So I've been ripping my DVDs to a media server as well as going to used book stores and adding to the collection just so I can stop funding all this woke nonsense. From a technical standpoint its all cool and fun and I've been sharing my story with various friends (omitting the 'woke' part because many of these guys are all part of the facebook consciousness 'Landru, save us')
From 3 separate people at 3 separate times now - my talking about just using my own library for streaming purposes rather than pay the fee has led to them responding, exactly word for word, "I subscribe to Disney+ because I can't afford to buy all those Disney movies" like it's some sort of hypnotic suggestion. (and I don't even bring up Disney+, just streaming services in general)
Certainly that's true if you buy the discs new - but if you get them off of EBay or a used book store you can pick up most Disney movies on bluray for under $10 and DVD for usually $5! So, yeah, you've got some costs up front if you're a BIG Disney fan of yore but the media is YOURS, can't be edited for content behind your back and you'll always have access to it (and will eventually recoup the cost)
I had a friend last night (that spurred on this rant) then go on to say that he watched "The Black Hole" and "The Apple Dumpling Gang" which he would've never seen if he didn't have D+ - As if he's justifying the $90/year price tag to himself by saying he's watching movies he couldn't be bothered to watch without it? Don't get me wrong - I'm a spend your money as you see fit kinda guy. But none of my friends were touting how GREAT D+ was... they were all grudgingly defending their monthly tithes to the mouse (I have it because it'd be more expensive to not have it) and, more importantly, using the same verbiage...
Just an odd Sunday morning note...
I need to start doing what you do.
Oh yea. I finally learned how to do that
Just make sure you use a VPN when you download torrents. Streaming sites are legal gray areas that nobody cares about because you're only downloading. However with P2P torrents you're also uploading. So make you sure you have that extra layer of obfuscation.
Operating a streaming site is definitely illegal, and not just in the hyperbolic sense that copyright infringement is illegal, the Democrats actually made it a felony. Viewing a streaming site is probably ok though.
For those of us who live in BFE and have shit-tier Internet service that's only available from one provider, torrenting isn't always the easiest or fastest option. On an added point, by maintaining your own hardcopy archive of the discs in addition to the ripped version, you're protected (somewhat) from drive failure in the storage array since you can always re-rip them if you have a catastrophic failure.
But yeah, I see your point - if you have fast Internet then by all means, sail the seas and save yourself some legwork.
Totally agreed - anyone who sets up a home NAS without some sort of redundancy (in my mind, a minimum of RAID 5) is playing with fire when it comes to data loss. One doesn't necessarily have to go out and spring for a high-end Buffalo or Synology multi-drive unit, a homebrew one works fine if you know what you're doing, but one definitely needs to make sure they can source replacement drives in the event of a failure. In my mind, that's a big one, because I've worked with too many businesses in the past that didn't really understand the impact of making sure they had a good backup of their data and that RAID is not a backup. They didn't get the notion that they were responsible for making sure their RAID was in good health and that they were taking a copy of their data offsite, much less something as simple as rotating their backups. Anyone getting into hosting their own needs to make sure that they know what they're doing when it comes to keeping a copy of their data (both RAID and backup) safe so they don't end up having to go to the trouble of doing the aforementioned re-ripping in the event of catastrophe.
Want to save money?
Get a library card. Seriously. Libraries have a lot of really interesting stuff you'd figure they wouldn't have, including video games.
You can borrow a lot of shit from the library for free - it's actually pretty impressive the selection you get. Remember, some of your tax dollars are spent funding these libraries, so make use of them.