Streaming Has Reached Its Sad, Predictable Fate | What should I watch? is now a much easier question than How do I watch it?::<em>What should I watch? </em>is now a much easier question than <em>How do I watch it?</em>
I have just about the opposite problem, as someone who has been known to pirate in the past. I find there is so much content out there that it’s harder for me to decide what to watch over where to go to find it.
That’s literally one of my hobbies, building my collection of media. Plex lifetime pass ftw
The bigger the collection the harder the choice of what to watch lol
I still use my DVD/Blu-ray by mail subscription from Netflix. Practically everything was available that way. I will be canceling Netflix for a while after that goes away at the end if the month. I plan to just rotate through which services I subscribe to.
I’ve heard a lot about setting up a Plex or a Jellyfin server locally, but from what I can tell they are just media storage platforms and in order to watch anything you would have to add your own content. In this age of digital content, it is very unlikely for a simpleton like me to go out and purchase hundreds of movie disks separately and manually load them into my CD drive to even have a fraction of the catalogue these streaming services combined provide. Also torrenting really isn’t a viable option for me as I personally use a free tier Proton VPN which doesn’t allow P2P, and even if I did get a proper one, I would still be limited to availability of seeds for movies I want to watch, which may or may not exist depending on the popularity of the said movie. I currently use a niche streaming site to watch my movies without any issues. Are self hosted plex/jellyfin servers really for a person like me?
A lot of movies can be picked up pretty cheaply second hand. In some cases with people looking to unload massive collections all at once.
Ripping them is something you only really need to figure out once, and apps like handbrake make it pretty simple.
I don’t think someone needs to replicate something like the catalog of Netflix, they would just need the movies they actually want to watch, or ones they want to watch more than once or twice.
Another things I often think about is the future. Some of these streaming services have already pulled episodes of shows because of some content that got people upset, which can really hurt the continuity of the show. Plus, as contracts expire and change, the movies/shows may no longer be streamed or the services could shut down. I don’t know about you, but when I’m old I still want a way to watch my favorite movies. The way things are going it’s hard to know if that will be an option unless taking matters into your own hands.
For someone who only watches a couple movies per month, it would be cheaper/easier to do digital rentals from Apple or whomever, for $4/movie. Those selections are usually a lot better than the streaming selections. It’s only when you start taking about watching multiple movies per week, or getting into TV shows, that streaming services, or investing your own time and money into a self-hosted option, make sense.
Jellyfin is the way to go. Yes, you’ll have to download your own content. It’s more work, but I definitely think it’s worth it. Use qBitTorrent as your client, and sites like yts.mx are great for movies.
I would use stremio with the torrentio addon
limited to availability of seeds for movies I want to watch,
Unless you’re into SUPER niche stuff, that’s not an issue. If you ARE into super niche stuff, it wouldn’t be on streaming services anyway. Anything on streaming services is mainstream and easily downloadable.
If I have to google which streaming service a PBS show is on for my kid to watch. Something’s messed
Think of all the extra searches!
PBS shows are free on its own app/website though…
You’d think that, wouldn’t you?
In actuality, they pull shit like only having the most recent season of things and whatnot. For example, there’s no good reason why the PBS Kids Roku channel wouldn’t have all 4666 episodes of Sesame Street, but it doesn’t.
may i introduce you to the ARD Mediathek where ‘Die Sendung mit der Maus’ (a kind of sciency kids show) can have, by law, only the latest episode available for streaming. some other things may be available for longer, but it’s still pretty stupid…
The old Sesame Street episodes are on Netflix and are tagged as not suitable for children
It could be related to the HBO deal which if I recall bankrolls Sesame Street.
I started to use Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood as an example, but switched to Sesame Street for effect since the former “only” has 922 episodes. The point is, PBS does the same thing with all their shows. It doesn’t matter who makes it; everything from Arthur to Word Girl only has a dozen or so episodes available at any given time.
(Ditto for non-kids PBS stuff like Nova or This Old House, for that matter, I think. Even on Youtube they only make the latest few seasons available and remove access to everything older in hopes you’ll buy DVDs or something.)
It might be a rights issue. Not sure if PBS owns the rights, the Fred Rogers Company, or someone else. A lot of it doesn’t seem available at all. I came across a near complete archive from a twitch stream though if you’re interested: https://archive.org/details/@ipoy143
Yeah, I’ve run across that (it’s surprising how much stuff you can get from archive.org). Unfortunately, I don’t currently have enough disk space for it!
It can’t only be a rights issue though, because, again, PBS restricts access to the back catalog of literally everything regardless of who owns it.
It wouldn’t be uncommon for the rights to be divided up and sold per season given the context of children’s content. They are a nonprofit.
After just a few times of trying to watch something and not knowing which or if it was on any of my services I went straight back to the places I know will have exactly what I’m looking for in a couple clicks. Things have only gotten worse since then with the explosion of the number of streaming services.
I don’t know much, but Stremio does a fairly good job listing streaming services for anything searched
torrentio is also really helpful
The amount of media we have instant access to has reached a level that I find intimidating rather than inviting. Consuming media is becoming more of a chore than a pleasure. Dividing the available media into more services is a plus for me, if I am honest.
I have access to a streaming service, and if they don’t have anything I’m interested in, I just walk away and read a book, play a game, put on some music, go outside, or do my chores.
The days when I thought there were things I “should” watch/read/play/listen to are long gone. Not being driven by what is “the thing to do” makes life so much better.
Not having much choice also makes life easier. There were times when I spent more time clicking around in the flood of what I could consume than I did choosing and enjoying. Now, if I can’t decide in less than 5 minutes, I take it as a sign that I should do something else.
Then you should stop paying for whatever service you subscribe to but are not using. Sounds like you don’t need it.
Seriously. There’s way too much content and no way most of it is worth my time. If it is, people will still be talking about it in a couple decades, and then I’ll think about it.
too much content and no way most of it is worth my time.
That’s why I cut the cord many years ago.
Most months I only have 1 streaming subscription, and for a couple of months each year I don’t have any.
As the old song said “I’ve got 57 channels and there’s nothing on”
There are an absurd amount of perfectly good books and /or audio books out there. TV or movie as the only way to pass the time indoors may stop being the case. If it does I’m ready.
According to the Paradox of Choice, when you have to choose from lots of options, you’re likely to be less satisfied with the same end product.
The irony of a pay-walled article from one of the 50+ news websites requiring subscriptions complaining about fragmented streaming services is palpable.
Was there a single website where all news can post their article and be supported by a subscription model before this? If there isn’t, how is this comparison relevant?
Post.news is exactly that
Yes. It was called a newspaper…
The ads were terrible.
At least they didn’t autoplay or pop up
NPR/PBS.
Just let me have my Stremio, and I’m a content man
Piracy ftw. I can’t be bothered signing up for all this shit.
Warning. Do not look for Servarr apps or how to set them up on a home system of your choice like Unraid or it’s alternatives. Doing so may be a violation of local copyright law.
Yeah and whatever you do definitely don’t use Jellyseerr for Jellyfin setups or Overseerr for Plex setups
You wouldn’t download a car
Yes, yes I would
Given how 3D printing is developing, I would.
Jellyfin is a great alternative system. You just have to get the shows and movies somewhere which also isn’t that hard cough cough
How does this compare to Plex?
I haven’t used plex in a while, honestly, after they pushed more things I didn’t wanted. But for me it works awesome. I am a Linux user, it just installed straight out of the box, and works. Has a great web interface, and a mobile app that gets better and better. It gets all movie and show info from the internet, its honestly awesome.
This was a Very inevitable situation due to the fragmentation of Programs that are scattered across multiple Networks.
If only there was a solution to this problem of greed….
Don’t support companies who would try to geoblock you if they could.
Also, using a VPN to circumvent rules is against the TOS on most services. Don’t support that with your wallet.
I’m pretty sure you’ve got it wrong. Their TOSes can get fucked, with a VPN you do not need to even USE those services to watch everything on them.
deleted by creator
“What should Ie watch?” is the question not because the quality of the offerings is so good, but because generally the offerings are absolute crap. Free current B movies are a lucky find, the rest is all old C and D list crap. You can’t even find highly regarded classics like Schindler’s List or Shawshank Redemption for free most of the time.
It’s unbundling all the way down. Charge for the service, charge for the quality of service (# of devices, 4k or not), then charge for the better content.
As people get accustomed to crap, there will be more money in crap than in great films, so the crap will start to become the norm, and it will become very difficult to find quality.
piracy is way more convinient, especially with apps like CloudStream.
Or transmission/qbittorrent + rss + jellyfin + findroid for a self hosted alternative.
