Movies
I've been getting into something in the past several weeks that's been immense fun. I've been watching brand new and first run flicks, meaning movies that are still out in theaters and haven't come out on DVDs yet, mostly in high definition with superior sound right from my computer.
For free.
First I want to rant a little. The technology genie can't be put back in the bottle. What we're witnessing is nothing short of a sea change in what we consider wealth. Pirating will always be one step ahead of efforts to retain ownership of material and we really have to get beyond that solid fact. I'm not a music downloader, but from what little I know most efforts at protecting proprietory material have failed miserably, and that's just the way of the universe at this point. It seems that's what's happening to video as well and if you want to see basically any movie you want, and if it's already out in theaters or is on DVD, you can.
If classic films are your favorites there's always google videos. "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Grapes of Wrath", and so on. It's a great resource.
There are other places that gather information about what's available out there and will direct you to sites that host first run movies. It's a mystery how they stay up but they do. I've watched "Public Enemies", "Duplicity", "Wolverine", "Inglorious Basterds", "Bruno", "Julia and Julie", "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", "The International", "Angels and Demons", "Capitalism, a Love Story" and a whole bunch of others in the past couple of weeks, but you have to do a few things which fortunately don't involve any money. Let me share what I've learned.
First, a lot of the sites that host movies require you to have a player installed called DivX. Not all, but a lot, so you want it. Don't ever download the player from any place but the DivX home site itself. It's a big file and it will dump a few icons on your desktop, but it's unobtrusive and will only come up when you try to watch a film online. It's been a remarkably good tool and hasn't caused any problems at my end.
Then go search for titles. You'll be astounded at what you'll find, There are a lot of places that will direct you , try Here and Here And Here for starters.
Now this is where your internet savvy comes to play. The links will be to sites with a lot of distracting pop ups and junk because that's how they make their dough so be prepared to dump the ads, but sometimes the pop ups are the movies themselves. The movie players may be hammered and slow to buffer so you might want to get them playing a while in advance, but sometimes they play perfectly from the go get. If you want to save a flick most sites offer the show as a download too, but most are around 200 megs a shot. There's a big range of quality. Movies that have just come out will be from cameras set up in theaters with audience chatter and patrons in front of you getting up to take a pee, but within a few weeks they get displaced by sharp, clear DVD quality viewings with sound you'll want to put through external speakers. You can make them full screen, like YouTube, but run the risk of audio outpacing the video. Most popular flicks have a bunch of sites that host them so look around and get the best viewing you can. Just about all the Japanese sites won't work for us in the states but I managed to see a few westerns with subtitles. They like westerns.
If you're into watching movies, I hope this helped. We're watching "Synecdoche, New York" tonight.
For free.
First I want to rant a little. The technology genie can't be put back in the bottle. What we're witnessing is nothing short of a sea change in what we consider wealth. Pirating will always be one step ahead of efforts to retain ownership of material and we really have to get beyond that solid fact. I'm not a music downloader, but from what little I know most efforts at protecting proprietory material have failed miserably, and that's just the way of the universe at this point. It seems that's what's happening to video as well and if you want to see basically any movie you want, and if it's already out in theaters or is on DVD, you can.
If classic films are your favorites there's always google videos. "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Grapes of Wrath", and so on. It's a great resource.
There are other places that gather information about what's available out there and will direct you to sites that host first run movies. It's a mystery how they stay up but they do. I've watched "Public Enemies", "Duplicity", "Wolverine", "Inglorious Basterds", "Bruno", "Julia and Julie", "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", "The International", "Angels and Demons", "Capitalism, a Love Story" and a whole bunch of others in the past couple of weeks, but you have to do a few things which fortunately don't involve any money. Let me share what I've learned.
First, a lot of the sites that host movies require you to have a player installed called DivX. Not all, but a lot, so you want it. Don't ever download the player from any place but the DivX home site itself. It's a big file and it will dump a few icons on your desktop, but it's unobtrusive and will only come up when you try to watch a film online. It's been a remarkably good tool and hasn't caused any problems at my end.
Then go search for titles. You'll be astounded at what you'll find, There are a lot of places that will direct you , try Here and Here And Here for starters.
Now this is where your internet savvy comes to play. The links will be to sites with a lot of distracting pop ups and junk because that's how they make their dough so be prepared to dump the ads, but sometimes the pop ups are the movies themselves. The movie players may be hammered and slow to buffer so you might want to get them playing a while in advance, but sometimes they play perfectly from the go get. If you want to save a flick most sites offer the show as a download too, but most are around 200 megs a shot. There's a big range of quality. Movies that have just come out will be from cameras set up in theaters with audience chatter and patrons in front of you getting up to take a pee, but within a few weeks they get displaced by sharp, clear DVD quality viewings with sound you'll want to put through external speakers. You can make them full screen, like YouTube, but run the risk of audio outpacing the video. Most popular flicks have a bunch of sites that host them so look around and get the best viewing you can. Just about all the Japanese sites won't work for us in the states but I managed to see a few westerns with subtitles. They like westerns.
If you're into watching movies, I hope this helped. We're watching "Synecdoche, New York" tonight.
posted by nolocontendere at 3:16 PM
1 Comments:
I disagree with your approach to this. You are probably risking infecting your machine with such sites -- sites that offer free things like movies and software cracks are problems waiting to happen. Maybe you have been lucky so far.
As for pirating in general: my view (I'm a software developer) is that if people did not pay to see movies in theatres, they probably might not exist; who wants to shell out millions to make something for no return? So I tend to see movies in theatres (the experience is better anyway) or wait for them to get to DVD/Netflix or HBO.
If I invest the time to develop software for sale (the same can be true of any work that required time to produce -- books/movies/etc.), I would not want it to necessarily forever be free to all those who chose to find a way to obtain and use it. Seems logical to me.
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