I wouldn’t use a pirate streaming site over torrenting even if I was getting paid to do so lol the releases generally have terrible bitrates and low picture quality, likely because they’re the smallest files the site uploaders could find. They’re convenient if you can’t afford a VPN and don’t care about file quality when it comes to movies and shows, but I prefer being able to select a high quality file with good encoding, quality compression (265, AV1), and known high quality uploaders, like UTR and QxR. That’s only possible through torrenting the file or getting it through Usenet.
Those Times where Warez-Streaming-Sites had low quality are long gone. While 4k=3840 releases are rare, we have mostly 1920 nowadays with some 1280 in-between, often Bluray- or Streaming-Rips without re-encoding, at least if the source was H264/H265. Older MPEG2/4 though is still often recoded. You can easily re-encode an old MPEG2-Bluray from 20Gig to H265 4Gig without visibly loss. With more modern Codecs the Data is usually “re-containered” which means the Content itself isn’t changed, only the Encryption and Container are changed.
Overall Streamingz-Sites are pretty good nowadays, Amazon and Netflix take up to one minute to switch to high Bitrate quality for me. With Warez-Sites you have to wait 3-5 seconds but then it immediately starts at Max Quality and NEVER at lower quality. And their Search actually works great and is well organized and everything reacts so much faster because they reduce the eye candy. They also often have bookmarks - which don’t work as good as commercial providers but good enough.
I can only have access to Amazon, Netflix, Joyn and Public Television Media Centres so for other providers your mileage may vary.
Meh. I still prefer Stremio and my custom configured Jackett setup for searching for torrents. Just has more features and more control. I’ve never encountered a pirate streaming site with even half the features Stremio has. I will grant you that anime streaming sites have gotten a lot better over the years, but I still don’t trust general pirate streaming sites. It’s great to hear they got better though. Easier acess to media is always a good thing.
Torrents of all kinds can be easily tracked and its users be sued because they do not only consume but also distribute.
One-Click-Hosters and Streamingz-Sites on the other side are hard to track and their users don’t distribute.
At least by German Law it is mostly “we only care about distribution, not consumption”. The later has an estimated damage of $1 per case, that is not even petty crime. Distribution on the other hand often is handled at $1000/case… I think there was not a single case of a Streamingz-User being prosecuted but already millions of Torrent-Users.
Well this is a non-issue if you live in a country that doesn’t prosecute piracy or if you’re willing to pay for a VPN. I’ve been torrenting for years, and the last time I was caught was before I started using a VPN. I haven’t had a single issue since I started using one. Like I said though, pirate streaming sites work as a great solution for people who might not be able to afford to pay for a VPN or just don’t want the added expense.
I wouldn’t use a pirate streaming site over torrenting even if I was getting paid to do so lol the releases generally have terrible bitrates and low picture quality, likely because they’re the smallest files the site uploaders could find. They’re convenient if you can’t afford a VPN and don’t care about file quality when it comes to movies and shows, but I prefer being able to select a high quality file with good encoding, quality compression (265, AV1), and known high quality uploaders, like UTR and QxR. That’s only possible through torrenting the file or getting it through Usenet.
Usenet > *
Nope
Those Times where Warez-Streaming-Sites had low quality are long gone. While 4k=3840 releases are rare, we have mostly 1920 nowadays with some 1280 in-between, often Bluray- or Streaming-Rips without re-encoding, at least if the source was H264/H265. Older MPEG2/4 though is still often recoded. You can easily re-encode an old MPEG2-Bluray from 20Gig to H265 4Gig without visibly loss. With more modern Codecs the Data is usually “re-containered” which means the Content itself isn’t changed, only the Encryption and Container are changed.
Overall Streamingz-Sites are pretty good nowadays, Amazon and Netflix take up to one minute to switch to high Bitrate quality for me. With Warez-Sites you have to wait 3-5 seconds but then it immediately starts at Max Quality and NEVER at lower quality. And their Search actually works great and is well organized and everything reacts so much faster because they reduce the eye candy. They also often have bookmarks - which don’t work as good as commercial providers but good enough.
I can only have access to Amazon, Netflix, Joyn and Public Television Media Centres so for other providers your mileage may vary.
Meh. I still prefer Stremio and my custom configured Jackett setup for searching for torrents. Just has more features and more control. I’ve never encountered a pirate streaming site with even half the features Stremio has. I will grant you that anime streaming sites have gotten a lot better over the years, but I still don’t trust general pirate streaming sites. It’s great to hear they got better though. Easier acess to media is always a good thing.
Torrents of all kinds can be easily tracked and its users be sued because they do not only consume but also distribute.
One-Click-Hosters and Streamingz-Sites on the other side are hard to track and their users don’t distribute.
At least by German Law it is mostly “we only care about distribution, not consumption”. The later has an estimated damage of $1 per case, that is not even petty crime. Distribution on the other hand often is handled at $1000/case… I think there was not a single case of a Streamingz-User being prosecuted but already millions of Torrent-Users.
Well this is a non-issue if you live in a country that doesn’t prosecute piracy or if you’re willing to pay for a VPN. I’ve been torrenting for years, and the last time I was caught was before I started using a VPN. I haven’t had a single issue since I started using one. Like I said though, pirate streaming sites work as a great solution for people who might not be able to afford to pay for a VPN or just don’t want the added expense.