Why didn't anybody tell me that She-Ra was going off Netflix in a month?

[conuly]

And not, apparently, legitimately going anywhere?

Guys, you need to tell me these things! Now where am I supposed to pirate this one from? (I mean, uh, legally obtain it - oh, fuck it.)

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Pirate bay still exists... as does tor browser.

[andrewducker]

Downloading from the former right now!

[malada]

*plays the theme from "Pirates of the Caribbean"*

[glaurung]

Also Limetorrents.lol. ALso: I always use a VPN to download torrents to prevent getting dinged as a horrible evil pirate by the MPAA.

[conuly]

Okay, followup: Is this workable on my iphone? And can I then stream to my TV?

[silveradept]

Yeah, they didn't even finish providing disc releases for it, as I understand, so circulating the tapes is soon going to be the only way to obtain all if it.

Thankfully, there is a great tape-circulating community on the Internet.

[movingfinger]

A Tumblr user, dearbelovedlover, posted a Google drive link over there in December. I know this because for some reason I thought someone might want to know about it and kept it in a separate tab. There has been a lot of discussion of it on Tumblr, also.

[glaurung]

No, downloading torrents is a desktop/laptop endeavour. Once you've got them downloaded, they exist as video files on the computer. I gather that you can stream those files to a phone by using media library software like plex (I have never done this as I only watch things on a full size screen). There's also the option of copying the movie file directly to your phone, as one used to do with mp3's back in the dawn of the 21st century. With modern TVs, one can put media files on a USB stick, plug that into the TV, and usually the TV will be able to play it. Roku makes a box that has a USB port, which enables you to plug a stick into an older TV. There's also just using the TV as an external screen for a laptop via HDMI.

While piracy is cheap, it does require a non-trivial amount of effort to learn all the aspects of finding, downloading, and making use of pirated media files. here's a very brief breakdown of the basics:

Step one: you need a computer (mac or PC) with a web browser and torrent software (these days everyone uses qbittorrent). Block ads on the browser: Piracy is shady, and shady sites have shady ads, which can include spyware and malware.

Step two: search for your show on the torrent site.

"She-Ra-and-the-Princesses-of-Power-S05E12-1080p-NF-WEB-DL-DDP5-1-H-264-DUAL-BiOMA" is one of many, many hits I got just now on limetorrents. S05E12 is the season and episode number. 1080p is the resolution. Web-DL (web download) means the source was a streaming service (you'll also see Blu-ray, DVD, etc). DDP5.1 = dolby digital surround sound. H.264 = the video codec (sometimes x264, same thing). BIOMA = the handle of the uploader.

You'll also see complete seasons of shows bundled into a single download, and for cancelled shows, downloads of all seasons in one.

For movies, avoid ones that say the source was "cam" - that's someone recording the screen in a movie theatre so as to be able to share it online before it's available on streaming services/physical media, and those generally look and sound quite awful.

For plex, you shouldn't have to care about codecs. For plugging directly into a TV, or for playing on itunes, sadly you do - Itunes only likes x264, and that is the closest to a universal format these days for TVs and other devices that can play videos, with x265 as runner up. XVID is very old and on the way out but some shows are still only available in that format. (the pirate community is very much of the current moment, so shows that first became available long ago tend to not get redone in newer formats, unless there's a big enough fanbase to justify it. For instance, if you want to download the Gerry Anderson UFO series, the only format I have seen is XVID sourced from DVDs).

Step 3: Each hit on the torrent website will list the number of "seeders" - this must be more than zero, and low numbers can take a long time to download. The torrent site's info is approximate, current information will be shown inside the torrent program. Seeders are people currently uploading the show. A torrent with zero seeders is "dead" and cannot be downloaded. "Leechers" are the number of people currently downloading the torrent - high numbers here can mean a slow download. Once someone finishes downloading, their torrent software automatically switches from leeching to seeding.

The MPAA, RIAA, and so on are known to sue people who seed. They also have cut deals with large US internet providers to cut off internet access for people who download torrents.

Hence it's a good idea to use VPN software for downloading torrents, or else immediately stop the torrent once it finishes downloading. On a public torrent site like Pirate bay or Limetorrents, nobody cares whether you seed or not, but it's considered polite to do so. On a private members only torrent site like Pass The Popcorn or TV Chaos UK, seeding for at least a few days is mandatory.

Step 4: assuming you've turned on your VPN or decided to chance it without, download the .torrent file or click on the magnet link. You'll need to teach windows to use the torrent program to open .torrent files, and if you're going to use magnet links you need to teach the web browser to send them to the torrent program. The Pirate Bay only ever has magnet links. Other sites will usually give you a choice. I generally use magnet links only if downloading isn't working.

Step 5: wait for the file to finish downloading (even on my slow and cheap internet, this usually takes much less than an hour for TV episodes, sometimes an hour or two for multi-gigabyte movies), then play it or drop it into plex/put it on a USB stick/copy it to your phone.

Step 6: once you decide you've seeded the torrent sufficiently, remove it from the list of active torrents in the torrent software.


I learned all this stuff 20-ish years ago and IDK where you'd find a tutorial in the 2020's. reddit r/piracy has a megathread with numerous resources, but I'm not sure it's newbie friendly. Feel free to ask me more questions.

[glaurung]

Forgot to say: there are lots of "sponsored links" on piracy sites that will try to get you to pay to download the media in question. I assume every single one of those is a scam. If you encounter a situation where you are expected to pay for pirated media, something is very wrong. That applies to all aspects of this from the torrent software to the torrent sites. The only thing I pay for when downloading media this way is my annual VPN service fee.

Also: I am poor, so I don't worry overmuch about ethics. If I was in a position to pay for my media, I would do so but then still download things I had bought from torrent sites. Pirated media is MUCH more versatile and convenient than official media - once it's on your device, you can play it as often as you like, ad-free, preview free, annoyance free, without ever worrying that it will suddenly become unavailable and without having to wrangle physical disks.

[shadowkat]

It's leaving in a month? I didn't know. Damn. There are so many other shows...I'd rather they got rid of. (They really didn't need to make room for the new Star Search, we could have lived without it.)