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449 points bertman | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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alufers ◴[] No.29703989[source]
Can we just stop the shitshow with DRM? I have NEVER encountered a TV show/movie that I could't rip using a torrent either on public p2p sites or a private tracker.

But I have seen a lot of my non-technical friends and family having a degraded experience, who pay for their streaming services every month. It was either because they were using a browser or device which was deemed unworthy of full quality streaming by the mighty DRM authors. And now the poor users of the TB-X505X will also have a degraded experience.

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carlhjerpe ◴[] No.29705496[source]
You're mixing terms up, you don't rip using a torrent or any other p2p protocol. You download things.

You know how Netflix only allows you to stream 1080p in most browsers? That's because they don't support the DRMs content providers use for high-res content.

You'll see webrips all the time with 1080p because someone can just record their screen and call it a day, but the 4k content is harder since the DRM prevents everything on your system from recording it.

Not sure if webrips are screen recordings or actually downloaded copies, but it doesn't really matter.

I have subs for D+ and HBO Max, if they're using DRM I for sure don't notice and don't care about it, I use either the app on my TV or the app on my phone to Chromecast and it's flawless.

While content not on these platforms that I've chosen to subscribe to requires me to go though more hoops to get the same experience.

It's not that the torrent experience is shit, but things like synced subtitles can be hard to find (requirement when watching with most of my friends and family) for example.

I'm part of a quite decent private tracker we'll call "TD" and while I have nothing bad to say about my experience there, I will say the things I pay for work better.

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alufers ◴[] No.29706468[source]
Oh sorry, English is not my native language and I had to rephrase a few times, totally missed that.

>You'll see webrips all the time with 1080p because someone can just record their screen and call it a day.

I've checked my tracker and practically all TV shows from Netflix that are in 4K can be downloaded in 4K. And I am 99% sure they are not screen caps, for example the entire second season of The Witcher was released 17 December at 09:01, and my tracker had it ready to download at 12:26 at 4K with 3 audio tracks and 2 subtitle tracks. The runtime of this season on imdb is about 8 hours, so it would be impossible to screencap, which means they had a bypass for the DRM ready ahead of time.

Of course these are just examples that I made up and I would never enter or use such filthy and illegal websites.

And for the mobile and smart TV experience there is Plex. It even has features which aren't possible with the legitimate services, such as "Watch Together" which allows you to watch stuff with friends over the internet.

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carlhjerpe ◴[] No.29706562[source]
All good on the English mate, just had to make sure.

Netflix DRM might indeed be broken(I don't know), but I do get the purpose of it. Now only nerds in nerd communities can do illegal stuff in HQ then.

Plex is great indeed, I might sub to a seedbox with shared account and set it up again some day, though I like the thought of using Jellyfin since it's open source.

D+ supports group watch.

I mean, if something is available on a streaming service the experience is good, but torrenting doesn't have to be as bad as it is for me (I don't run servers at home, and I don't want "server software" on my desktop either really).

I just think we shouldn't complain that those who distribute content wants to protect it, even if the protection is subpar.

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Macha ◴[] No.29706704[source]
> D+ supports group watch.

Even when the paid service supports it, they can add complications, for example. Amazon Prime group watch doesn't work between my Irish subscription and my friend's UK subscription even when the media is available in both regions.

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carlhjerpe ◴[] No.29706739[source]
Does group watch work across plex servers?

I can see why they don't cover this edge case if I'm to be entirely honest.

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1. alufers ◴[] No.29706895{3}[source]
Nope, but it's not a problem since a friend can use his account to log in to yours server.