Sigh. I don't want to, but...

Netflix + change dns (not illegal, just against Eula) + Now TV (especially as movie codes come up on eBay for £5)
Cheap and you get most stuff. Use istreamguide.com to see what new releases are out in each Netflix region and use http://www.moreflicks.com/ to search for films and see if its available and if so what region .

Some series I'll watch like GOT live.
But most series I prefer to be ~5 years behind. Watched all series of braking bad within 2 months, much better way off doing it, don't have to wait years to watch it. You know before you start if it's going to get canned, so you can avoid it.
 
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Same here. I like to wait till a show is a few seasons in or maybe even finished then I storm through it all. I find it a much better viewing experience.

I pay for Sky, so could watch the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones etc. as they come out each week but I never bother. I always torrent TV shows and put the whole season on memory stick/ ext HD and plug it into my TV. I dont see this as wrong really. If I pay Sky £50 a month, I'm contributing to the programmes they show. Whether I watch them at the time they broadcast them or whether I use my Sky internet to download the shows afterwards makes absolutely no difference.
 
Personally I justify the use of torrents in that 90% of what I watch is on Sky anyway (which I pay for) with the rest of the shows buying boxsets of anyway if it's a particularly good series.
 
Lima said:
Same here. I like to wait till a show is a few seasons in or maybe even finished then I storm through it all. I find it a much better viewing experience.

I pay for Sky, so could watch the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones etc. as they come out each week but I never bother. I always torrent TV shows and put the whole season on memory stick/ ext HD and plug it into my TV. I dont see this as wrong really. If I pay Sky £50 a month, I'm contributing to the programmes they show. Whether I watch them at the time they broadcast them or whether I use my Sky internet to download the shows afterwards makes absolutely no difference.
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Why pay £50, nowTV has the important channels both live and on demand for £5 a month. And freesat can make up some of the others. Only a few more weeks, till sky is switched off for me. I've tested nowtv and found it provides what I need. Freest and Netflix make the rest up.
 
Lima said:
Same here. I like to wait till a show is a few seasons in or maybe even finished then I storm through it all. I find it a much better viewing experience.

I pay for Sky, so could watch the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones etc. as they come out each week but I never bother. I always torrent TV shows and put the whole season on memory stick/ ext HD and plug it into my TV. I dont see this as wrong really. If I pay Sky £50 a month, I'm contributing to the programmes they show. Whether I watch them at the time they broadcast them or whether I use my Sky internet to download the shows afterwards makes absolutely no difference.
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Why don't you just record them as they're broadcast and watch them at your leisure? :confused:
 
Part of the issue is having these guys deal with the world as it is not how it should be or they'd want it to be.

I'd have no issue with paying a sensible monthly amount for an on demand service of TV and film but the fact the rights are such a mess makes that impossible and perversely makes doing it illegally actually easier than doing it legally. I can't think of many other things where stealing something is more socially accepted and is easier than going via the legitimate channels (at least more than once, I get stealing a packet of crisps is pretty easy but you couldn't get away with it very often).

The problem is its entirely legitimate for services like blinkbox or whatever to try and bring people to their service by having something exclusively but they're operating like they're not in a world where if I don't like the commercial offer then I'll just choose not to pay AND have whatever they're selling.

We kind of need to get to a world where music is sort of heading, just unlimited streaming of content from all providers. Anything less is doomed to failure, not because its not a great idea but because the cat is out of the bag, we all know how to get pretty much anything for nothing so there is almost no price elasticity and you need to be providing a great service with no holes.

I sort of thought netflix were getting there, I also think Amazon are in a reasonable spot for this but until I can sit down on the day of release of a film and stream it (with a few adverts, I can live with that) in HD, or if the feeling takes me I can stream Rambo, or some obscure mumblecore film or whatever without having to have a dozen different usernames and bits of equipment I think they're doomed to failure, or at least doomed to keep trying to grind out a business model whilst losing potential customers.

Its like they've learned nothing from the music industry... they went all the way to £14 CDs, the market near enough collapsed and now they've had to find a way of making money from a largely "free" service and those same £14 CDs have come down to £7 in an effort to get people to actually buy something.

But hey, they're also figuring out the real money is in live music.

Movies will get there but it'll take a while. Even cinemas are crazy.. if it was £5 to see a new movie in a decent theatre I'd be there every week without fail. However taking my 2 kids and the other half with a box of popcorn is now over £40... are you mental? NO! I'm not paying that, whether I can get it free or not the cinema is not worth that much.

And don't get me onto the point about things you're forced to either pirate or just never see.. there's so much on TV, or has been on TV that I'd want to watch but I can't (maybe ;)) because there's no legal way of obtaining the media.

Madness.
 
I remember going in to Comet and Curys when divx as a codec became available on some dvd players. I also remember asking either store if they had a player available only to receive a response like "we aren't allowed to sell those kinds of player here". Last week I tried to legally buy a sacd only to find on pressing the buy button there were region restrictions making it unavailable. I made the mistake of buying the complete Lost series on Blu Ray only to find that before it would even play, the player had to go through 5-10 min of adverts and 11 different sub-sections/menus and warnings on every disk before I could get to what it was I wanted to watch? You can't even really sell your pc games or part ex them anymore, so hell yes I'll pirate until what it is I actually pay for belongs to me and I can do with it what I want, and so presumably will everybody else. Oh I forgot the constant threat/reminders from Powerdvd that you need to upgrade before you can watch your legitimately purchased film.
 
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TheVoice said:
Why don't you just record them as they're broadcast and watch them at your leisure? :confused:
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I have nothing against this, but I never pay attention to when things are on or about to air in the UK. Also, sometimes seasons are shown sporadically due to schedule conflicts or whatever, which can be annoying. I just find it so much easier to type the name of what I want in a torrent site and then get the best version based on feedback/ comments and seeders. All TV series I've watched, I have watched when they have either finished airing completely or after they have been on for a season or 2, which means I would have missed the boat on recording them on Sky.

Game of Thrones (Sky Atlantic I believe?) - Started watching after season 1 finished (download all seasons once they finishing airing in US).
American Horror Story (FX) - Started watching after season 2 finished.
Entourage (ITV2 then moved to something else) - Watched it after the end of the last season. (Downloaded all in one go)
Dexter (FX) - Started watching after season 7 finished.
Walking Dead (FX) - Started watching after season 1 finished.
Modern Family (Sky Atlantic?) - Started watching after season 1 finished.
Breaking bad - Netflix .....I just plain didnt pay for this one. :eek:

As far as I'm concerned, I have the right to download for free and watch all of the above (apart from BB) based on my Sky subscription. As long as I dont start making pirate DVDs and selling them for profit.....not that anyone would buy them.

Glaucus, I might actually look into NowTV soon.
 
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The industry just doesn't "get it" yet. The gaming industry "got it", which is why steam hit 8 million concurrent users this year and sold god knows how many games.
 
After watching said film, and finding it to be pretty crap, I'm just glad no money traded hands.

I'm not sure how I feel now, tbh. Conflicted. I like to think that I'm a law abiding person. But if I'd actually spent money (bought the DVD) to watch this, I'd feel incredibly ripped off right now.

On the other hand, I've bought plenty of games for £10 and hated them too. Hell I've paid £30 for some games and hated them. And try before you buy isn't really doable with films.

/sigh. Guess I'm just going to have to admit I'm an evil law-breaking cheapskate :p But the film was bloody awful.
 
I'm considering dumping my sky sub.

At the moment I have the entertainment extra package with free Sky F1. If it wasn't that I like the F1 I'd probably cancel it altogether. In fact, I recently recorded all the Prison Break episodes and I've been watching them with my girlfriend.

By the time we get to the end, we could have bought the box set 5 times over.
 
I'm considering the same actually.

My question is, is there a freeview HD PVR with all the on demand services that isn't a geeks wet dream to use? My other half rightly will have no truck with IP addresses and command lines!
 
Vonhelmet said:
I'm just stating the facts. I torrent things from time to time, but I don't come here looking for someone to salve my conscience and tell me it's ok.
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It's irrelevant as to whether others think it's okay or not though really, and it has nothing to do with morality or conscience. It's an option that people have, and some people take to using that option.
 
If i can watch what i want to watch legally, then i will, If not, i'm happy to look elsewhere for it.

Waiting six months to a year for something to be aired in the UK usually means avoiding most of the internet.

Sky have the right idea with some of their shows airing at roughly the same time as the US, but unfortunately they dont have everything.
 
matt100 said:
I'm considering the same actually.

My question is, is there a freeview HD PVR with all the on demand services that isn't a geeks wet dream to use? My other half rightly will have no truck with IP addresses and command lines!
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Youview
 
It may have changed since but I made the mistake of getting Youview about a year ago. Absolutely god awful UI, it was so slow and painful to use I sent it back, cancelled my contract and just got an HTPC instead.
 
I have a stand-alone Youview box, no contract running on a VM line.

I haven't had mine all that long, about 3 months. I am very happy with it. It has been perfectly responsive for me. And works with the XB1 OneGuide, which is good.
 
Lima said:
I have nothing against this, but I never pay attention to when things are on or about to air in the UK. Also, sometimes seasons are shown sporadically due to schedule conflicts or whatever, which can be annoying. I just find it so much easier to type the name of what I want in a torrent site and then get the best version based on feedback/ comments and seeders. All TV series I've watched, I have watched when they have either finished airing completely or after they have been on for a season or 2, which means I would have missed the boat on recording them on Sky.

Game of Thrones (Sky Atlantic I believe?) - Started watching after season 1 finished (download all seasons once they finishing airing in US).
American Horror Story (FX) - Started watching after season 2 finished.
Entourage (ITV2 then moved to something else) - Watched it after the end of the last season. (Downloaded all in one go)
Dexter (FX) - Started watching after season 7 finished.
Walking Dead (FX) - Started watching after season 1 finished.
Modern Family (Sky Atlantic?) - Started watching after season 1 finished.
Breaking bad - Netflix .....I just plain didnt pay for this one. :eek:

As far as I'm concerned, I have the right to download for free and watch all of the above (apart from BB) based on my Sky subscription. As long as I dont start making pirate DVDs and selling them for profit.....not that anyone would buy them.

Glaucus, I might actually look into NowTV soon.
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Fair enough, but most of those have been available on demand on-and-off over the past year or so. Obviously that's not quite as convenient as being able to download whatever whenever, but the industry is evidently at least trying to make things more accessible to customers within the limits it has (in terms of licensing etc).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to vilify anyone here - I've been having to use other methods to catch up with some TV shows I lost when my Sky box crashed - but I'll sooner use the facilities I'm paying for than just bypass it completely for the sake of it.
 
bledd. said:
I wish Amazon would buy Netflix and merge it with Lovefilm, (I prefer the way Netflix works)

I'd rather have one big company with EVERYTHING on it and pay a premium for it. Sky is a joke, paid for service with adverts? please..
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This. Competition is never a good thing.

My only gripe is when you flat out can't get it legally at any price.

Edit: I fail at reading threads dates.
 
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