I will grab the occasional file that really interests me, but lately since I’ve discovered sites like Flixer or streamvaults, I will just stream the shows and movies that I’m curious about but don’t really feel the need to collect.
What about you?
After years of streaming sites, you get tired of the churn. It’s only natural that most only last a year or two. Who’s paying for the infrastructure? The users just want to view streams with no payment and no ads, so the provider is just paying out of pocket. That doesn’t last long.
Torrents are maintained by a community, that you can contribute to yourself. It’s just more sustainable.
I still grab everything and cold storage older/unwatched stuff onto blurays and this stack of ancient hdds i got from work. Seeing as space is so expensive now, I can see your view and would probably be taking that if I didn’t already have a huge pool before the rampocalypse.
For maybe a 1 off thing, like a singular episode of a show, absolutely going to stream it rather than download the whole series and then not watch the rest.
Though, I typically like having all my shows/movies available with or without internet if possible. So I think you can easoly figure out my stance.
i do, my network sucks so there’s the occasional buffering + streamed videos usually seem to have terrible quality/watermarks etc. also the ability to use custom subtitles (in my native lang and not english) is useful
I like the idea of still have everything available if I ever move somewhere without access to internet. It actually happened to me once temporarily last time I moved, for a few months I only had internet on my phone.
I do. Streaming sites (official or pirate) can still remove content or go offline all together. Also the pirate sites often have low quality.
With downloading I have full control over everything. And the collecting itself is fun, too!
The only real downside is HDD/hardware prices.
Streaming is awesome, but I’ve stopped paying for streaming in most cases. Everything has gotten too expensive. When I run out of storage, I’ll start culling.
I haven’t backed up or collected movies or tv shows in a long while. Not much they’ve put out in the last ten years has been interesting to me. Music on the other hand… Lot good music has been put out recently and I’ll either buy the CD or if I have to, purchase a download. Either way, it’s going to be streaming from my server.
I hoard media. I’m particular about my releases. I don’t want to stream some shady website that could disappear half way through a show.
I kept waiting to invest in more drives. Now I’m stuck with 4x4TB for the foreseeable future because replacing that raid array is brutal and even then I want to go bigger. Like the other commenter said, I’d like to be able to mirror big data sets.
Curate, is my advice.
I occasionally go through and cull the worst shows and movies. No point keeping mainstream crap that’s readily available on all the streaming sites.
shady website that could disappear half way through a show.
this has occured to me tooo many times too.
yup happening with the one streaming site I use as of tomorrow.
I hoard. Physical media is getting harder to come by, but I’ve ripped all my DVD’s, TV shows, all BDs, all UHD BDs, and 3D. About 2k discs in total. A lot I’ve found used, local video shop closeouts, etc. My dad has about 400-450 retail CDs. I’ve backed up all his stuff too.
I’ve got 8x 16TB drives (RAID5+spare), 10x 8TB drives (RAID5 +spare), and some 2TB SSDs (RAID10) for personal files for my family.
I’ve purchased a new 24x bay Rosewill case for the next expansion 😅. My wife doesn’t like the noise emanating from the basement. ✈️
If I had the capital, I’d mirror git repos, anna’s archives, libgen, scihub, Wikipedias, torrents, usenet, sketches, websites, portfolios, archive.org, minerva, etc. etc…
It is precisely capitalist oppressions that I haven’t been able to “download everything.” Otherwise I would, and then some.I don’t think capitalist oppression is why hard drives aren’t free
It is why they are preposterously expensive currently.
Along with ram and a whole bunch of other shit.
i don’t really pirate music any more, i get 90% of what i want to listen to from podcasts, internet/community radio and youtube mixes. trying to get in the habit buying stuff i really like from bandcamp to actually support artists.
my mate put me on his family spotify… so use that very rarely, mostly for nostalgia hits.
movies/tv 100% 🏴☠️
Games also 98% mainly old games btw.
if wasnt so time poor id probs spend more $$$ on indie games… but capitalism be sucking me dry.
at least if i download some roms and dont play them i wont feel guilty for wasting my money.
Recent years capitalism is really a big problem. Recession after inflation. After recession. After AI boom and more price increases. After shrinkflation.
I would if I could afford the storage. I’d download and archive every YouTube video I watch instead of streaming it. But I hoard and with like 20tb of collective storage, I’m still always moving things around.
I download everything, I just may not ultimately keep it long-term if it turns out to be uninteresting or bad. Streaming and downloading transfer the same amount of bits, one just has higher demands for timeliness.
I’ve been wanting to make a collection, but ironically now as storage solutions are becoming more expensive I’m between a rock and a hard place. I could spend the stupid prices for more hard drive space and then grab more. Alternatively I could take some existing smaller hard drives and use them for storage.
If I hadn’t gotten laid off last month I likely would have just expanded while things are still (relatively) affordable. But idk now. I might just stretch things where I can and hope that the bubble pops sooner rather than later
Right now my idea is to store things i find that are more niche or less likely to be shared in the future and i’ll cycle things that are more popular or that will stand the test of time
