Do we live in a golden age of television?

[John]

I haven't seen the last two episodes, but I'm confident in saying the biggest problem this year has been that they're leaning on 'goofy Holt' as a bit of a crutch. That works on occasion because Braugher sells it so well and the character is so well established that things like him uncontrollably giggling at the taste of marshmallow or bawling 'HOT DAMN' are made to seem just on the extreme edge of his behaviour, but they're close to the point where each visit to that well deconstructs the character a bit more. It's not character development, it's just taking an established facet of the characters personality and allowing it to undermine everything else.

[ItalAussie]

I completely agree. I prefer Holt as a deadpan straight-man who lets the facade slip occasionally. He's just so good at doing it that they're making it more frequent, so it's not a shock anymore.

[Giggles]

I really was dire. Don't think there has been a worse one.

[Magic]

Downloading the 4th season of The Wire.

Also is Westworld any good?

[Mazuuurk]

Oooh The Wire, might rewatch that. Never ended up watching more than 2-3 episodes into season 4.

[Adamski]

Downloading the 4th season of The Wire.

Also is Westworld any good?

Downloading

[Magic]

Can't see past it tbh.

[Disco]

I have Amazon Prime and still downloaded Vikings, what's the problem?

[Adamski]

Why when you can just stream?

[Dark Soldier]

Piracy streams are still a load of wank. If you don't have Prime/Netflix I'd rather yarr than stream.

[phonics]

My mate wondered why his computer was slow and full of spyware. He said, "Don't know how it gets on there, I never look at porn on it". He then proceeded to attempt to stream a TV show that involved closing about 1400 pop-ups...

[Adamski]

Piracy streams are still a load of wank. If you don't have Prime/Netflix I'd rather yarr than stream.

Exodus is perfect 1080 every single time. You can also download from there for offline, saves the faffing with ratios and shite like that. Far better.

[Adamski]

I'm not talking about browser streaming. Exodus through Kodi has none of that and is perfect.

[Dark Soldier]

I did that, clicked on The Grand Tour they day after it came out. Stream said HD, looked like I was viewing it through dish water. Besides, I've no worries about ratio so would rather grab a guaranteed copy.

[Disco]

Why when you can just stream?

Because standalone media players are more stable than a browser and don't use any bandwidth.

[Adamski]

It's not through a browser. It's an app through a standalone media player.

It's not really streaming either through Exodus, it's all cached so very rarely buffers. Uses the same bandwidth as downloading it. Especially when you can do that too.

Finding a good stream on Exodus is no different to selecting a good torrent, except you can change stream within 5 seconds rather than waiting for it to download, watching it to check quality, finding another, downloading again etc etc.

Each to their own but I can't see how anyone would prefer it nowadays.

[Disco]

Yeah but the bandwidth is still used while you're watching it rather than last night while I was asleep. I'm not talking about Exodus because I have no idea what that is (and I'm not really interested).

[Giggles]

I've only ever had one issue with Exodus through Kodi and it was never the quality. It never misses on that front for me.

[Boydy]

I've started using Showbox on my phone along with BubbleUpnp to send it to my TV. It's pretty good.

For something I really want to be sure of good quality with I tend to download rather than stream though.

[Dark Soldier]

waiting for it to download, watching it to check quality, finding another, downloading again etc etc.

People do this? Its not hard to know which encode is fine, then its a matter of a short download during the day and I watch at night. Compared a 1080 The Force Awakens stream to my 14gig encode the other week, its like night and day.

Snobbery

[Adamski]

It's the same with streaming barring the short download.

I don't agree on quality but fair enough if that's your experience. You're definitely in the minority of people I've spoken to.

[Giggles]

I just want to sit down and pick stuff with my remote control. Kodi does this.

[Dark Soldier]

Streaming.

[Adamski]

You're not really understanding the argument I'm making. If you don't think the streaming quality on Exodus is up to speed then fair enough.

I've played 1080 and Blu Ray through it on a 4K TV for well over a year and it's been spot on.

I was a member of a private torrent site for almost 10 years and I can't notice a discernible difference in quality whatsoever.

As Giggles said, there's an undoubted delay time in waiting a torrent to download and even plugging a laptop into a TV like you're a 12 year old watching porn.

Click a stream, play on your TV. Done.

[Giggles]

Streaming.

Having to do anything involving dragging out a laptop or external hard drives or Plex or home networks. No thanks.

Travelling somewhere? Then there's benefits, but you're watching it on a smaller screen then anyway.

[Dark Soldier]

I do get the discussion man, I've used Kodi multiple times. I'm just being a dick. Watch media however ya want, nae worries.

The primariy reason I go torrents is I like to have a library, and I like obscure, rare films. Finding an ultra rare copy of Angst from 1983, the extended version in full 1080p is a pain, whereas I now have the file in my collection for any moment.

[Dark Soldier]

I even put up bounty for that exact encode. Its the only encode of it that exists. The extended version is impossible to even buy.

[John]

My internet is far too volatile and slow for streaming at the moment, I occasionally get bandwidth balls ups trying to watch things on fucking iPlayer. They were out laying the groundwork for fibreoptic a few weeks ago though so I might try streaming once that's switched on.

DS has hit on the reason I think I'll always prefer torrents for most things though. I've recommended things to mates with Kodi boxes and whatever else and they've been unable to find a stream, any stream, or one with the proper subtitles, because there isn't enough of a market for microbudget nineties Japanese horror films for anyone to bother hosting a stream in decent quality.

[Giggles]

I do get the discussion man, I've used Kodi multiple times. I'm just being a dick. Watch media however ya want, nae worries.

The primariy reason I go torrents is I like to have a library, and I like obscure, rare films. Finding an ultra rare copy of Angst from 1983, the extended version in full 1080p is a pain, whereas I now have the file in my collection for any moment.

That makes sense too. I very rarely watch a film so I never build collections but I can see the attraction in building one up if you do.

[Adamski]

I do get the discussion man, I've used Kodi multiple times. I'm just being a dick. Watch media however ya want, nae worries.

The primariy reason I go torrents is I like to have a library, and I like obscure, rare films. Finding an ultra rare copy of Angst from 1983, the extended version in full 1080p is a pain, whereas I now have the file in my collection for any moment.

Yeah I can agree with that although I can't think of a film I've not found on Exodus. I don't tend to go that obscure though!

I've got quite a lot of films downloaded off of it now onto my hard drive as well, for if I'm going away and don't have enough space on my tablet.

[Dark Soldier]

Heh yeah Angst was just a bit of an example. Greatest horror film ever made, it'd be fairly easy to find the original cut at one hour nineteen minutes via streaming, but the US had a small print run of the ultra rare extended copy so getting hold of that is a ballache in the best quality. There's literally only two HD encodes of it in existence.

[Manc]

Thoughts on Vinyl?

[Giggles]

Thoughts on Vinyl?

Not much good TV was ever released on it.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I've set up an RSS feed for my TV shows, they get automatically downloaded whilst I'm asleep and then my Plex library automatically updates as soon as they're downloaded.

I can then watch on my TV via Amazon fire, tablet or laptop.

With films I just manually pick and choose although I've also got Netflix just in case something takes my fancy.

I'm an active collector (as evidenced by my 500 odd DVD's/Blu-rays) so I love having loads of media on external hard drives.

[Manc]

Giggles is back.

[Adamski]

I've set up an RSS feed for my TV shows, they get automatically downloaded whilst I'm asleep and then my Plex library automatically updates as soon as they're downloaded.

I can then watch on my TV via Amazon fire, tablet or laptop.

With films I just manually pick and choose although I've also got Netflix just in case something takes my fancy.

I'm an active collector (as evidenced by my 500 odd DVD's/Blu-rays) so I love having loads of media on external hard drives.

TV shows part sounds great but for me that's a hell of a lot of up front faff to get it into a position that's Exodus' starting point.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

TV shows part sounds great but for me that's a hell of a lot of up front faff to get it into a position that's Exodus' starting point.

It took me about 5 minutes.

It's seriously easy to set up an RSS feed, especially on a torrent site like BTN.

I can select the file type, quality, codec, resolution, origin etc.

[Dark Soldier]

Dem exclusive encodes

[Boydy]

I hate how Exodus got rid of the 'My TV Shows' (or was it favourites? Something like that anyway) section that Genesis had. It has something similar now but you have to sign up for a Trakt account or some shit.

[Adamski]

Yeah that is a bit annoying. I loved that.

[Giggles]

Yeah it would really be handy. I've a tiny Bluetooth keyboard linked with the Shield though so searching is handy.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Oh and I found some exclusive content on BTN.

Raw unedited footage of the Arrested Development episode 'Bringing up Buster'.

Try finding something like that on Exodus.

[Giggles]

Oh and I found some exclusive content on BTN.

Raw unedited footage of the Arrested Development episode 'Bringing up Buster'.

Try finding something like that on Exodus.

I can safely say I'll never even look.

[Adamski]

You won't but that was never my point. If you watch that 24 hours a day then fair enough it's not for you. It has a massive massive library though.

It doesn't take 5 minutes to download Plex, set up a Plex server, link it to your hard drive, download all the metadata and sync your library to it before you even start with the RSS feed. Like I said, I used it for years and in my opinion what I have now is vastly better.

I can also take my firestick anywhere in the world in my pocket and as long as a tv has an HDMI port I can stream anything I want.

[Magic]

I don't often agree with DS but DS.

[Dark Soldier]

You won't but that was never my point. If you watch that 24 hours a day then fair enough it's not for you. It has a massive massive library though.

It doesn't take 5 minutes to download Plex, set up a Plex server, link it to your hard drive, download all the metadata and sync your library to it before you even start with the RSS feed. Like I said, I used it for years and in my opinion what I have now is vastly better.

I can also take my firestick anywhere in the world in my pocket and as long as a tv has an HDMI port I can stream anything I want.

And via torrents I've a potential library of 137,000 movies to download at any point I wish. So much rare shit its untrue

[Boydy]

We're all pretty happy pirates.

[Dark Soldier]

We're all pretty happy pirates.

'tis a good time to be alive.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

You won't but that was never my point. If you watch that 24 hours a day then fair enough it's not for you. It has a massive massive library though.

It doesn't take 5 minutes to download Plex, set up a Plex server, link it to your hard drive, download all the metadata and sync your library to it before you even start with the RSS feed. Like I said, I used it for years and in my opinion what I have now is vastly better.

I can also take my firestick anywhere in the world in my pocket and as long as a tv has an HDMI port I can stream anything I want.

Didn't take a whole lot longer tbh.

I also have it setup to automatically sync whenever anything is added/removed from my main drives.

[Baz]

Four episodes into Wayward Pines and it's still interesting. Having the main character as a complete prick is an interesting approach.