With the recent password sharing crackdown, I decided to ditch my Netflix subscription and try piracy. What I miss about Netflix is scrolling through content and finding something to watch. With piracy I need to know exactly what I am looking for.
So I am wondering if it's possible to have a Netflix like GUI but powered by piracy? And as this is the pirate world, it shows shows and movies not just from Netflix but also from the other streaming services? And finally it is available on TVs ( Samsung tizen in my case). Something like this would be the best case scenario. Wondering if someone has a similar setup?
Everyone always recommends the torrent solutions, plex and the arrs, but unless it's something I'm really excited about or want in extra high quality, I find it's easier to just use the browser streaming sites. In Firefox with ublock there's no ads, it has subtitles for multiple languages loaded automatically usually, and a nice ui that shows most popular show/movies, and has a good catalogue. There's lots to choose from, I think the guide has a list, but the ones I use are:
Bflix.gg Hdtoday.cc Fmovies.to
Quick, simple and painless.
The files these sites rely on are generally the lowest available quality in their resolution, that's why they aren't recommended often. Fair play if you don't care about visual and audio quality, but I find them unwatchable most of the time. The artifacts and distortion detract from the experience significantly.
This is fine but doesn’t work unless you’re watching on a device with a decent and usable web browser. Most people are using android boxes and Apple TVs etc so that’s not a viable solution.
There is an app called OnStream that works on Android. If you are okay with putting third party apps (non open source) on your device, that is.
The option to cast a stream from a phone to a Chromecast, Roku, etc has been pretty functional for quite some time now.
That’s just another not ideal situation though. Casting is crap, that’s why people buy media boxes. They get a remote, a UI, apps, etc.
I'm having a good experience with Samsung DeX on an 7 year old TV. Gives me a trackpad with keypad on my phone to navigate a full OS on a large screen. In a pinch, I connected a Bluetooth keyboard to my phone and have even used it as a document editor using Google Docs without any hitch.
I love Dex too, but let’s not try to pretend it’s anything more than a niche use case for what OP is asking.
You don't forego any of those things when you cast.
Your remote still works, you're in the same media box UI, still only a click away from other apps.
Maybe slightly imperfect, sure. But it works great and I see no reason to act like it isn't a viable workable option.
You could install Overseerr which also integrates nicely into sonarr & radar
It doesn't have a TV app though.
That can be solved by connecting a computer to the tv via hdmi. My main tv has a computer that connects is jellyfin to my home server than runs radarr, sonarr and lidarr. I have not seen a commercial in years!
https://github.com/popcorn-official/popcorn-desktop/releases/
It's a torrent client with a Netflix-like interface. It hides all the torrent stuff from you and just shows movies and shows in a nice format. It downloads and plays on the fly, it also grabs subtitles as needed, you can pick 720 or 1080, and you can choose to keep or delete the stuff you watched after you're done.
Keep in mind that under the hood it's still a torrent client, so if you have trouble with that kind of thing in your country you may want to use a VPN and all that jazz.
Kodi is what your looking for. A debrid + kodi is basically netflix with shows from around the world, in high quality, on demand.
But, it is not available on TVs as a seperate app. Companies do not like piracy, so many applications that are related to it do not make the appstores. A cheap and easy way to get Kodi would be to simply buy a Intel NUC, or a similar mini-pc.
Android TV may or may not have Kodi on the Play Store depending on your location. I've got it on my 'smart' TV, no sideloading required.
Of course the TV itself is a POS and stutters during playback so I never use it. YMMV on that front as well.
Amassing a media library is simple enough, and software like jellyfin can pull in media info and make your media streamable on various devices with a polished UI.
However, finding good quality (in terms of merit) movies and shows is difficult.
Maybe start with movies critics or a movie discussion platform like letterboxd to see what others are watching/rating movies.
you know your boy can't dox himself like that. this list could be a good mix of popular classics and, like, gems though: https://letterboxd.com/jack/list/its-someones-favorite-movie/.
I have, among other things, set up auto download lists that just get any new releases with a >7/10 on IMDb.
Stremio with an addon like Google Drive or Real Debrid (torrentio).
You can set up Couchmoney through trakt to get similar recommendations algorithms.
Stremio has a UI which works amazingly on TV, and should be familiar to Netflix.
You could try Stremio with the Torrentio add-on, it works really well and it's simple to set up
My setup:
Jellyfin for the frontend. Has apps for android, iOS, windows, android TV, bunch of other platforms as well..
Deluge as torrent downloader. It's old, but it just works without the (in my opinion) complicated configurations of qbittorrent.
Prowlarr to search a bunch of sites simultaneously for torrents.
Radarr to add movies, search them with Prowlarr and add the best torrent to deluge, eventually moving the downloaded content to Jellyfin to view.
Sonarr to do the same as Radarr but for TV shows instead.
Nice list but sub out torrenting for usenet. There's a fee associated with usenet but worth it imo as you get higher quality releases, more likely to find niche stuff and don't have the issue of no seeders.
I would add jellyseer as a nice option to request movies rather then doing it directly through so are/radarr
If you have all these setup I'd recommend getting NZB360 on Android. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kevinforeman.nzb360
I think what you want is either plex or Jellyfin which will give you a nice UI to browse your already downloaded files.
Now how do you browse new releases and figure out what you want to download? I just setup https://overseerr.dev/ to go along with sonarr, radarr, prowlarr, nzbget, transmission... it's a lot of different services but they all work well together. Now to look for new movies, I or my family goes to Overseerr to request downloads, then plex to watch.
I set up plex, overseer, sonaar and radaar to let my family request videos and stream from me when Netflix kicked them off my account. My boomer dad hasn't had any issue using overseer to request stuff to watch. I even overheard him kinda bragging to a friend of his about the setup.
Overseerr pings me on discord when someone makes a request. I auto-approve movies but require approval for series to keep from them from downloading every episode of Grey's anatomy all at once.
What you need is Jellyfin, around 2-5TB (depending on your quality) and access to a private torrent tracker, usenet or DDL site.
Then you can stuff like this:
Show
This is a cool setup. But torrents in Europe? Too many horror stories.
seedboxes are my way. Download through a provider that doesnt care.
Am downloading from public and private repos.
My set-up doesn't include a smart tv ... I specifically stayed away from buying one because of the monitoring they can do on my usage.
So mine is a good LCD > HDMI'd to my laptop > running a good VPN > links to multiple streaming sources that offer everything from live sports to new movies/TV shows.
Been running this way for over 20 yrs now and it works for me.
Yeah, problem is if you want a modern TV, you don't have a choice. You either get a smart TV or suffer
I bought second-hand and got a wicked deal (cause they thought the audio was gone, but for me it a quick fix). :)
You can have a smart tv and not connect it to the internet or lan. My workaround was to attach a computer and use the tv as a monitor.
This is the correct answer. Kodi+fen+RD is my choice but it requires a bit more maintenance.
I would suggest Stremio, it needs the torrentio plugin and it streams from the torrent itself. It also has playlist plugins from most commercial steaming services (netflix included) . You wont find it for Samsung tvs natively, but it works with casting.
Check out overseer, it's a request system that has a streaming service like UI that pairs with sonaar and radaar.
