where to watch movies online

[recom273]

3 hours ago, sandyf said:

You are looking in the wrong place. I have never looked for 8K but certainly seen 4K movies on Kodi with file sizes in excess of 30Gb. I can't watch them unless I download, but that is down to the internet connection and nothing to do with file size or TV.

It is always each to their own. 

I don't look there, of course its down to their own, just saying, these sites must be restricted by their servers and bandwidth so output a pretty bad image. 

 

There are a lot of variables in quality, its not just the size of the image or the size of the file.

[sandyf]

13 hours ago, recom273 said:

I don't look there, of course its down to their own, just saying, these sites must be restricted by their servers and bandwidth so output a pretty bad image. 

 

There are a lot of variables in quality, its not just the size of the image or the size of the file.

You are talking apples and oranges in the same breath.

4K is ultra high definition and if you view a stored file the only bad image would be on a duff TV or device. If there was insufficient bandwidth viewing would be a problem as the file would continually buffer interupting playback, that does not compromise the image quality.

Some streaming apps will however adjust the file resolution to suit the internet quality being used and that would result in a lower resolution image if insufficient bandwidth.

This is a fundamental difference between Kodi and streaming apps. With Kodi you get offered a list of files to choose from of varying resolution, I have to use 720 or SD to avoid buffering. If I choose I can download a 4K file to my HDD and watch in full UHD.

The same would apply to people who watch torrent downloads. Your comments are generalised, ie "these sites", and do not apply to all viewing methods that are available.

[giddyup]

On 2/18/2023 at 1:22 PM, scubascuba3 said:

CinemaHD, TeaTV and MovieHD are the 3 i use

I find that many of the movies covers shown on those sites are not actually what is there. I opened the Godfather and got some B grade movie I never heard of. I find more that 50% are like that. That's why I still prefer to download through TG or PB, better picture quality with no buffering and easier to FF, select subs etc.

Edited February 20, 2023 by giddyup

[recom273]

1 hour ago, sandyf said:

You are talking apples and oranges in the same breath.

4K is ultra high definition and if you view a stored file the only bad image would be on a duff TV or device. If there was insufficient bandwidth viewing would be a problem as the file would continually buffer interupting playback, that does not compromise the image quality.

Some streaming apps will however adjust the file resolution to suit the internet quality being used and that would result in a lower resolution image if insufficient bandwidth.

This is a fundamental difference between Kodi and streaming apps. With Kodi you get offered a list of files to choose from of varying resolution, I have to use 720 or SD to avoid buffering. If I choose I can download a 4K file to my HDD and watch in full UHD.

The same would apply to people who watch torrent downloads. Your comments are generalised, ie "these sites", and do not apply to all viewing methods that are available.

Resolution is not a measure of quality, you can have a 1080, 720, 4K - you need to check the bitrate. Size is also not a measure of quality. You can see that the files from pirate streaming sites are badly encoded at a constant low bitrate, especially in fast moving or dark scenes, try downloading one of their files and running it through mediainfo but anyway carry on .. 

 

My generalizations come from the fact that “these sites” are hosted in data centers, they have a limit on the bandwidth available to them, they aren’t netflix. The only way to reduce costs and storage is by reducing the size, the post above me also mentions bad quality files. 
 

I didn’t mention Kodi - anyway, we are moving away from the OPs question. A poster said he didn’t know how people could watch on a mobile phone, I added that I don’t know why people have hi spec TVs but settle for badly compressed files from dubious sources.

Edited February 20, 2023 by recom273

[gargamon]

2 hours ago, sandyf said:

This is a fundamental difference between Kodi and streaming apps. With Kodi you get offered a list of files to choose from of varying resolution

Sorry. Kodi doesn't work like that. There are no inbuilt streaming abilities in Kodi. You have to have an addon (essentially an app) to accomplish that. 

[intheheartoftheheart]

hdtoday . tv works everywhere for me.

 

I don't understand how they stay in business, since I have an adblocker. Streaming isn't cheap. 

 

Torrents always work without fail too. It's just one extra step. 

[scubascuba3]

3 hours ago, giddyup said:

I find that many of the movies covers shown on those sites are not actually what is there.

That definitely happens on CinemaHD, that's my second choice and if i use it i check length of movie on IMDB and ensure the stream is the same

[giddyup]

8 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

That definitely happens on CinemaHD, that's my second choice and if i use it i check length of movie on IMDB and ensure the stream is the same

I find it just as easy to actually download the correct movie.

[scubascuba3]

Just now, giddyup said:

I find it just as easy to actually download the correct movie.

On CinemaHD you wouldn't know without checking, MovieHD no issues so no need to download 

[sandyf]

4 hours ago, recom273 said:

Resolution is not a measure of quality, you can have a 1080, 720, 4K - you need to check the bitrate. Size is also not a measure of quality. You can see that the files from pirate streaming sites are badly encoded at a constant low bitrate, especially in fast moving or dark scenes, try downloading one of their files and running it through mediainfo but anyway carry on .. 

 

My generalizations come from the fact that “these sites” are hosted in data centers, they have a limit on the bandwidth available to them, they aren’t netflix. The only way to reduce costs and storage is by reducing the size, the post above me also mentions bad quality files. 
 

I didn’t mention Kodi - anyway, we are moving away from the OPs question. A poster said he didn’t know how people could watch on a mobile phone, I added that I don’t know why people have hi spec TVs but settle for badly compressed files from dubious sources.

The OP asked what other people were using and you tried to rubbish everything without any idea relating to the methods involved.

[dingdongrb]

4 hours ago, intheheartoftheheart said:

Torrents always work without fail too. It's just one extra step. 

Not always necessarily true. At least for me, but it's been several years (3 or so) since I last downloaded a torrent.

 

While most torrents are good and have no issue I have experienced:

 

- Movie/show not complete

- Video quality may have issues

- Sound/video out of sync

- Torrent not correctly labeled

- Foreign language but description stated English

- Other

[sandyf]

3 hours ago, gargamon said:

Sorry. Kodi doesn't work like that. There are no inbuilt streaming abilities in Kodi. You have to have an addon (essentially an app) to accomplish that. 

I never said that Kodi had any streaming ability.

I said I use Kodi and you get offered a list of files to choose from. Yes you need to use an addon, which are a bit like a search engine, to find the links to the files but once you have chosen which link you want to watch, you then have options.

I use Real Debrid and tend to watch cached torrents but if they are showing as uncached you can initiate the file and then watch it from the Real Debrid website.

Some addons have a download facility so if you want a particularly high quality video you can download it to your hard drive and watch without any concern over the bandwidth required.

I wouldn't dispute that there is some cxxp comes up among the links but you get to recognise the more reliable sources.

I did say in the original post that Kodi does require a bit of homework.

[intheheartoftheheart]

9 minutes ago, dingdongrb said:

Not always necessarily true. At least for me, but it's been several years (3 or so) since I last downloaded a torrent.

 

While most torrents are good and have no issue I have experienced:

 

- Movie/show not complete

- Video quality may have issues

- Sound/video out of sync

- Torrent not correctly labeled

- Foreign language but description stated English

- Other

If you do it long enough you will figure out who the reputable release groups are. They'll append the file name with their tag (like 'phoenix' or something). Brand loyalty. Then just only dl from them...

[giddyup]

2 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

On CinemaHD you wouldn't know without checking, MovieHD no issues so no need to download 

When I try to play a movie on Movie HD it asks me to install AMPlayer, is there any way to select another player like MX or VLC which I already have installed.

[dingdongrb]

41 minutes ago, intheheartoftheheart said:

If you do it long enough you will figure out who the reputable release groups are. They'll append the file name with their tag (like 'phoenix' or something). Brand loyalty. Then just only dl from them...

I understand what you are saying and I had been doing it long enough to know which sites and uploaders were legit which made no issues when downloading current/recent movies/shows. But a lot of my downloads were for rare and older movies, so at times it was a 'hit & miss' success rate. Seeding was so limited for many of my downloads that it took days and weeks sometimes.

[giddyup]

50 minutes ago, intheheartoftheheart said:

If you do it long enough you will figure out who the reputable release groups are. They'll append the file name with their tag (like 'phoenix' or something). Brand loyalty. Then just only dl from them...

I have been using the download method for years now, and have downloaded probably over a thousand movies, TV series etc, and can count on one hand the movies/TV that have suffered any of the problems you specified.

[scubascuba3]

38 minutes ago, giddyup said:

When I try to play a movie on Movie HD it asks me to install AMPlayer, is there any way to select another player like MX or VLC which I already have installed.

Not sure, i think i just went with the flow and installed their player. My tablet is just used for tv apps so I'm not concerned about it doing things it shouldn't 

[giddyup]

1 minute ago, scubascuba3 said:

Not sure, i think i just went with the flow and installed their player. My tablet is just used for tv apps so I'm not concerned about it doing things it shouldn't 

I installed it on my Android TV, but I don't want to install another player when I have 4 already, especially one that contains ads.

[scubascuba3]

8 minutes ago, giddyup said:

I installed it on my Android TV, but I don't want to install another player when I have 4 already, especially one that contains ads.

ads do pop up but only at the beginning and end and you can mute them and exit easy enough, not too bad for me

[dingdongrb]

48 minutes ago, giddyup said:

I have been using the download method for years now, and have downloaded probably over a thousand movies, TV series etc, and can count on one hand the movies/TV that have suffered any of the problems you specified.

I don't think he had the issues as it was me who said at times some torrents had issues. However, as I stated I was downloading rare and older movies. And it wasn't an issue a lot but it did occur time to time.

 

I had been downloading torrents for many years and my current 24TB NAS system has over 10k movies and that's not counting any of my music or TV series.

[giddyup]

5 minutes ago, dingdongrb said:

I don't think he had the issues as it was me who said at times some torrents had issues. However, as I stated I was downloading rare and older movies. And it wasn't an issue a lot but it did occur time to time.

 

I had been downloading torrents for many years and my current 24TB NAS system has over 10k movies and that's not counting any of my music or TV series.

I agree with you about downloading some of the rare or older movies, if not enough S & L's can either take forever or just stall.

[sandyf]

On 2/20/2023 at 10:42 AM, recom273 said:

Resolution is not a measure of quality, you can have a 1080, 720, 4K - you need to check the bitrate. Size is also not a measure of quality. You can see that the files from pirate streaming sites are badly encoded at a constant low bitrate, especially in fast moving or dark scenes, try downloading one of their files and running it through mediainfo but anyway carry on .. 

Just out of curiosity I did in fact download a movie file and try out your mediainfo, never really seen the need for any more than the property details.

No doubt in your view it is nothing more than a dodgy file from  a dodgy site.

[recom273]

12 minutes ago, sandyf said:

Just out of curiosity I did in fact download a movie file and try out your mediainfo, never really seen the need for any more than the property details.

No doubt in your view it is nothing more than a dodgy file from  a dodgy site.

 

You didn’t tell us the source. 
 

Have you watched that movie yet? There’s some issue with the subtitles on all the available rips of “The Plane”, the ripper didn’t include the forced subs for the foreign dialogue, maybe wait around for a better encode.

[sandyf]

On 2/21/2023 at 4:03 PM, recom273 said:

You didn’t tell us the source. 
 

Have you watched that movie yet? There’s some issue with the subtitles on all the available rips of “The Plane”, the ripper didn’t include the forced subs for the foreign dialogue, maybe wait around for a better encode.

That file came from Torrentfunk, just one of over a hundred files that were available from around 50 sources, obviously you have checked every one of them.

I fail to see what subtitles have to do with image quality. Wasn't your whole argument over image quality and based on storage, bitrate and bandwidth.

One day you may wake up to the fact that when you are looking to get things for free most people are prepared to accept some imperfection.

[recom273]

33 minutes ago, sandyf said:

That file came from Torrentfunk, just one of over a hundred files that were available from around 50 sources, obviously you have checked every one of them.

I fail to see what subtitles have to do with image quality. Wasn't your whole argument over image quality and based on storage, bitrate and bandwidth.

One day you may wake up to the fact that when you are looking to get things for free most people are prepared to accept some imperfection.

Exactly, this is why I didn't comment. I knew this is a torrent file - my point is that pirate streaming sites compress files and reduce the quality to a point where it is noticeable on a high resolution TV.

 

I use torrents for my viewing material, you use some kind of plug-in that streams torrents on KODI (and you are the only person who has mentioned KODI) - I had access from to the same file as you, correct, its the best file and no, I didnt have to search 50 files to get it. I just mentioned the lack of subs, if you started to watch it and were disappointed. This was the exact file that I would have been able to DL from my torrent site.

 

Now, who is talking apples and oranges? If you would like to DL a file from a pirate streaming site.

 

Why do you persist on being so rude and aggressive? "Wake up"? Everyone is entitled to an opinion, I have tried to explain how quality and detail in a compressed file is measured and why I think it does matter.

 

Believe me, a lot of people do notice bad quality encodes, its not just me.

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by recom273

[NoshowJones]

On 2/20/2023 at 5:04 PM, giddyup said:

I have been using the download method for years now, and have downloaded probably over a thousand movies, TV series etc, and can count on one hand the movies/TV that have suffered any of the problems you specified.

Try downloading Crossroads, and some other TV series on Tinyzone. About 3 years ago you advised me to use a client and told me how to do it, I did and have used it successfully ever since, I have always been greatful to you for that.

[Seppius]

19 minutes ago, NoshowJones said:

Try downloading Crossroads, and some other TV series on Tinyzone. About 3 years ago you advised me to use a client and told me how to do it, I did and have used it successfully ever since, I have always been greatful to you for that.

How do you download from Tinyzone?

[NoshowJones]

37 minutes ago, Seppius said:

How do you download from Tinyzone?

When looking through movies and you pick one you want to see, your download icon should appear, in my case it is IDM. I just click on it and away you go, in my experience, it can take anything from a few mins to a few hours, but it always eventually does it.