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Comment by cpach | Hacker News Reader

Honest question: What is TPB good for these days? Recent mainstream movies are available through iTunes and similar venues. Older and/or lesser known movies usually have very few seeders on TPB IME. IMO it’s more convenient to just order the DVD by mail in that case.

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I like to have downloaded files of movies I own. Thus I can watch them without and internet connection and also I don't have to trust the the streaming service will randomly delete my movie (as has happened).

Why not just rip them? I used to rip all of my DVDs, but then found I never watched those rips, and now I'd rather just pay $5 to watch the 4k version than track down my "free" 480i copy.

Takes a lot longer than search, click magnet link, open file.

Ripping them is exactly as illegal as torrenting while being harder to do and the tools to remove DRM from content are under constant attack. It's easier to just torrent.

Thanks, I didn't realize what a hassle the DRM stuff had become.

That's such a hassle. I only do that with movies I can't find good torrents for. (My local library has a pretty good DVD collection.)

Why don’t you use Usenet?

In-browser players with drm lag and don't give you options about video quality, can't shift playback speed or shift audio/video sync timing or add subtitles from fans etc etc.

Software like Photoshop or After Effects, cracked PC games I would guess, and of course pornography. Important to note that despite the convenience offered in today's streaming services, there is still a large portion of people who are morally/ethically against paying for streaming services, so there is still a market for TV and movies -- PopcornTime runs on torrents and there are millions of users.

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I honestly find everything I want there. It's still the only sensible place to obtain stuff I want to check out (no, I don't want to dish out 20€/month to see one film once) and I never have a problem with getting old things faster than I can plug in my DVD drive. It's perfectly fine as a normie tracker imo.

To try games. Since companies stopped creating demos I need to download a pirated copy of a game before deciding if I should buy it or not, even just to check if it runs decently on my hw configuration.

Huh, I thought that is what steam refunds are for these days. Do you also finish the game, to decide if you like the games ending?

https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

Thank god all the games exist on Steam.

Reading the tos for refunds it seems I have to play for a maximum of two hours or must be passed less than two weeks from the moment I buy. Considering I play mostly rts, simulator or survival games I need far more than 2 hours to understand if the gameplay is deep enough or replayable enough, or if the game slow down too much as soon as I have too many units/buildings in the screen

Well, Game of Thrones was readily available with a lot of seeds.

I’m not surprised, that’s exactly the kind of material one would expect to find there. If I would watch GoT I would just do it on HBO, but to each their own.

It was great for GoT...

Well, it's like streaming services, but free. It's great for well known movies and music. Sometimes software too.

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