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You’ve done a pretty good job here, so I’ll just add this:
A map of providers and some info on their benefits.
https://www.ngprovider.com/current-usenet-map.php
There’s also a ton of info about usenet, how it works, and what to look for, on that site. (you may have to manually go to the homepage to see the rest)
I don’t have time atm, I’m literally leaving for work rn; but I’ll write up some details later tonight if nobody else has.
This was one of my biggest motivations for moving to usenet. I don’t like exposing myself by seeding. I have a giant folder full of copyright notices forwarded by my ISP because of it, and I don’t want to pay for a vpn as it’s far more expensive than usenet and just moves the problem/target to the vpn provider.
But an ssl connection to a usenet server goes unnoticed… Plus WAY faster download speeds, far more consistency in available files, and less spam/garbage content (at least in my experience, anecdotal).
Torrents took anywhere from an hour to multiple days before either completing or giving up and trying a different torrent. And then there’s the seeding process ontop.
NZBs (usenet) take at the very most, 5min to finish or fail, at which point a new one can be tried automatically by sonarr/radarr if it had failed. Requests for media are now pretty much always ready to watch within 25min of requesting, and most of that is waiting for the library scan to trigger (I’m using SAMBA so filesystem updates can’t trigger scans automatically, they’re on a timer instead)
OFC, just go buy 1 wash and bring it home.
I was initially talking about just one piece, but realized the comment you replied to was talking about the whole ecosystem and expanded.
I’ll break it down better:
The main piece of the puzzle is media server software. There are three big names here; Emby, Jellyfin, and Plex. (only one is needed, they just provide several options) These are provided with folders of media files and do all the heavy lifting to present and stream it to clients just like a comercial streaming platform such as Netflix.
Next is finding and collecting new media. For that there is Radarr, Sonarr, and Lidarr. (Movies, TV Shows, and Music) These manage searching through torrent/usenet indexers to find files that match the media you’ve told them to find. They then pass the desired torrent/nbz files to your chosen torrent/usenet client for downloading, and finally move+sort the downloads into your media folders for your chosen media server software to serve on demand.
Finally there are tools like Ombi, which can automatically manage requests for media from users, without them having to ask you to find/add things.
These can be setup to be LAN only, or with a bit more configuration be accessible from anywhere. This may require purchasing a domain name to enable proper SSL/HTTPS security; but that’s actually a really useful thing to have. I started with media streaming; but now run a VPN, immich, vaultwarden, and many other services all accessed/secured via my own domain name.
Plex is designed to make that part really easy, providing SSL/remote access for you; but at the expense of giving Plex corp access and control over your server, requiring users (including you) to login to plex.tv before being able to access your server, as well as selling your info to advertisers while pushing their content to you.
Jellyfin is fully open source and honestly a great option, but lacks some features like an XboxOne client.
Emby is in the middle. Closed source, and requires a subscription to enable some features; but there are lifetime license options and its been a very reliable product for me.
The convenience of netflix (whatever you want to watch, from any device in any location), populated with any media you decide; and easy to share with anyone you want.
I currently have 5114 movies and 39033 tv episodes from 483 shows; shared with friends and family. New episodes of any TV show that I’ve added get downloaded automatically as they air. Movies can be added before they release and will download as soon as they are available, with cam rips being ignored.
You provide one of these media servers (Emby, Jellyfin, or Plex) with folders of video files that are named after movies/shows and it identifies them, downloads all the necessary metadata, and presents it in a very similar format to comercial streaming services.
They can also perform tasks like converting media on the fly to support devices that can’t play a particular format, or are trying to stream over a poor/low speed remote connection. You can search, sort, and filter by things like genre, studio, cast/crew members, tags. Vist links to imdb, the tvdb, tmdb, rotten tomatoes, etc.
Then tools like sonarr/radarr/lidarr remove the need to manage files at all; making it so you simply search for a title, click ‘add’ and it’s hunted down and downloaded for you.
It’s just overall a much better experience than managing folders full of files.
Nobody breaks the law on my watch! I’m conficscating your stolen goods. Now pay your fine or it’s off to jail!
Pay the court a fine, or serve your sentence.
6’4" 430lbs
You know what he did.
For me, Usenet isn’t about availability; but speed, risk exposure, and convenience.
Torrents take longer, even with lots of quality seeds and fast network speeds; mostly because of the seeding process. Plus, while you are seeding: you have to publicly expose yourself as a content host, even if just through a VPN. Hosts are what copyright holders target, they don’t GAF about the people downloading, they try to take down the hosts to stop the spread. Finally you have to keep the content you downloaded in the format you downloaded, at least until seeding is done.
I prefer to use Tdarr to automatically transcode downloaded content into h265 (HEVC) to reduce it’s size. Most content is found in h264 (AVC); converting it, on average, reduces its size by ~30% while maintaining good quality. Overall this step has saved me at least ~7TB so far (Tdarr reports it’s saved 4.8TB, but I converted a ton of stuff with Embys convert feature before implementing Tdarr). That conversion can only be done after seeding or the torrent breaks as the original files are no longer available to seed. Usenet removes the seeding step completely, so I can do whatever I want with the files as soon as they’ve downloaded, which in it self only takes 5min.