http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2010/02/the-studios-are-driving-people-to-piracy.html

The PS3/bluray issues I run into make me want to seriously consider pirating movies instead of renting/buying them. I love netflix watch instantly, but they don't have a lot in HD and the selection in general is limited.

Speaking of which, we now stream to two tvs in our house, one using roku, the other using xbox or ps3. I wish we could stream our local morning news on roku, that would rock.

I think if you BUY a movie, there should be absolutely no content on the disc that isn't directly related to the movie itself, or possible the development of it. If they must have previews, it should be an OPTION in the MENU.

I don't really pirate anything anymore now that I make decent money (basically since high school), but sometimes a point needs to be made, and the only way to do it is by effecting someones bank account. They'll ignore letters, phone calls, emails... but they wont ignore millions lost.

AnyDVD for the win, sadly. Not only does it remove the stupid DRM so I can play it on my PCs elsewhere (like my HTPC macbook via streaming, I love XBMC), but it will also remove all of the "restricted navigation" as well, allowing you to skip anywhere and everywhere.

I stream media via Clicker, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Revision3, TED, VBS.TV & YouTube. I also use an HD antenna to watch local news (I cancelled cable). That's an incredible amount of media & the only thing that I pay for is Netflix (I have the cheapest deal (1 physical movie at a time) with Blu-Ray). I find that I'm pretty much content with this. However, I don't like going to the cinema often (it's a ****ing rip-off & I don't like it when people make noise) & have no reservations about downloading or streaming a pirated movie.

Piracy wouldn't be as much of an issue if the associated artists & industry weren't so greedy & short-sighted. I don't typically have any problem with downloading or streaming something that I wouldn't have paid for otherwise (it would've eventually come to me via one of the above mentioned places anyways). My wife & I watch a lot of foreign films (mostly French) & not everything that we want is available via the the above resources. We NEVER want to see something bad enough to purchase it but we don't mind paying a reasonable monthly fee to do so (e.g. Netflix).

I'm currently streaming most of my media via our Blu-Ray player that supports Netflix, Pandora & YouTube in the living room & everything else via our laptop in the bedroom or my iMac in my office. I was using the Xbox 360 to stream Netflix but since I never used it for gaming I just sold it with all of the accessories.

Do they have anydvd for bluray? The more I use bluray, the more it pisses me off. For example, as other people in that thread complain about, I can't resume a bluray where I left off, so I have to go through the fbi screens, unskippable ads, ads for bluray (which I'm already watching, wtf?). Another interesting thing the comments mention is that "rental" dvds and blurays are manufactured specifically for renting and prevent skipping all the stuff purchased ones allow you to skip. That's ... annoying.

According to their website they support decryption of Blu-Ray & HD DVD movies.

Actually I suppose it wouldn't make much sense... I just rent from netflix, I don't want/need a permanent copy, so ripping them to another disk to remove those "features" will take longer than just sitting through them.

Another benefit of AnyDVD HD (the edition that supports Bluray) is it will do the decrypting and such on the fly, which means if you want to stream straight from the disk or what have you, you can do that.

Also, speaking of streaming TV, XBMC has plugins that supports things like Revision3 right from the interface. It's

/facepalm

So I heard on the PS3 you have to use a "Netflix" Disc. Can't just download the "app", that's stupid.

I don't know what revision3 is, but I think the roku has a channel for that.

zan: yeah, it's true, you have to have a disk, it's annoying and slow. The xbox app is better, but of course you have to pay for xbox live if you want to use it. The ps3 will apparently have a native app in some future update, but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah, I actually like my Blu-ray player's Netflix streaming. Works rather fast.

I like the Netflix app integrated into WMC. Works great. Only drawback is it doesn't support HD (cause it's basically just using the same SilverLight player that the site uses, which for some reason still doesn't have HD support), but there's very little stuff in HD on Netflix that I haven't already seen anywho.

I never use the streaming to computer, it's always to tv. I can't stand watching on computer monitors, just too small and no couch.

This was on (I think) reddit yesterday:

problems with that graphic


trailers are RARELY unskippable... same with the bluray commercial (though putting bluray commercials on blurays... HEY MORONS WHO ARE AUTHORING THESE DISCS... STOP IT)

you still get the studio logo bits with pirated versions

This is on an HTPC hooked up to a TV.

As Darth said, my Macbook is hooked up to my HDTV via VGA cable. I control it using my apple remote (could use a universal one too).

In XBMC I can stream everything that's stored on my PC. All my anime, all my tv shows, all my ripped movies (complete with awesome looking wallpapers for each automatically and scraping the web for synopsizes/bios/etc). I can also stream web content like the aforementioned Revision3 and like, 50 other sites.

In short, XBMC is awesome.

I'm 99% sure my PS3 does this. At least it did in the LOST BRDs. Haven't tried during a movie, I rarely stop in the middle of movies.

I love my setup cause it also functions as a DVR (since it's running in WMC) and will automatically transfer stuff to my bigass file server where it can be played back on any computer I have. One of these days I'm going to upgrade from the clear QAM tuner I'm using to a cablecard tuner. That and take the time to set it up to automatically strip out commercials, which I've been too lazy to do.

I'm not sure how it works. It seems to me a movie or two did it, but most don't. Not sure how that happens, but it definitely hasn't saved my place on any movies in the past 3-4 months. Could have something to do with a firmware update?

Maybe? My PS3 is a slim from December... probably manufactured in Sept or so...

Maybe it also has to do with the blu-ray version? Some of the early BRDs are probably written using older software, which may not have supported any kind of resume function.

it has something to do with the whole BD Java thing

the resume function is completely dependent on the disc you are watching

Yeah, it's based on the discs, not the player. Some discs just plain don't support resuming because of BD-Java.

http://www.handcoding.com/archives/2009/04/03/oh-so-thats-why-some-blu-ray-discs-dont-resume/

Alternatively, you can always create bookmarks and use those to resume. Not nearly as easy as normal resuming obviously, but it does work.

I could never get bookmarking to work -- what's the trick?

Usually you just press the green button at the point where you want to bookmark. Then the bookmark can be accessed in the chapters/scenes menu.

I guess some discs don't support bookmarking either though (from what I've just read), so maybe it's not a 100% reliable thing.

also which button you press for bookmarking depends on the disc...

never used it myself though so i'm not sure how well it works i don't like to stop in the middle of something long enough to where i'd want bookmarking or resume function i prefer to start over from the beginning

I actually prefer streaming Netflix over my Blu-Ray player to streaming over the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 had a few extra features but seemed a bit slower & my Blu-Ray player just does what it does really well. I wish it had more than just Netflix, Pandora & YouTube support though. How does XBMX compare to Boxee? I had considered getting a Boxee Box once they come out but I really haven't done any real comparisons of similar services yet.

Boxee is based off of XBMC's code, but I think XBMC has a much better interface (plus optional skins), and far more focus on your content instead of social media.

XBOX 360 is likely slower than a purpose-built machine, especially considering you have to wait for it to boot up then navigate to the app. I use it because it's still faster than ps3 and more reliable as well. By far, the roku is the fastest, but we moved that to another room and I don't use it much anymore (kids do).

When it comes to movies about the worst thing I do is rip netflix DVDs sometimes. I basically refuse to purchase most DVDs now since the publishers have jacked the prices up to make bluray seem more attractive. To me the eye candy in bluray is not spectacular enough to make me want to upgrade. Upscaled DVDs are perfectly acceptable. Bluray is certainly not the leap forward that DVD was.

Brian, unless you absolutely love your PS3 for gaming or something, the right thing for you to do might be to sell it and stick with DVDs and broadcast and streamed HD. With the mediocre performance of bluray machines and media it is almost like they are trying to push people to streamed media. As somebody, maybe you, brought up recently it would be interesting to see how this would have been different had HDDVD won.

I'm looking forward to the day I can stream all movies in HD. It's a far superior way to watch movies. They are supposedly introducing 40mb internet in my area in the next few months.

Does Netflix stream in HD (720/1080) at all? I have a Netflix account, but most of the streams look like garbage. Also, for some reason, half the blu-ray discs I get from Netflix are cracked, which really is starting to piss me off.

Pirate the movies. Saves money.

And Cool Matty is correct, XBMC is the ****.

Yeah, it does stream in HD for some movies (I think about 10% of their streaming catalog). It's 720p. You can see the list here: http://www.netflix.com/wihd/

I've never gotten a cracked bluray from netflix. Actually we've been members since 2002 or something and we've only had about 3 unplayable disks in that entire time.

i've had one cracked bluray arrive from netflix

i've received quite a few that looked like someone handled the disc with a piece of fried chicken though

I thought this thread was going to be about Ubisoft...

Ahh videogames.
Go back 3 years and you would have said EA.

Relevance!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/2/19/

I most enjoyed the attached news tidbit:

"...until someone raises the Goddamned Jolly Roger and says they'll pirate the game as a gesture consistent with some comprehensive ur-morality they've ginned up, one where stealing things is alright provided they were very angry when they did it."

I lol'ed, anyway.

AnyDVD sounds pretty awesome, I'm gonna give that a try