Comment by coreyp_1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coreyp_1 | Hacker News Reader

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Rant:

I gave up. I cancelled my streaming services.

I bought a mini PC (<$100). I started buying blu-rays on FB Marketplace and pawn shops ($.75-$2.00 each). I'm ripping them to a big harddrive (12TB, ~$200). I have Jellyfin installed (Open Source, Free). I bought a digital antenna ($130) and capture device ($200) compatible with Jellyfin. I set up SSL certs and DuckDNS (free). I integrated it with Home Assistant (free).

I can now watch my movie library or live tv from anywhere, and I have all of the bonus features from the disks. It's private!!!! I'm not being tracked. There is no profile anywhere that says "he watches this or that for X amount of time at Y part of the day, and travels to A and B".

I had subscribed to Netflix for over 16 years. Then, when they "cracked down" on my mother accessing it (I had stopped using it myself), I decided that enough was enough.

I don't care if it cost a lot to set up. This is mine, and I will NEVER go back to paying them a subscription.

Lesson: Don't anger the nerds. They can replace you. They will replace you.

At least until they stop selling Blu Rays. Best Buy will stop doing so at the end of this year[1]. Others will probably follow. That same article is saying that Disney is also cutting back on physical media.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/13/23915567/best-buy-discon...

I too have gone back to ripping Blu Rays, but it is a pain. Sometimes I buy the blu-ray, then torrent the digital files.

If they'd just sell me a DRM free digital version, I'd be all over it. I'd probably end up paying _more_ than I do in subscriptions knowing I can watch how I want, when I want, for as long as I want.

I spend way more than $15/month on bandcamp for DRM free music (vs Spotify plan), give more money to artists, and cut down on streaming costs of the platforms.

Yeah I did Spotify for a while, but then went back to just buying DRM-free albums instead. I'm probably spending about the same amount, and I choose when I want to spend the money instead of just opening yet another vein for some corporate leech to suck my blood from.

Where are you buying DRM-free albums?

I'm currently just ripping my CDs (flac), but am completely undecided about new purchases.

iTunes Store mostly. Those are all DRM-free.

"All songs offered by the iTunes Store come without Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection. These DRM-free songs, called iTunes Plus, have no usage restrictions and feature high-quality, 256 kbps AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) encoding."

https://support.apple.com/guide/music/intro-to-the-itunes-st...

What do you use for a capture device? I'm currently using a Tivo Roamio (with lifetime subscription) and love it, but it's at least 7-8 years old so thinking about what's next. Only real complaint is remote viewing needs a really solid connection and sometimes just doesn't work.

Also a regular Plex user so would like something that integrates with it to handle antenna / live recording.

HD Homerun Flex 4K

I got it because it can stream to more than one person simultaneously (although I haven't tested it thoroughly yet).

There's supposedly some issues with the newer encodings and Jellyfin itself (just watch any video on YT that talks about the HD Homerun Flex 4K and Jellyfin), but it's all good for me so far. I don't know if Plex users are affected.

I was able to pick up 41 channels, but I only got a 70 mile antenna, and the big cities are much further away, so I'm happy with it.

But nerds are a minority, most people don't know or want to take all those workarounds. They aim for them not for a minority.

The only problem with this is the advent of streaming original content. Netflix, for example, has some really good stuff among the dross that they have produced, and I doubt it'll ever see a physical distribution.

You are erecting a barrier in your mind that does not exist in reality.

I did most of the same, loving how powerful the N100 chipset is.

I’ve yet to go all the way with an antenna and capture device, seemingly waiting forever for ATSC 3.0 broadcasts in my area.

I do the same but I convert all my media to 720p using AV1 and Opus. Each movie comes to about ~820MB. My library is gigantic!

I've been hesitant to drop below the provided resolution (1080 for blu-ray), and keep the quality quite high, so a movie is ~8 gigs. But Jellyfin will transcode it on-the-fly if you need a lower quality while streaming, so I wasn't too worried about it.

Do you mind if I ask how large the screen is that you view it on? I'm watching on a 65" tv in my living room, and artifacts are visible during high-action sequences.

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