I am assuming that you still ‘watch things’!
We’ve talked a lot on here about what we watch: favourite movies, favourite TV shows, anime, etc — but how do you watch things? Do you have Netflix, Quickflix? Do you [ahem] acquire it by other means? Do you buy things on disc? Foxtel?
I guess the reason I ask is that consoles are increasingly asking us to watch things using their device, yet I’m not sure they provide us with enough options to transfer across to those devices. The Xbox One’s HDMI-in is absolutely an amazing step forward, but is that enough? When will I get Spotify on my Xbox One?
Anyway — what programs/devices do you use to consume video content (or music while we’re at it)? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
66 responses to “Off Topic: How And Where Do You Watch Things?”
obligatory unhelpful response:
with my eyes.
Yarr harr Fiddle dee dee….
However for an honest response, i do pirate most tv shows, however if i really like it i’ll buy the Blu-Rays to support it.
as for more legit watching over the Internet, I also subscribe to Crunchyroll, because weaboo reasons.
I now have that LazyTown song stuck in my head… Thanks!
http://youtu.be/7FYxTasCjZY
Foxtel and “other means”.
Hopefully Netflix once I work out how to get my AU credit card to work on their systems
AU credit cards work just fine.
AU cards are fine. Just install the Hola addon for your preferred browser and ad a 0 to the end of your postcode. Easy as. Set it up last night for my mother. She was pretty shocked to see everything available for $8 a month compared to the $100+ she was paying for Foxtell…
I have a 40″ LED TV in my room, with a plain old Sony BD player, a D-Link Boxee Box with a 1TB external attached for media, and my PS4.
I buy all my movies legit on BD, and watch them on the BD player, all TV shows are ‘acquired’ and watched on my Boxee Box from the hard drive, PS4 only does games because BD region locking.
I haven’t watched free to air TV in several years – I don’t even have an antenna connected to my TV. Don’t listen to radio either – don’t even own one, unless the car counts.
For shows and films, TV and DVD/blu-ray mostly. I’ve dabbled in watching things online both through legit and not so legit means, and never found the experience to be that great (with the exception of youtube videos, of course). For music I mainly use youtube.
As I was once told not that long ago, I’m weird when it comes to media consumption.
I actually just watch TV. well apart from torrenting Game of Thrones.
but i’ve been wondering about Netflix. There has been a rumor that it is launching in Australia in 2014. I’m wondering what Rupert Murdoch and the other big Media bosses will do to it. The reason Quickflix is so bad in Aus is that Foxtel has exclusive licenses in place to protect a lot of their interests. I wonder how we will fair with netflix, im worried we’re going to get a second rate version filled with shows that arent covered by these exclusive agreements.
I can’t watch tv these days. Ads. Can’t handle them. Just feels like a waste of my time.
If I want to watch something, I torrent or buy.
the only time i tend to watch TV is when i want to tune out and watch something mindless. so ads don’t bother me at all.
or apart from Thursday night SBS food journeys they’re the best
wasnt quickflix meant to be on the xbone… i cant finds it? Once we have a viable network for streaming in OZ we may be able to make use of other means at the moment we are limited by choice and bandwidth which forces people to buy retail or become a pirate
I got a 46″ Samsung LED hooked up to XBMC on my computer in office (all wired under the house) with 1TB USB powered HDD, stream everything from that, get all movies from YIFY usually just Pirate Bay top 100 HD Movies, not as fussy with TV Series just whatever I can get.
+1 for XBMC. God that program is amazing. I have an RSS feed that searches my torrent site for new shows I watch which auto download then auto get put into folders for XBMC to sort and make pretty and what not.
I pay for some subscriptions but still download copies of most of the stuff I have subscription to because their services are inconvenient. I have a Plex media server and run several clients off that in my house.
We use Netflix – great source of kids shows and movies and cheap, soooo cheap! It’s appalling that equivalent services (Telstra can bite me) haven’t sprung up here.
On my 360 I watch GameTrailers (except for AG – he’s an a$$) and Rev3 and if I’m feeling daring Machinima!
YouTube gets more airplay in our house than actual Television and this has been the case for years now!
I rarely watch TV shows anymore. Especially since the TV format is dying. I normally watch internet shows and really only get into series like Avatar, Venture brothers, just finished season 2 of Adventure Time. Been meaning to look into the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad.
The format may be dying but it’s going out with a bang. There have been some amazing series recently. You will not regret Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad doesn’t follow the TV format 😛
I don’t think the format is dying.. just the distribution method. Episodic shows are greater than ever. Watching them on free to air TV is completely non existent for me.
Episodic shows are greater because they’re not following the old TV format. People are now realising that not only can they create but audiences actually like continuing storys and evolving characters, with enough time to flesh out both. As opposed to the old format where TV shows were written and designed to keep you on the TV to watch ads.
Purchased DVD/BluRay.
I’m subjected to so much less advertising than most people. =D
Except that annoying ad about how you wouldn’t steal a car
Stop Play.
Top Menu.
ALL that shit gets skipped.
This.
If I want to watch anything, I’ll buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray, if it’s not available, then I’ll wait till it is.
I have spent SO much energy trying varying ways of imbibing media. I started simply using my computer many years ago, and then moved to trying to get the 360 to be a worthy media stremaing device with various transcoding packages and never found enough stability and performance to stick with it.
I’ve tried the Boxee Box, and the Ouya with XBMC and found both lacking, and I’ve reverted to the trusty old Media PC with a cordless keyboard and mouse, simply running VLC and a web browser. It’s the only way I can be assured of getting the content I want, when I want and how I want without struggling with arbitrary frustrations introduced by various behind the scenes deals.
It’s still not perfect, but it’s the closest I’ve gotten!
[Redacted]
Download a lot of shows, I basically never watch free-to-air any more unless it’s sport. Used to have Foxtel for that as well, again, basically just for sport.
I don’t see why Spotify should be holding back on releasing apps for all major consoles. that’d be a massive boost. And still, Oz is so far behind on copyright legislation to allow streaming services like netflix available here. All of these services would open up the media abilities of all consoles and really push them towards being proper media systems as well as gaming consoles.
I buy lots of DVD/BR still.. but normally a few years after release.. when new if it’s not on FTA I’ll resort to some questionable methods at times..
I bought the last seasons of GOT and True Blood from Itunes and ran it via HDMI from my Laptop into my TV… that worked.
For “other” content I would stream from my desktop hidden downstairs to my T-Box.. works fine for up to 720p.
We just got foxtel last week.. I was surprised to see Boardwalk/Walking Dead/Sons etc playing pretty much straight away on FX/Showcase, I don’t have IQ HD though.. quality was a bit poor compared to the 720p copies I’m used to seeing lol.
I pay for Unblock-Us, Netflix, Hulu Plus and Xbox Music. That covers me for most things. As for HBO shows? They make it too hard to get, so I pirate them. I’d happily pay for HBO Go, but I wont happily pay for that steaming pile of crap Foxtel which is worse than Freeview.
I didn’t think the iTunes method was too bad.. except when they would have delays of a few days for no apparent reason… but depends on your setup… also I think foxtel have killed that method for next year so they will be the only “immediate” option for us..
iTunes is the shittest windows program that exists, combined with the fact I’m perfectly happy with the hardware I have, and have no desire to own an apple TV to be required to change AV again. I want to sit down and watch TV without screwing around with HDMI cables to my computer either.
Until a singular service allows me to pay a reasonable price (<$20 a month) Like netflix but that works in australia without extra crap, I won’t change my habits. It must also let me download and watch whatever i want from their service whenever I want, because its impossible to stream anything of my internet since i have a speed of about 2mb which is about 200kbps download.
Until such a time I laugh at foxtel users and those who watch free to air with a 20 minute show having 15 minutes of adds, with cut content and not even on schedule.
so for now Yarrrrrrrrrrrr
netflix + unblock_us comes to less than $20pm and works perfectly. Time to ditch yer piratey ways.
Netflix doesn’t let users download tv shows in advance, only stream it also requires I pay and screw around with another service which is wasteful and PITA.
If i had the NBN this would be fine but I dont, So i would also spends hours buffering before being able to watch. Which i am unwilling to do when I can just download better quality and have ready to watch whenever I want.
I thought that when I got netflix with my crappy ADSL2 connection that I would experience extreme buffering issues, but after jumping onto my account and configuring the settings to play everything in Super HD, everything works fine. Perfect 1080p. Mind you it takes about 20 seconds for the quality to bump itself up, but waiting that long is nothing for half hour show.
Also, I don’t know why you’d want to download shows in advance if they’re available in great quality on demand at any point. I haven’t torrented since getting netflix, except for Game of Thrones of course.
I’ve streamed netflix via 3G. Your argument is invalid. You’re just wanting stuff for free.
What an idiot you are, you are clearly lacking even a remote understand of how internet speeds work.
Go back under your bridge.
I often have speeds around that and have no trouble streaming videos?
“you are clearly lacking even a remote understand(ing) of how internet speeds work.”
What? This is an actual thing I have done, via a tethered iphone no less. It’s not about ‘how internet speeds work’ its about whether or not you can actually do this. You can drop the quality in netflix way down and it works just fine.
Yes which was the point, I wasn’t arguing that you did it or not, I just simply stated you have no idea how it works, evident by your nonsense claim of Your argument is invalid. You’re just wanting stuff for free
Nonsense, As i said the speeds I get which are actually the minimum accepted for 3g download are not good enough. I can’t stream anything of acceptable quality (bare minimum 480p) without large buffering and if anyone else so much as sneezes at my internet while this happens it stops completely.
Which is why I download only, so until a service offers that they wont get my money and it is more than a fair point considering half of aussies have speeds the same or worse than mine.
The point is why would I pay for a service that is staggeringly more difficult to use (use of 3rd party and extra $$), limiting where when and how I can watch and at a much worse quality than simply downloading myself?
To not be a freeloader?
I don’t have the antenna hooked up any more, haven’t for years, so no network TV.
I have netflix and buy everything else on Bluray. If it isn’t available on either, I’ll look for it on usenet.
Foxtel for live sport/news and documentaries.
iView and Hulu(with Hola Unblocker) for watching stuff while working at the computer.
Almost everything else is acquired through other means and watched on my HTPC running XBMC.
I have completely digitized my library of dvd’s and blu rays for seamless watching. (this is a life saver during xmas when almost every show goes on break)
Torrent + VLC player, or plugging a hard drive into the blu-ray in the other room. Plus sometimes Foxtel.
I got this awesome little Western Digital box that plays every format under the sun in up to 1080p. It’s an amazing little thing.
Same here. That combined with Foxtel GO (and my parent’s login details) for sport.
Will be looking for a device to combine the two in the future – the WDTV is just starting to encounter releases it can’t play properly – it’s a been a very long time since the last update.
What formats have you found that it can’t play?
Last time I checked there were so many updates available, be sad if they have stopped. Maybe a newer model has superseded it.
Not a format, just some major mp4 and mkv releases – namely the current season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I should note that I’m not using the most recent 1.06 (from January..) update as they broke 3TB harddrive support with it.
Use unblock-us. Pay for Amazon-prime and netflix subscriptions. One netflix sub gives you access to netflix in all regions that have netflix eg .. Canada,UK etc. All have differing content. And unblock-us lets me change to these regions. All watched via PS3 apps.
Computer hooked up to the TV or dvd/blu ray on the PS3 (or PS4 in 3 days)
I don’t watch much real TV anymore, I’m more of an ‘on demand’ viewer.
Netflix, Hulu+, iView, “less than legal” websites and Blu-Ray discs after watching a show and deeming it worthy.
I download every show or movies I watch in 720p, then I have it saved to an external hard drive that I leave plugged into a Raspberry Pi loaded with XBMC. I can send files from my PC over our home network straight to the hard drive, then once a week I scan for new files and it downloads and updates the library.
A bit of a hassle but I love having everything perfectly organized.
I pirate pretty much everything. Sometimes I’ll buy a boxset of a tv show if I know it would take me a million years to download (eg. Inspector Morse Complete Series).
I have a huge dvd collection but I’m slowly tossing away and just downloading the same movies anyway, as it’s just so much more convenient.
More than happy to pay for online subscriptions if the price is reasonable. I tried Foxtel for about 6 months and it was awful and a waste of money. But I pay for NBA League Pass (about $120 per season) and the service is amazing and definitely worth the money.
I torrent new seasons of tv shows and watch them via my HTPC. If I like the show I then buy it when it becomes available. iview and SBS on Demand also get a lot of use in my house.
Movies I buy on dvd or Blu-ray
I’m finding that I watch a lot of Youtube content these days.
I used to be JB Hi-Fi’s biggest customer. Bought every thing on BD or DVD. But now I’m soon to be married and realising my money dosen’t go as far anymore.
Now I Torrent TV and Movies but if I really like them I’ll buy physical copies.
I subscribe to NFL Gamepass to get my NFL fix. Well worth the asking price.
Mostly Blu-Ray/DVD played through a PS3, and then PlayTV/normal TV for the incredibly few times I watch a Free-To-Air movie or show. I’d love to start going pure digital but I don’t want a fragmented library and my preference for subbed anime and foreign films means I’d have to be getting that from a different place to my mainstream movies and series. Unless someone knows a digital distribution service that has a large selection of dual audio w/ subtitles foreign films and anime as well as a decent selection of movies?
I watch stuff on TV.
I watch everything on Netflix… oh wait.. This is Australia… so no.
I watch TV on Free to Air and Foxtel. I will torrent a show if I miss an episode because the quality on the catch up TV services is usually pretty bad.
“If I like the show I’ll buy it” So if you don’t like it, it’s ok to get it for free?
I pay for Netflix, Hulu Plus and Unblock US. 25 a month for pretty much anything I want to watch. I’ve paid for GoT through iTunes previously as well.
Netflix mostly through ps3. I do buy blurays of keepers. Foxtel too but once contract is up, I’ll ditch it. My wife watches yupptv via wdlive for her tamil tv/movies. We used to occassionally pirate but not anymore.
Mostly wait until DVD/bluray release
Well I use to torrent everything not that long ago, but it became apparent that I was starting to watch TV less and all the shows in my “queue” were just piling up. These days I guess the small amount of TV I do watch is either on Hulu or Foxtel (but it’s likely we will be toning down the Foxtel subscription soon as our household overall is using it a lot less).
I am actually already at a point where I don’t bother seeing a movie till it comes out on Bluray, TV shows might be like that soon as well.
I get my anime through torrents, partly because I wouldn’t wait for an English dub (yeah I’m one of those who refuse English dubs) but mostly because I love having all of my stuff in a single easy place to watch whenever I want. No switching discs for me!
I’d watch TV shows if Australia had Hulu (I’m aware of the browser addons to unblock it) but fast internet AND a high download quota is too expensive, so I just don’t watch TV.
Sometimes I go to the cinema to watch movies, sometimes I download them. I like to go to the cinema for movies I want to support, generally the stuff I download is “eh, this looks like it could be interesting”.