Quote:
Originally Posted by GA Russell
You guys make me wonder if I am paying every month for services I don't realize I get. Is there a website or book which will explain how I can inexpensively take advantage of what I am already paying for?
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What kind of stuff in particular?
I don't really have 19TB of content. But I *could*. My hardware and connectivity goes that far.
Some of the drives are backup drives of the others and all have lots of empty space for future content.
I doubt I have more than 6 TB. (About 800 DVDs worth.)
What I do have is a lot of DVDs both commercial (about two thirds) and homebrew (the rest).
The trick in the homebrews (Good quality SD recorded off the old HDNET, HDNET MOVIES, HBO, and SHOWTIME using the "analog hole") is that Philips used to have a line of DVD recorders with 480i component video inputs. So I would record shows like Torchwood and Blade and 80's and 90's movies in HD on the cable box, play them out (and record them) in very high quality SD in good old bulky MPEG. And because is so bulky it takes 4GB for one hour at the highest quality. But it also has tons of "redundant" data that allows for good scalers to produce beautiful faux-HD.
Today I wouldn't bother with that stuff (or buying DVDs) because of Hulu and Netflix and Prime Video but I did capture stuff that isn't readily available. Like DAISY COOKS from PBS, a cooking show on latin cuisine.
On the commercial DVDs I an accumulation of movies and TV shows that hard to find, stuff like THE CHAMPIONS from the 60's (only half the series, alas. For some reason A&E never saw fit to sell the second half.) Stargates, all seasons, all series. Smallville, BABYLON 5, TIME TUNNEL, GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, WILD WILD WEST... The sadly unappreciated TENTH KINGDOM. (I had to buy a rare dutch edition for that one.) Not all is online yet.
I just wait for sales on the DVD sets.
I've tried converting the disks to compressed files (mp4, wmv, mkv) but it takes time, artifacts pop up, and you don't have the features of the DVDs. And with hard drive space running about $0.25 a GB I decided to go with the much faster ISO encoding after I got the WD TV. It's about as fast and easy as ripping CDs.
All perfectly legit.
Now, the sad (for me) part is that after running into a mainstream media news article complaining about POPCORN TIME, I got curious about how that particular part of the darknet works and...
1- I got an education
2- Discovered I could've gotten away without buying most of the movies and a good portion of the TV DVDs.
One thing I found is those folks seem to have moles in the stamping plants because I've seen BluRay rips floating around of movies before the legal disks show up on Amazon. Three months earlier. The various distributors have actual brands so if you run into one, that will lead you to their corner of the red light district. Warning: do not explore with a production system. At least I didn't.
I used an old Android tablet I factory reset before and after.
3- I also found that there is at least one (sort-of?) legal tool for personal use all-digital online video capture. It requires a Quad Core PC and it's called Playlater. It comes from the same company that makes the PLEX competitor PLAY ON. The reason I think it's legal is because CNET (owned by anti-piracy zealot CBS) featured it as a deal of the day a while back. It lets you capture, save, and stream web video to DLNC clients. It's useful for viewing bowser-only stuff at Hulu, ABC, etc. I don't know how well it might work since me desktop is only dual core.
One thing is certain: when the BPHs complain about piracy, their Hollywood brethren have every right to roll their eyes. Especially producers of crappy horror flicks. I don't think there is one bad movie in that genre that isn't floating around in pristine 1080p.
