But I do recognize that it’s a bit crazy. I tried to research how I could build it myself and use TrueNAS, but nothing comes close to the form factor of the DS620.
I wonder how much of that is from the case. I have a Fractal Node 304 with 3x WD Red 12TB, and I never hear anything over background noise, even though the rear of the case is facing me and only...
I wonder how much of that is from the case. I have a Fractal Node 304 with 3x WD Red 12TB, and I never hear anything over background noise, even though the rear of the case is facing me and only about 3ft away.
Meanwhile, my SO has a single consumer HDD in a cheap case, and I can easily hear the clicks whenever that is active.
Main difference I see is that my case has HDD caddies with rubber grommets, and it makes me think that case design has a big impact on noise level.
Confession: This is one of not that many times when I'm not reacting to headine or Tildes title but I actually finished the article before writing comment. I have one thing to say here: I have...
Confession: This is one of not that many times when I'm not reacting to headine or Tildes title but I actually finished the article before writing comment.
I have one thing to say here: I have managed to comoletely skip this subscription age of movies and shows. I know it's still here, but it is already dead. I felt from the start they will screw up. And they didn't fail to deliver.
And I will repeat myself again - they put it on DVD/Blu ray = I (can) buy it, they don't = I'm not spending money/they can go F themselves. It's their choice, really.
The whole “companies don’t understand that people will just pirate” assumes that it’s most profitable for most companies to have as many paying subscribers as possible instead of a smaller install...
The whole “companies don’t understand that people will just pirate” assumes that it’s most profitable for most companies to have as many paying subscribers as possible instead of a smaller install base at a higher per subscriber profit, which isn’t necessarily the case. Plus, I haven’t seen any data on this but my initial thought is that people with the ability and knowledge of pirating probably have more of an inclination to cancel services month to month depending on their needs.
What I don't like is when streaming services decided to create multi-million dollar shows or invest in services that nobody asked for, and then they jack up the subscription prices.
What I don't like is when streaming services decided to create multi-million dollar shows or invest in services that nobody asked for, and then they jack up the subscription prices.
Why does Tech Dirt use the smallest font possible? I have to zoom in and out 98 different times and rotate my phone to read an article. /Sorry for not contributing to the conversation
Why does Tech Dirt use the smallest font possible? I have to zoom in and out 98 different times and rotate my phone to read an article.
Try using Reader Mode to view the article. It's an accessibility tool that allows you to create a universal reading experience and is built in to most browsers. Here's how.
Try using Reader Mode to view the article. It's an accessibility tool that allows you to create a universal reading experience and is built in to most browsers.
I can dig it. I have intermittent success with Brave myself, although on iOS it is just reskinned Safari. No way to know if the browser is to blame it or the website, anyhow. Fwiw I was able to...
I can dig it. I have intermittent success with Brave myself, although on iOS it is just reskinned Safari. No way to know if the browser is to blame it or the website, anyhow. Fwiw I was able to use reader for this one.
I don’t want to pirate. I want to pay for content.
More importantly, I want to pay for content that I am able to play even after some random entity decides to change their licensing agreements.
No matter who owns the licensing for Blazing Saddles, that DVD still plays. I buy physical media for my TV shows and my music literally any time they are available.
If you, as a media producer, are unwilling or unable to let me pay to buy your product (I did say buy, not rent) then I have no moral problems with getting a copy that plays offline.
As I’ve gotten older, the important of physical has become greater for me. I gameboy games from my childhood that I still play, and my son will be able to play when he’s old enough. At the same time, I have digital games and media I’ve lost access to, money completely down the drain.
Weird example, considering it would take something like 30 minutes to download every GBA rom, a good emulator, and you will have it all forever.
GBA emulators might not be forward-compatible with future OSes, and patching the OS or emulator is out of their control (probably).
In contrast, their physical games can always be played, assuming reasonable care and maintenance, which is within their control.
I think your physical cartridge will decay long before usable emulators die out.
My point was that using emulators would still rely on the goodwill of continued support from its developers, which echoes the original issue of having to rely on Amazon/Disney/etc's goodwill in hosting TV shows.
Physical copies would reduce such dependency on third parties, especially if you store it properly with humidity control and such. It is not expensive and more importantly it is entirely actionable by the average person.
Most emulators are open source. It's not at all like relying on Amazon or Disney.
If it's FOSS, you can just learn to maintain it yourself...
Sorry, but that truly is a non argument.
It simply isn't reasonable to expect to be able to maintain every product you use.
So you still will need to rely on others there.
It's not realistic for the average person (or even the average incredibly talented software developer with no day job) to maintain a full suite of free software applications. However, it's not unrealistic to expect a popular, high-quality free software application to pick up new maintainers if the current ones lose interest or otherwise step away.
"You, personally, could fork it" is not a strong defense of free software; but, as @cstby says, it's nothing like relying on corporate-backed proprietary software.
I was purely responding to the "FOSS, maintain it yourself" bit :)
Would you call 20 year old portable video game emulation "popular", though? At some point, interest fades and isn't replaced. And/or possibly some less altruistic people can simply fork and maintain their own not FOSS portion of that software.
FOSS is still made of people, and even talent people can be fickle or simply become sabeteurs. Some of the biggest dramas I've seen in the scene have been from fan modding; both among modders and the customers using the mods. After seeing some of the entitlement I can't blame modders when they decide to start putting stuff behind some sort of pay wall (literal or not). Similar to Craigslist, you charge even a single dollar and suddenly you get much nicer clients than when you try to give away something.
The SNES was released in North America in 1991 (30yr+) and its quite popular to emulate, relatively speaking. The most hardware accurate emulator for it, higen (formerly bsnes), is a multi system emulator which covers a bunch of old systems, including portables Game Boy (original, color, advance) and Game Gear. The original still has some commits since the death of the original author, and there’s some forks (plus a new bsnes)
Game emulation is, if anything, one of the more popular areas within Open Source development due to the fondness and nostalgia people have for particular games they played when they were younger. The task is much less thankless than maintaining useful but not flashy open source software because of that. It is a very active scene even for consoles far, far, FAR more niche than a Gameboy.
For now. Nothing is forever. At some point those emulators will just be toys students make in their free time to prep their portfolio for industry work. Similar to how cartridges aren't made to last 80+ years in the future.
These sorts of niches tend to rely a lot more on 1-2 people than you expect. And people are prone to all sorts of quirks, from corruption to dying to simply moving on in life.
You say "these sorts of niches" in a way that I suspect means you aren't actually familiar with many emulation projects in this space. Even if a given project is run by one person who loses interest, these projects are so overwhelmingly open source that all it takes is one other person who's both interested and technical enough to pick it up. You as an individual don't have to rely on your own ability to do so, but just on the likelihood of someone else who is able and willing existing. And currently? There are a lot of such people in the videogame emulation space.
Unless you're worried about all other open source software that you rely on failing imminently (better not install VLC, they might suddenly lose interest and stop maintaining it), you seem to be under the impression there's something uniquely transient about people's desire to emulate retro videogames as opposed to other tasks people accomplish with software. I'm not convinced there's any evidence of this that you can point to. I've already brought up many reasons I think they may in fact even be less likely to suffer from the "oh no we lost our only maintainer" problem than more practical open source software. In any case, there are currently tons of people working to prevent old games from becoming shovelware and I'm convinced there will still be enough of them when I'm dead, absent some sort of cataclysm that radically alters most people's priorities.
By contrast, the batteries in Gameboy cartridges last 15 (+/- 5) years. And even if you're able to easily replace such batteries, that disregards the increasing difficulty in finding physical cartridges for particular titles, especially those that didn't originally sell very well. It's often possible to make new physical cartridges, of course... but it's subject to all the same problems are creating emulation software is, plus some more.
The biggest risk to being able to play your games in the future, regardless of whether you use a physical cartridge or a download, is games that rely on a connection to particular servers. Those are the games that are truly at risk of genuinely not being playable anymore. You are far more at risk of Nintendo shutting down an online service needed to run your game (or if you're lucky just some of its features) than you are of there no longer being a working emulator of your game. Heck, the biggest risk to the existence of working emulators is ALSO Nintendo (or whoever else depending on the relevant system) shutting them down.
I say "these sorts of niches" in a way that I am very familiar with true abandon-ware and lost media. which still happens to this day.
I'm not saying one day soon that SNES emulation will collapse. I can't predict that and to be frank, it is made up of franchises still supported to this day. So I wouldn't bet on it. But talking in a more general sense, I simply want to warn of the false security in relying on the goodwill of the gray hats to maintain everything you love (I expanded upon this in another reply I just made). If you only really like popular hardware, software, and franchises, you can disregard my comments.
Not particularly, no. Outside of Video games being the hardest medium to preserve in a way that is easy to playback, this applies to all medium. music, movies, books, even (or especially) the online gaming era.
But I just want to remind everyone that it is still a niche and that most people aren't clamoring to emulate retro games. It may not fail, but it is far from "too big to fail". I'm not particularly arguing with anything in this thread so much as hoping to have people know that not every piece of software is valued equally (which you can see by simply browsing the compatibility list of your favorite emulator). And if you happen to like those less valued pieces of softwware, you may be headed to disappointment if you rely on the sentiment of "someone cares enough AND knows enough to preserve this".
But honestly still not a huge argument against. If you get a steam deck now and install every known video game up to ps2 with emulators, you have that working until the machine dies.
I think it's enough reason to buy the old systems for the way they look and fit in your hand honesrly. I don't think the 'buy it for life' argument holds water though. Emulation now is so good and open source the only way you can't have it is if x86 computers dissappear and if thar is the case I bet some of the first open source code for the new pc of the future will probably be emulators.
Less an argument and more of a warning. I've been a part of several niches and there's no worse feeling than hoping something is saved/preserved but the audience is too small, lacking the passion nor expertise to properly do that. You are always used to someone picking up the mantle for your loved works. and then one day it just doesn't happen.
And when that happens: sometimes you end up with a surprisingly talked about game not being localized for 20 years despite there being an audience (not for the lack of trying, but enough drama to scare off the talent). Or some game server going down without hopes of enough assets to make a private server. Or some piece of media just wasn't properly uploaded to a publicly accessible place and is lost to time, becoming lost media despite being from a surprisingly popular brand that may be on someone's mom's laptop in an attic. That can still be the case for some media in the future that is commonplace today.
People who care about emulation/preservation are inherently in a minority so this should always be in the back of their minds. Software requires maintenance and unpaid maintenance requires interest. Interest isn't anymore eternal than hardware
With some quirks, but sure. Enough of the popular games have full compatibility with PCSX2 that it will satisfy 95% of players. My tastes seem to hit that 5% surprisingly often in various scenes, though.
Those are some good points for sure. I think I do really take for granted the internet and its preservation. I've always had the opposite experience where I thought things I knew of were lost to obsucrity only to see them perfectly preserved and easily found.
I am probably biased as well that despite having a basement full of old consoles starting from atari, most of them are just not working in one way or another where as the emulated versions of them have been running perfectly on various hardware for years. We even have a smashed 3ds that we can't play anything on and I feel bad because my kids never got to really see the games in 3d (they were younger when we had it so I had the 3d effect off). I know citra and and VR can get it there but still it doesn't have that wow factor of the original setup.
I also am strongly on the side of digital preservation and outright ownership too, I really don't like the direction digital sales are going in lately and I hope that we continue to own our stuff. I don't like that a generation of us accept powerful mobile computers where there is a whole concept of needing to 'root' your computer. I can't imagine installing windows and being locked out from a portion of it, that would be insane.
But yeah for sure I see and agree really in most of your points and you are right my answer is definitly biased towards past posative experiences rather than having dealth with a severe digital loss at any time.
What's your alternative? Learning to maintain hardware that's 40+ years old? I don't see how that's any better of an option.
Exactly. You don't actually have to maintain the FOSS stuff yourself. You just need to be plugged into a community that maintains it and benefit as a free rider. I have lots of FOSS tools I've used for years and never really worried about maintenance. They just steadily get updated as someone in the world gets a bug up their butts about something and addresses it.
With hardware, you will need to maintain it yourself. And, eventually, you need to figure out how to get spare parts after they stop selling them. Eventually they won't even make the tooling and equipment to make the parts anymore.
Why are you bouncing from one extreme to the other?
You seems to gloss over a bunch of nuance here. Yes eventually hardware will also have issues, but until it does it "just" works and isn't in need of the same sort of maintenance software emulators need to keep up with things like OS changes and all that. Which is where you came in with the argument that they could "just" learn to maintain it themselves. Stating that someone needs to become a full blown software developer in order to keep playing certain games is, as I already said, a non argument.
I would even go as far to say that maintaining old hardware is indeed easier. Even more so for the 40± old hardware you mentioned as components in there are bigger and easier to swap out. With a whole less knowledge and experience compared to what is needed for software development.
So when working hardware is still a good reliable option I fully understand some people not wanting to dive into the realm of emulators.
And then I haven't even touched on the process of researching what emulators are out there. Which ones are still maintained, which ones are working properly with the games you want to play, etc.
It's not hard. Most emulators out there that are easily accessible aren't deprecated. Most emulators made in the past fifteen years will run on most laptops that aren't fifteen or twenty years old. Some will, though if you have a really, really old desktop or laptop. If that's the case, then you might have more issues on hand than figuring out an emulator though.
That isn't taking into account rom carts you can just plug into the original hardware if someone isn't too braindead to put roms onto a cart and plug it into a console and then navigate to the roms to play them. That applies to consoles and handheld consoles, too these days.
If that's too hard, there's always Nintendo Switch Online Plus which is $50 a year to emulate whatever Nintendo decides your $50/year is worth on a Switch, mostly with the exact same roms you can get for free online.
Acting like you have to research emulators in 2024 is kinda weird, it's not like you can't just search for help across tons of threads all over the internet for almost any emulated video game system. Mabye in the early to mid 2000s, you'd have to do some digging but it's long past that point.
Sticking to hardware these days is more aesthetic than practical. I can buy a rom cart for my Sega Genesis that can run every game ever made for it, for a fraction of the price of buying one or two two first party physical carts. There are plug and play mods for most popular newer consoles now that require nothing more than a screwdriver and the willingness to plug in something. Sometimes all you have to do is flash some firmware, if you're so inclined. The PS2 and PS3 are very easy to crack that way.
Anyone buying straight up physical games for old consoles has more money than sense these days, considering the inflated price that "classic" physical games are seeing at the moment.
I am not sure if I just failed to write coherently or if we are back at reddit as far as discussions go where things get fought over based on things that haven't been said. I'll give it one more try.
I didn't say it is hard. But I did say there is still effort involved. You still need to research what emulators are out there and which ones are the good ones. And, no, that isn't always straightforward. For a well-supported platform like the NES there are multiple options where it isn't always clear what the difference is. Not to mention that if you google for emulators you also get a ton of shady websites.
Ignoring the unnecessary "braindead" aggressive jab here. You are right, this can be a good in between approach.
However, I do think you are operating a bit from the curse of knowledge bias here again. For starters, people first need to know that this is also a possibility. Then still need to research what ROM carts there are, how to obtain them, etc. Which is doable, but does require time and effort. In the original comment, they are talking about games they bought as a kid, not buying cartridges for old consoles. This means that all of the above is extra effort that is not needed as they already have the cartridges they care about. They are effectively making the argument that if they can they buy new media physically whenever possible so they know they won't lose access to it through companies fucking around.
Additionally, their argument was more about them having lost to digital media they no longer have access to. Which is a reality in the context of this entire post, media on online services isn't around forever.
And finally, personal preference is a thing. Something that in this context is also very much a valid argument.
Starting off, I'd like to apologize. I wasn't trying to fight although I think my tone was certainly not conducive to constructive conversation. I'm sorry if that came off that way.
I guess that doesn't help when people are trying to learn about emulation because I've been engaged with that community here and there for probably close to twenty years so I sometimes make assumptions that people may know about options available when they're just looking for more information in general.
Certainly. We can't trust our games will be available forever as a digital service/live service or what have you. In that case, I'd suggest that the OP with the games they'd like to keep, find a device online that will allow them to rip the games and safely store or play them on their preferred device. It also does make a case for buying physical games, but that can be challenging based on system, availability, or price gouging if it's a popular title in the "retro gaming" market.
As for modern digital games, if you want to own them, than GoG is kinda the only way to go as far as I know in terms of DRM free "what you see is what you own" sort of purchases in the digital space.
I'm pretty sure ROM files aren't specific to specific emulators. Even if an individual emulator no longer works on a new OS, another is likely to rise to take its place.
As far as digital media goes, an emulator and ROM are pretty long-lasting. Your specific save file might get lost, but you can usually replace the ROM or emulator pretty easily.
Yeah the logic in those old games was literal connections between circuit boards. This is a gross oversimplification, but the ROM is basically just a virtual version of that circuit board. The emulator simulates all the work and abstraction involved in interpreting that board into stuff.
There's quite a bit more to it, obviously. But that's the ELI5 version.
Even as a simplification, I don't think that's very accurate. Most ROMs are just dumps of ordinary code and data, possibly with a small header identifying what additional hardware the cartridge contained. The logic in those old games was coded in Assembly code, not by physical manipulation of hardware connections. It's true that they often contained custom hardware (sometimes a lot in the case of arcade machines), but that isn't what makes up the bulk of a ROM dump. After all, ROM is short for Read-Only Memory.
Yes and no. Cartridge-based games had all sorts of quirks, like varying amounts of memory, or even embedded co-processors. You do need to hardcode support for that stuff.
Example isn't too weird to me since I think they're talking about games purchased through Steam or console eshops. The Gameboy games can be passed down physically as long as you don't lose them and can find a Gameboy to play them, but you can lose access to your entire digital library with little recourse. All sorts of horror stories about hackers and being banned, and even spiteful family/partners or parents trying to discipline their kids by deleting their Steam accounts without understanding that.
While I agree that it's less of a risk than getting hacked or banned, it is not true that physical Gameboy cartridges will work forever as long as you have a Gameboy to play them. Gameboy cartridges contain batteries that will die. Over time it will get harder and harder to find a working one and it will eventually be pretty much impossible. Digital media isn't eternal either, but pirated ROMs are much more secure than their physical counterparts because they don't physically decay in the same way.
This thread is wild to me because it feels like a bunch of people have forgotten how long they spent blowing on the contacts to get this cart to work.
With a soldering iron and new batteries it's pretty easy to replace the battery in a Game Boy cartridge. I done it a few times myself when I upgraded my childhood Game Boy Colour with a backlit LCD screen a few years ago.
It's not impossible, but it's certainly not trivial. Depends highly on your skillset and what tools you have available. I certainly wouldn't trust myself to do it as someone who has never soldered before! The Gameboy Color with a backlit screen sounds super cool -- a used Game Boy Color was my first ever console and I remember getting the little light attachment so I could play when it was too dark out.
I respect people who prefer physical media, I just want to push back on equating the existence of digital media with the "you don't actually own anything" system of legally monetizing it. There are genuine advantages to it, and there can be pretty wacky problems with physical media too. It's the shitty monetization that's the problem with streaming, not necessarily the fact that they're digital.
I get that, I'm just pushing back on your point that it'll eventually be impossible to own working physical Game Boy games when it's not too difficult to change the battery yourself with a bit of research, patience, a soldering iron and replacement batteries. If you're not comfortable doing that, there's probably a computer or electronics repair shop nearby most people that could do it for fairly cheap.
I agree though, I have a huge digital library of movies, music, podcasts, TV Shows and YouTube videos on a 10TB NAS in my office that uses Jellyfin as a frontend. I also have a giant library of 300+ video games from the NES up to PS2 that I can emulate on my PC. These are all also backed up on a 500GB hard drive in my home.
I own a mixed bag of physical and digital media. But the vast majority of my media is digital.
I get that. Again, I think the comment is more about owning digitally purchased media. All forms of media ownership run a risk of it being lost over time, but a digitally purchased library tied to specific accounts feels a lot more flimsy, for lack of a better word.
If you lose a device with a GBA or DS rom downloaded to it, you can easily find another download to replace it. I've done that when my old laptop went kaput. If I were to have my Steam account suddenly banned or deleted though, I'd have no way of getting those games back. That's hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of purchases gone in a single instant.
Physical media can also be lost en masse, but digital libraries do feel a lot easier to suddenly lose for trivial reasons beyond our control. Like you said in another comment, it's how it's monetized that make it feel so risky. We're basically dependent on these companies A) acting in good faith forevermore and NOT screwing with our libraries, and B) not suddenly going bankrupt or shutting down. The second point is unlikely (and would probably have plenty of warning for people to figure out how to preserve their libraries), but the first one is a bigger concern. There's a lot of ways companies could screw with our accounts and libraries.
oh yeah absolutely 100% agree on this about digitally purchased content. I just also saw the person above arguing against pirated ROMs elsewhere in the thread, so I was partially motivated by that in my response
Louis Rossmann put it best. I'm willing to pay for content but I will go out of my way to pirate, adblock, etc. if I get a better experience when "stealing" content.
I won't even go as far.
But for example, when I already pay for content, I don't want to then see ads. And it's not like Amazon starts this only now, even before that they have always shown 1+ ads for other shows or movies of theirs, and of course they ignore the language I set my content to and play it in my country's language based on IP.
As always, if pirates get a better service despite having to content with rips and reencoding and streaming and shit, then companies should not be surprised that the combination of "no need to pay money" + "better service than if you had paid" leads to people pirating their content.
There's a reason that in the early days before hyper-fragmentation of the market, Netflix utterly curbed piracy of shows and movies. Now with everyone carving their own little piece of content into their own little service and also constantly degrading the quality of said service and muddling their design (see Netflix providing games, of which some are nice but wtf Netflix, I don't associate you with games and I don't want to do that, either!), it's no wonder the value proposition of each individual service has declined enough to make piracy superior again.
I have a similar issue. I want my kids to learn our language, Hindi. That content in that language in India is available but I can't pay for that dub in the US. But I pay for Disney+ and others that have the content in other Geos.
I will pay extra money for specific languages but they don't want my money. So I have to spin up Jellyfin and figure out how that works and find trackers for kids shows in Hindi and that's a wild ride.
I remember that for many anime on Netflix I had to VPN into the US in order to get English subs or dubs because I live in Germany, and they only deign to give me English subs on content that doesn't have originally English audio occasionally. My wife is Norwegian and has an even more frustrating time on that front, as if she wants to show me something from her childhood with Norwegian dubs we have to just pray Netflix included them in our region.
Good on you for teaching your kids Hindi btw
One pet peeve of mine: streaming services don't offer English captions that are not designed for hearing impaired people, when viewing English content. On the other hand, pirated content does...
I will say that I've had mixed luck finding good captions in non-English when pirating. But it depends a lot on the film; I have captions for Kimi No Na Wa in way more languages than Netflix has ever offered me at once for anything.
This hasn't been my experience. Sometimes there's the descriptive captions for Deaf and HoH people but basically everything has English subtitles and I'm in the US. Is there something I'm misunderstanding about what you mean?
I don't live in the US. Content on Netflix, Disney or HBO either has a range of captions, English + local language or just the local language. It varies. On these three services, all the English captions are closed captions (for hearing impaired). They're never simply English captions, without "DOOR CREAKS", "EXPLOSION IN DISTANCE", etc.
Gotcha, this is definitely some sort of local choice or function of the streamers showing/owning rights to different content as those subtitles exist on every show I've watched in the US.
I had not even considered this issue. That would be incredibly frustrating as a parent. I hope that your kids (eventually) find and appreciate the effort that you put in to help them learn the language.
I find it interesting to contrast movies/TV with music. We can pick from many different music streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, etc) and in general you can listen to the same music on any of them (I'm sure there's exceptions). I just want that for movies & TV. I want to be able to just go to "my preferred streaming service" and type in the name of any show and binge it. Better yet if you could just download the files and stick them on a Jellyfin or Plex server instead of relying on a third party service.
I mean, this is why Blockbuster succeeded way back in the day. And then premium cable packages (emphasis on "package"), and then sreeamun. Most people don't care to do more than experience a work more than once. So it doesn't make a difference if it's a $20 purchase or a $5 blockbuster rental. And if there's no difference to that customer, the cheapest option wins.
Steaming can get away with all this because it's still the cheapest and most convinent option. The charts I see in one of the sources doesn't exactly look like anything that a business would freak out over, so it's just business as usual to account for it, not an alarm bell to reverse course.
The last straw for me was when my mother finished season 1 of Manifest on Netflix and found out that Netflix only carried seasons 1 and 4, they didn't own the rights for the others. I can't think of a more perfect illustration of how fragmented the streaming industry is than that.
Dunkey recently did a video highlighting exactly how screwed up this sort of thing is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhv7bgmz64
I saw that video it was surprising (because it is not exactly about games), but awesome. He made fun of the ultra-fragmented streaming ecosystem in his trademark sarcastic style that very few other people like Ryan George can pull off.
Netflix does this a lot, at least in my country. If it's not a Netflix original you can bet there are missing seasons. What's the point? Just being able to lure people in by saying they have the show without having to spend as much money on licensing?
I bet the copyright holders are incentivized to do this. Each streaming service might pay a lot for one season and less for subsequent seasons as they know just having one is enough to get people to sign up for a month. So theoretically the copyright holder would actively try to sell each season to a different service.
I remember watching a series on Netflix and the series disappeared when I was in the middle of a season - I was watching it one day and the next day when I wanted to continue, the whole series was gone. If I remember correctly, that was the last time I ever watched Netflix.
This article looks like it's just taking a study from September and dressing it up for clicks in the wake of advertisements coming to Prime?
Here's the original reporting on the study per torrentfreak:
...
Yeah I feel like a lot of these just have a thesis and work backwards. In particular, this is just something that seems to be assumed?
I don't think that's what happened at all, though. They weren't competing with piracy, they were competing with Netflix. They saw Netflix both find new viewership cable didn't have access to and take significant portions of their owner customer base year by year. To say it was about "piracy" isn't just something you can put out there like it's an assumed truth of the world.
And that's the underpinning of the entire argument.
The actual sources don't even really prove that poit well, with multiple sources saying "although it's not hit the peak of 5 years ago, it is slowly pivoting".
https://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-eu-graph.jpg
Moreover, none of the charts are particularly concerning as of now either.
I was just reading an article about this.
https://www.vg247.com/pokemon-tv-shutting-down-anime-series-streaming-services
no endorsement of this site, I just agree with this quote:
"I cannot begin to explain how baffling it is that the Pokemon anime is distributed across streaming services. It's easy enough to watch the first season, it's on Netflix. After that you'll need to move over to Prime Video for season two, though this is under Prime Video Channels, which typically charge an extra fee. Through that, and some seasons that are just outright available on the service, you could technically watch up to season 22 on Prime, then switch back to Netflix for season 23 through 25. Otherwise, you'll have to bounce between Hulu, the Roku Channel, Tubi, Freevee, and… Hoopla? Yeah, I'll pass thanks."
I know where you CAN watch all of the Pokémon anime in one place, and completely for free...
Dunkey recently released a video that touches on the insanity that is watching Pokémon legally.
I just wish piracy protections wouldn't affect the paying customers. For example I like to screenshot anime or series that I'm watching on my tablet. But just like banking apps when I do it gets turned into a black picture. So the only choice that I have is either installing some weird software or just pirating it. :/
The great irony is that anti-piracy measures have always stymied customers more than pirates.
Very timely. After Amazon Prime just announced their addition of ads to their service, in addition to Netflix and Youtube Premium's price hikes, I recently spun up my NAS again and downloaded a couple shows I wanted to watch. I've had it with what the streaming industry has become.
I just recently bought an old Enterprise PC and stuck some hard drives in it to create a media library. I've been ripping some of my DVD collection on to it the past month or so and even added a couple shows and movies me and my partner have wanted to watch via torrent.
I stopped pirating content in 2010 when I was using Steam and got Netflix, Now I'm back pirating some content purely because I'm spending £40 a month on streaming services that have fractured content all over the place and are now going to start charging me extra to watch this fractured content without ads.
The straw that broke the camels back for me was buying Die Hard on Amazon Prime for £4.99 to watch it with my girlfriend (I have Die Hard 1-4 on DVD but they're in a big box in the spare bedroom and I'm lazy). I then realised I couldn't actually download the film to watch offline anywhere I wanted and that I had to install a separate app to watch it encrypted offline that I realised I'd only bought a licence to watch the film under very specific circumstances.
I'm switching back to physical media with torrenting for content I struggle to get with an offline backup on my NAS.
Gabe Newell said it for games, right ? But it applies here. Currently, piracy offers an overall better service than paid streaming. You can get all seasons of any show or any movie you want on any torrent or pirate stream site of your choice......for free. AND, if you download it, it is preserved with you as long as you can maintain your storage devices. You don't have to give a fuck about license agreements expiring and paid-for content no longer being available. I have a library of my most cherished movies and tv shows saved across several storage devices. They will remain available to me till i die.
Exactly this is my feeling about all this. I downloaded before Netflix, but when its library online became bigger I switched. I was happy to pay $10 a month for good content on demand, and I don’t even want to keep the content forever. I just want easy access and a service that recommends stuff that I might like.
Today, I’m no longer a customer. Stuff is too fragmented and there’s no one service that provides all the content I’m interested in. And I refuse to subscribe to more services to end up with even more content I’m not interested in, only because each provider has some content I do want to see. And the services themselves are becoming worse and worse: Netflix removing the option to rate content, removing suggestions that actually fit my preferences, ads….ads wtf. They totally shittyfied the space, and I have a feeling it started when Disney decided they weren’t making enough money and had to join the party.
Is that true though? Streaming is:
Where piracy has:
We still have permanence in digital purposes. But few who stream shows care and it never seems to come up in these discussions becsuse no one wants to pay $20 for a box set of every season of every show they want to watch.
If more people valued permanence, then streaming wouldn't have taken over. But the fact is that few do. Very few people even beat a video game, let alone do a repeat playthrough. Very few people re-watch a movie. Few reread books. Music may be a bigger exception to this, but most music never has thst urge to be looped.
And sure you CAN get banned from a service you buy from... But is anyone really thst concerned about being banned from Steam? From Apple? From Amazon? I imagine less than 10% do much more than order a product or go through automated refunds. How are most people getting banned? It's simply not a worry for them.
Another huge one for piracy (as well as physical media, which is my preference, but the selection is getting to be very poor) that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone, but it sure as heck applies to me: You can still access it while offline or while your internet access is otherwise spotty.
These are the times I most want something to watch — when I'm traveling, when the power is out and I have nothing to do (but my laptop still has juice), etc.
Also, don't forget lack of ads and assorted UI annoyances (depending on the streaming service it's compared to).
That's the big one for me, especially with music. I'm cheap, I have no data plan for my cell phone. I have internet at home, and wifi at work and on public transit if I need it (with a VPN of course). My music library at home is currently 19,347 songs I've been gathering since I was 14. I have whatever songs are in a playlist synced to my phone, about 3000 of em. Whenever I have no internet I can still listen to pretty much whatever I want. At home I also have about 200 of my favourite movies and a couple dozen TV series. Not to mention every NES, SNES, GameBoy, and GBA game and a bunch for N64, PS1 and PS2.
I live in Toronto and while it's been mostly fine for a while now, I've been burned too often in the past (obligatory f*ck Rogers, Bell and Telus). Plus I started my media collecting before the internet was fast enough for streaming to be an option ;)
Piracy also gets you more choice, sometimes a ridiculous amount more so.
Usually with streaming you’re stuck with a single release (TV/movies) or if you’re lucky a couple (albums). Enthusiast torrent trackers on the other hand will offer many more. For example, the page for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on a certain notorious now-defunct music tracker offered nearly every release of the album that’s ever existed across nearly every medium it was released on in several different qualities and formats, so regardless of your preferred release you could probably get a copy.
Even if a legitimate streaming service or online marketplace wanted to try to do that they wouldn’t be able to, due to licensing absurdities.
I think this is part of why a lot of people originally switched to streaming and stopped pirating. But if streaming gets worse (more expensive, less content available, more annoyances like ads), the scales tip further in favor of piracy. Different people have different places where they switch over, but the scales have definitely shifted enough that a nonzero amount of people are doing it.
I wanted to watch a show recently and it literally was not available anywhere to stream or rent in my region. At all. So what option did I even have there besides piracy?
Depends on what exactly sort of content you're after. An example from this thread: to watch the entirety of Pokémon you need to have to bounce around seven streaming services due to how the seasons are licensed. There are many other shows that have seasons split across platforms due to weird licensing agreements.
Meanwhile, streaming is easy to set up and use if you're willing to pay for an account. There are so many services now, and content can be sparse due to them competing with each other so heavily. A lot of times people will be interested in one single show or movie from a streaming service, so subscribing just for that one show/movie is kind of ridiculous. The original advantage Netflix had has diminished since a lot of distributers have withdrawn their programs from Netflix to use as a draw for their own streaming service.
Easy to use? Don’t know about that. Just figuring out where to watch something can be a chore.
Streaming’s UX, which is what I talked about, is much better than pirating UX. Content is already a plus for pirating, same as what the article says.
Streaming isn't easy to set up for many. Not everyone had a credit card or other acceptable way to pay, there's also hardware constraints. If I want to watch legal streaming on my computer I have to use specific browsers to get actual HD content for example. Installing a torrent client on a device isn't difficult nor is it hard to simply search for a torrent site and begin downloading, in fact it can be done far quicker than signing up for netflix.
Ease of use? How is scrolling through netflix easier than scrolling through a page of torrents? I can also take my pirated media anywhere, can I do that with streaming? Also most media players on PC like VLC contain an option to begin where you left off.
Inexpensive? Well piracy is free...
Fine quality? Again depends on hardware and use case but ultimately no streaming service is doing what a bluray rip is and I've never had a torrent demand I install Edge to view it in HD.
In every way piracy is the superior way to view content.
I haven't sailed in a very long time, any direction you can give to point me in the right direction for where to start again? I don't know the rules about posting this kind of thing publicly so if you want to DM me instead I'm good with that.
I'd also greatly appreciate some onboarding, so to speak. I'm not very tech savvy and I haven't done it in so many years I don't even remember where to start.
I've been doing this, big films or shoes with a ton of seeders I normally stop when I hit a certain ratio but there's a few films and shows I've downloaded where it took a week+ to finish because the lone seeder or two was barely ever on so I'll leave those on my list for at least a couple months to help out.
Only problem is I think my list being bogged down with uploads slows my downloads at times.
On shoddy internet connections, piracy just makes more sense. You can't pre-download videos on sites like YT and Netflix anymore, so they will start compressing the crap out of your video. They should give customers a 'surfing mode' which downloads as needed and 'movie mode' option which downloads your entire video. What if my connection gets lost? What if the traffic is heavy in my area so I have to share bandwidth with my neighbors. I would like some assurance that my movie is 'ready' and will be solid and clear for the next 2 hours.
I'm a fairly lazy guy. When I want to consume content, I'll take the route that seems the most reasonable in regards to cost and effort. I don't really care one way or the other about the profits of corporations. Not saying that it doesn't matter, just that I personally have not chosen that as one of things I'm particularly invested in.
Payment screens, keeping track of what's on what service, subscription tiers, advertisments, etc. - these are things that get in my way of consuming content.
Searching, downloading, seeding, finding subtitles, organizing, etc - these are also things that get in the way of consuming content.
If the amount of effort it takes to get something legally is greater than pirating, I will pirate it. If the amount of effort it takes to get something legally is equal to pirating, I will pirate.
Right now, I pirate most movies and tv shows I watch, but I pay for Spotify. Video games are mixed bag, but if I need to install an additional launcher, there's a good chance I'm gonna pirate the game.
This was always inevitable and is basically what already happened with cable and satellite.
The lessons the execs learned is “you can make a fuckload of money and get away with it until the next paradigm shift”, and while people were happy with the early streaming situation they’ve been lobbying for worse and worse laws
From the viewpoint of the industry, streaming is already too good of a deal.
For instance I saw a review of "streaming services for sports" that all were some version of the cable bundle that cost upwards of $80 a month. Well, lately I subscribed to Peacock because I like Premier League Football and found it has a lot of other good international sports like the rugby world cup. And this is just $6 a month.
I was at the AT&T store this afternoon and got reminded that you can pay a lot more than $80 a month on cable!
From the viewpoint of those companies, they really can't afford people to give up a $200 a month spend on pay TV when for $20 you can get more than one streaming service. So they definitely will feel justified further tightening the screws on people.
For $6 a month, it's a no brainer to get to watch the live sports/teams you're interested in. But for other packages for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, etc, the prices are absurd and they usually blackout your local team because of broadcast rights. The entire paradigm is flawed. I've been pirate-streaming NFL games this season and the quality is absurdly good. With various adblockers in place, I see no ads on the sites at all. Just HD-quality football streams. I don't care that there's obscene amounts of money involved in professional sports, that's not my problem. I'm not paying the insulting monthly fees and enduring blackouts to watch. For $10 a month and no blackouts, they'd have me without a second thought. Otherwise, the other option is working just fine.
I'd say that us fans of smaller spots (in the US) have it pretty good. I paid $1 a month for Peacock to watch soccer occasionally, and with that got WRC, Indy, and all sorts of niche sports. Stateside F1 costs about $70 a year for all F1 content ever created and live streams with multiple channels including unedited cockpit video from every driver.
But as Simplify said above, any of the national leagues of American sports are painfully expensive. Fortunately I've been able to use a free trial to watch the super bowl halftime show (partners like to see the musicians, I'll glance at a football game if it's on but no interest in paying for the privilege.)
On the other hand, for a while, the NWSL streamed on Yahoo, twitch and I think it was CBS sports... No apparent rhyme or reason to which games were where. Just a "good luck"
I do think they might have broadcast rights figured out a bit better now. But the women's World cup just got sold independently for the first time so it's a work in progress
I'm really happy to have my seedbox back again. This time around, I'm even sharing Plex streams with friends and family and taking requests. It's a fun hobby. I've been in this hobby since OiNK, but took a bit of a step out for a while when legit streaming was just so cheap and easy (though you never truly leave when you're on certain trackers). But they're just pushing too much lately, so here we go again.
As an aside, I think I need a voice of reason. So some years back I got rid of my old Synology because it was no longer receiving the latest DSM updates. I instead opted for a SFF machine with Proxmox, kitted out with a 4TB NVME and an 8TB SSD for storage (no RAID). But now that I'm back, I'm thinking about another Synology. I've always really wanted the Synology DS620slim, x6 2.5" bays. I know it's crazy. But I have that 8TB SSD, and the idea is I'd buy x2 more 8TB SSDs, maybe stick in another 4TB SSD I have languishing, maybe get a couple more 4TB SSDs on the cheap (or maybe just eventually go x6 8TB SSDs). I just don't know. My concern is that the DS620slim is now about 4 years old, with an older Celeron (still has an iGPU, so Plex is good, and it's not a bad chip for a NAS), and can only take 16GB of DDR3L RAM. These concerns melt away with that form factor. Small, silent, so sleek. When I think about grabbing a newer 4 or 5 bay Syno for 3.5" disks, I just feel kind of meh about it. It would be okay. But when I think about the DS620slim... I feel lust. Any input?
Do you have any other servers and how much is price a concern? If you already have a plex server, it doesn't really matter what celeron is in the synology. I have a 920+ but my plex server is a nuc (the synology was the plex server for awhile, it was fine for direct streaming and usually did fine to transcode a single 1080 stream). With that being said, I also use a firestick now because it'll direct stream anything (and as of such even a really shitty processor would be fine) including less commonly used subtitle files which are notorious for needing transcoding.
My SFF server is a Lenovo Tiny M90q 10th gen i5 with 64GB of RAM running Proxmox, which I will keep because I have many things running on it, including Plex. The Synology would simply be storage, so the processor isn't that important. Money is a concern so much as I don't want to drop $3K at the outset to get this going; $1.5K is more palatable. So I would probably get the DS620slim, x2 new Samsung 8TB QVO SSDs (er... I'll wait until they drop in price again), and then move data from the 8TB SSD in my Proxmox server (currently 5.52TB used on that drive), and then migrate that drive over to the Syno. At that point I'd have x3 8TB, so ~14.5TB usable, which would be great as my current usage is 7.8TB used. I might then consider adding another 8TB SSD, drop in my already-owned 4TB and another 4TB in for a second partition for a file server, backup, etc. So x4 8TB (21.8TB usable in SHR) and another partition with x2 4TB (3.6TB usable in RAID1). I think this setup would last me a long time.
No offense, but why SSDs? You wont even max a spinning disk on 1gbps connection. Is it a sound issue? If you've already got a plex server, then this is pure storage and the processor doesn't really matter (nor the RAM frankly but you could always throw another stick in there for good measure).
Yes, I’m leaning toward an all SSD NAS for sound and form factor. My previous NAS was spinners and while it wasn’t terrible, there were times when the sound was annoying. I live in an apartment and I don’t have many places a NAS could sit, all of them public enough that the sound could be irksome. I value a small footprint just so I have more options on where it could go. I also want to put the SSDs I already have to good use in it. But I do recognize that it’s a bit crazy. I tried to research how I could build it myself and use TrueNAS, but nothing comes close to the form factor of the DS620.
I wonder how much of that is from the case. I have a Fractal Node 304 with 3x WD Red 12TB, and I never hear anything over background noise, even though the rear of the case is facing me and only about 3ft away.
Meanwhile, my SO has a single consumer HDD in a cheap case, and I can easily hear the clicks whenever that is active.
Main difference I see is that my case has HDD caddies with rubber grommets, and it makes me think that case design has a big impact on noise level.
Confession: This is one of not that many times when I'm not reacting to headine or Tildes title but I actually finished the article before writing comment.
I have one thing to say here: I have managed to comoletely skip this subscription age of movies and shows. I know it's still here, but it is already dead. I felt from the start they will screw up. And they didn't fail to deliver.
And I will repeat myself again - they put it on DVD/Blu ray = I (can) buy it, they don't = I'm not spending money/they can go F themselves. It's their choice, really.
The whole “companies don’t understand that people will just pirate” assumes that it’s most profitable for most companies to have as many paying subscribers as possible instead of a smaller install base at a higher per subscriber profit, which isn’t necessarily the case. Plus, I haven’t seen any data on this but my initial thought is that people with the ability and knowledge of pirating probably have more of an inclination to cancel services month to month depending on their needs.
What I don't like is when streaming services decided to create multi-million dollar shows or invest in services that nobody asked for, and then they jack up the subscription prices.
Why does Tech Dirt use the smallest font possible? I have to zoom in and out 98 different times and rotate my phone to read an article.
/Sorry for not contributing to the conversation
Try using Reader Mode to view the article. It's an accessibility tool that allows you to create a universal reading experience and is built in to most browsers.
Here's how.
Oh I use it, but it doesn't work on Firefox mobile for every website.
I can dig it. I have intermittent success with Brave myself, although on iOS it is just reskinned Safari. No way to know if the browser is to blame it or the website, anyhow. Fwiw I was able to use reader for this one.