I use a seedbox to run qBittorrent with Jackett, and have a bunch of sources on there. I know there are other methods, but that works for me and I’m comfortable with it.

Rarbg has been gone for about five months and it’s harder and harder to find 4k TV rips. For current shows, sometimes you can get episodes as they air, but it’s rare to see full seasons.

The tipping point was when I searched for a Netflix show from two weeks ago just now, with zero 4K results.

I’ve always hated private trackers since they’re a pain in the ass, but is that the only option now? Do I need to look at a different method entirely? I’ve been torrenting since that existed, but if I need to do something else, let me know.

I don’t expect to get torrent sites in any responses, but you can do that if you have any 😂

  • Uninvited Guest@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Private trackers (e.g. TorrentLeech) often have rules around large torrents (>15gb) or even around season packs for shows. This means it’s trivial to download 4K season packs, and all you have to do is seed them for the requisite number of days (to avoid being tagged with a hit and run), rather than try to maintain a ratio.

    • Overzeetop@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m on private but don’t have a seedbox, so I’m 100% pay to play. I pony up $100 every couple of years and my ratios don’t matter. On a personal pride level I make sure my old favorites say seeding, esp now that they only have a couple of seeders, but for torrents with 30-100 seeds I’m not needed and my contribution with a 10Mb cable pip against Gb seedboxes is always nil.

      • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I paid for a seed box for one month, around $25 and built enough ratio from that month to last me years.

  • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    The segment of pirates that try to hunt for the highest quality are a small niche. Most pirates will sacrifice just to have it.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      1 year ago

      Man streaming services are even now making it hard to watch their content in 4k so yeah like, I’ve stopped expecting to see others ripping at that resolution, and will mostly only seek it out if it’s something that deserves to be watched in 4k.

  • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Usenet. Found so many things that I couldn’t find on public trackers once I got down the concept and was able to set up an arr server with sabnzbd. It does cost some money, but I feel it’s negligible for what you get.

    • spaceaape@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      I looked into usenet but i could never get over having to subscribe pay for it. Why bother when torrenting is free. I’m on a couple private trackers and use a few public, but I never pay for access for the trackers or pirated content. Ive donated before to private trackers, and I pay for my seedbox monthly but that’s for a service, it’s not a paywall for access. I also read there are download limits and having to find newsgroups that have the content you want. It all seems more work than its worth and you have to pay for the privilege to do that work for the same exact outcome. 🤷‍♂️

      I think OP needs a decent private tracker that’s pretty easy to keep up with. My main private tracker has a rule, seed 3x or for 3 days to avoid hit an run on any torrent. You can also use earned coins from seeding to pay off hit and runs.

      • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Until I created a servarr stack, finding what I needed on Usenet never happened. Using Radarr with prowlarr and sabnzbd, now my missing files are down to maybe a dozen.

        • spaceaape@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          Lol I dont find usenet worth the cost, both in subscription costs and the time it would take to switch from my existing free torrent stack. I don’t have any issues at all finding my content with private and public trackers, both dont cost me anything. The fact that you were paying for usenet, and still couldnt find anything without a pirate server stack says alot about the service. With my trackers, I don’t have any missing files. All my shows and movies get grabbed on release and are available moments later, no money or subscription service to gain access to the content necessary.

      • Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        While ‘the paywall for access’ argument can be made for usenet indexers (which just index NZB files, not the releases themselves, with most still allowing up to 5 downloads a day via free membership tiers), in contrast to torrenting, usenet providers cache newsgroup binaries (the actual releases) on the servers of their respective usenet backbone. Because of that, releases that might run out of active seeders on public or even private torrent trackers after a few years are sometimes available for significantly longer on usenet.

        • spaceaape@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          I get what you’re saying, but personally speaking, that’s not enough of a benefit to start subscribing to a usenet provider and invest time hunting down newsgroups for content access. Its also not worth changing the bottom layer of my arr stack. Not to mention the time I’ve already invested into getting in the couple private trackers I’m in. I already don’t have any issues getting the content I want to watch. I honestly don’t see how its worth it for anyone. Like how often would one need to be searching for obscure content for it to be worth the monthly cost?

          Edit, 5 downloads per day for a free membership is downright laughable to me. We’re pirates ffs. This is p2p sharing.

          • Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            Admittedly, if you’re already using private torrent trackers, you’ll probably find more missing releases by working towards joining higher tier trackers than usenet alone has. Usenet is more worthwhile for people without high enough bandwidth to build the ratio needed to join such trackers.

    • Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      For years I’ve assumed there was some kind of invisible image manipulation that effectively encrypts the Netflix user ID in the video feed itself, so they can use leaked video to pinpoint users that share recordings.

      Same type of thing paper printers do, and AI giants are trying to push now.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        1 year ago

        LoL I remember in the early 2010s a porn comic that actually did this and people were shocked because it seemed like a lot of work for a small niche thing.

        And then we realized that converting to a png and then back to jpg killed the identifier. But the system was in place and I have seen so many versions of and workarounds for it. Someone even had a custom clipper software that just looked for the excess identifier data on the end of the file and would trim it.

        I think it’s wise to always think they might be doing this kind of stuff, especially big companies, but breaking it is pretty easy usually even by accident.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        How would that work? And if it was being done I’m sure it would have been discovered already. I mean it is just video.

        • Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Basically small deliberate changes to the brightness or hue of chunks or even individual pixels scattered across the frame. Netflix would have the original, and would know where to look for the changes that embed the user ID data, or whatever.

          They just get a copy of the leaked video, locate the ID, and take the user to court or ban them.

          I’m not great at explaining it, so look up image stenography to get an idea of what I mean.

          Anyway, I don’t have any proof they do that, but I guess I always assumed they did, because… why not?

  • Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    For some shows I’ve noticed that it’s not too difficult to get around half of their seasons in 4K, with the 4K releases for the remaining seasons being seemingly nowhere, whether it be on public trackers, private trackers, or usenet. Doesn’t seem to be an issue of shows only being shot in 4K after their first few seasons, as in some cases the 1st and 3rd seasons may have 4K releases without the 2nd season having one, for instance.

  • zjaume@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been able to found them in 1337x and TorrentGalaxy

    • Kribensis@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      I use both sources daily. 4K TV has notably disappeared from them in the past few months.

  • MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I think it’s about audience. People who care about quality and bitrates and such usually have their couple of private trackers. People who just want to watch things regardless of quality just get whatever

    • Kribensis@lemm.eeOP
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      1 year ago

      That’s what I’m asking. Until recently, one didn’t need to bother with private trackers unless they wanted, say, a 4K rip of Suspiria from 1977, or some other incredibly specific thing. Private trackers, at least to me, were more trouble than they were worth. Why should I deal with them at all when I can get everything I need without begging for an invite and then annoying myself?

      As a result, I have never joined a private tracker, not ever.

      But now? I’m not sure. Something does seem to have changed systemically.

      • ANIMATEK@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There are semi private trackers out there that you can get an invite fairly easy, as do open signups pretty often.

        You don’t need to think about it too much, as most 4K content usually crosses the trigger for freeleech. That means you are fine as long as you don’t do a Hit ’n Run, which in itself is an asshole thing to do.

        I have a fully automated system and don’t even bother checking where I am downloading from, or what my ratios are, all is taken care in the background.

          • ANIMATEK@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The whole Arr suite, plus others. I have a 24/7 low power machine running the following on unRAID with containers:

            • Radarr
            • Sonarr
            • Prowlarr
            • Overserr
            • qBittorrent
            • a VPN container
            • Recyclarr
            • cross-seed
            • qbit manage (this is key)
            • unpackerr
            • autobrr

            I have more of course but this is what’s relevant to you.

            I also have some custom scripts for patching some things up to my like.