I started getting into torrents about 2 years ago, at the time I started out with downloading YIFY rips and x265 RARBG encodes. I didn't care about the quality at the time, I was just happy to get movies. But I also wanted stuff like Special Features, and while Tigole and the QxR team occasionally added them for some of their movies, it felt like something was missing.

Eventually I grew dissatisfied with encodes, and wanted to watch movies in the highest quality possible. I would have downloaded BDMVs, but no one seemed to be seeding them, or in the case of less-mainstream/obscure movies, they weren't on public trackers at all. (I tried downloading REMUXes from FGT, but they always replaced the PGS subtitles with UTF text subtitles, which I didn't appreciate.) So in early 2022 I bought myself a Blu-ray optical drive, set up MakeMKV, and bought the Blu-ray of the movie I wanted to rip. After that, I bought some more BDs to rip, and I started making my own REMUXes. Some time after that, I flashed my drive with the LibreDrive firmware so I could rip my 4K UHD discs too.

So anyway, my point is that the arguments that piracy is "bad for business" and causes companies to "lose money" are full of hot air. If anything, piracy is good for them and increases sales. There have been numerous occasions where I have wanted to download a REMUX and there were no seeders, and decided it would be easier for me to buy the disc and rip it myself.

So, the main takeaways are:

Piracy isn't nearly as bad as the authorities say it is, and may actually increase sales.
Create good-quality encodes.
Seed all your torrents.

TL;DR: Started buying and ripping my own Blu-rays due to dissatisfaction with low-quality encodes and lack of seeders.

(page 2) 35 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] onichama@feddit.de 4 points 2 years ago

So much this. Watched so many anime for free that I ended up spending a bunch of money on figurines, mangas and other merchandise!

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 years ago

Similar outcome. At this point, I mostly just rent 4k online because my massive Plex library has bit-for-bit Blu-ray rips of everything I care about enough to have on hand. But I spent years building that library by ripping physical media.

I still buy and rip CDs because I love album art and want high quality. If not for the former, I'd likely go flacc or lossless and buy online.

[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago

I bought more CDs while Napster was in its heyday than the entire rest of my life combined.

[–] zabadoh@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

The problem with older media is that you have to actively create torrents, the tracker might fold, etc.

With eD2K, it's very old school P2P filesharing, just give it a directory and the files on it are shared on the network.

[–] SheritaX@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I used to have a lot of Blu-ray Disc movie resources, but I wanted to play Blu-ray Disc on different devices, or convert Blu-ray Disc into different formats, such as MP4, so I wanna know how to rip blu-ray. My friend recommended Handbrake to me. Although it is a free software, I have to install libdvdcss specially, and there are still a series of problems, so I finally bought a paid software, DVDFab, which is a one-time payment for permanent use, and it is still available at present.

[–] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

Handbrake only converts an existing Blu-ray rip to a video format, it doesn't rip DVDs and Blu-rays on its' own.

You can install MakeMKV to rip your discs, then convert them to video files in HandBrake.

[–] arcturax@chitter.xyz 2 points 2 years ago

@TheImpressiveX if you don't have money to spend but the movie is older, one can also hit up charity stores. I find good Blu ray and dvds for a few dollars at the local st Vincent DePaul stores all the time. It takes patience but it pays off. I've got some great full seasons of TV shows too for like $5

Just check disk for damage before buying and that the right disk is in the right box.

[–] Squizzy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'm so confused by the tier list of what is good resolution. I thought AV1 was the best encode at the moment, I'm not concerned with size but resolution. Are these remixes the best for that?

[–] prettytrucknutz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 years ago

Remux is lossless usually so it's the closest to blu-ray

[–] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's not about resolution, it's also about bitrate. Higher bitrate = higher quality.

Though I am excited for the futute of AV1. I'm still confused how they managed to make videos look great while keeping bitrate and file sizes low...

[–] Odo@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

It's not just bitrate but how good the retail encode of a Blu-ray is. There are certain movies where a smaller bit-rated Blu-ray is actually the best option. Private trackers are filled with comparisons between all the available Blu-rays to figure out of which one is the best in terms of video/audio quality. Buying a Blu-ray may still not get you the best quality.

load more comments