Torrents

Abefroman said:

Anyone have a really good site for ebooks? Also any good alternatives to calibre?

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Do you have myanonymouse? Also, may I ask what your issue with calibre is? I have used it for years and absolutely love it for curating my book library.

Crone said:

Edit: Also, how do you know if its a good 1080p rip? Given I was watching VHS quality before, I'm not too proud to step down to 1080p, but apparently there are good and bad? Is it strictly file size? Void @jeydax

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Well, first off, if you want quality don't ever get something that is a BRRip/BDRip. That's an incredibly compressed rip, and even though it says 1080p the file size is typically less than a 720p better copy. As with most things, size is a good first indicator to look at. Honestly, if it is a movie and it is less than 10GB, it isn't exactly high quality 1080p in most cases. I typically download 15-20GB files when I can, but if you really want to be technical about it, you need to look at the actual file info posted in the torrent description. It will have the video bitrate shown there, and the higher the better (but larger file).

For example, here's a BRRip of Kong: Skull Island that is only 3GB.
ViDEO.........[ 3368 kbps Matroska Variable
RESOLUTiON....[ 1920 pixels x 800 pixels
(the 800 just means the aspect ratio isn't 16:9 so it will have black bars, but it is still "1080p")

Now here is a 14.3GB Bluray rip:
BITRATE..........: 12.5 Mb/s
RESOLUTION.......: 1920 x 800
That's 12500kbps, almost 4 times the bitrate of the smaller one (but over 4 times the file size).

And here is the 23.7GB version, which is a remux and AVC that I don't know what the fuck those mean (I know AVC is Advanced Video Codec but beyond that, no clue):
Total Bitrate........: 28.7 Mbps
That's another 2+ times the bitrate of the previous one.

All of those bitrates matter for the overall quality. I can't tell you where the cutoff is for being able to tell the difference or size vs. quality. On top of that, you generally only get the good sound with higher quality (bitrate) rips. I typically go for something with DTS-HD or better if it is a movie I really care about, DTS if not. But there are about a dozen different audio variations too, which all affect file size. Of course, if you don't have a great sound system setup, getting better sound won't matter as much either.

I have a massive NAS so I don't worry about size too much, but I also don't necessarily see the point to every movie being 25GB+ either, so I've settled on (recently) the 15'ish GB size and am happy so far. However, I don't have a 4K TV yet either. That opinion might change drastically when that happens.

Crone oh yeah, I looked up what a remux is. It is essentially a 1:1 copy of the movie just with the extraneous stuff like video menus and such stripped out. So if you download a remux, you are essentially getting the absolute highest quality version of the movie (from that particular media source) you can get without downloading the entire bluray iso. I didn't know that, and now I'm gonna have to start downloading a few more remuxes it seems. Hopefully this will be a thing when 4k rips are more common too, but honestly I'm not sure if UHD blurays work the same or not.

So basically if you want the best quality you can get, but don't want the entire bluray, grab a remux. I learned something today too.

a_skeleton_03 said:

I need a good site that has packs of movies so that I can rebuild my server!!

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What quality are you looking to get? My collection is unfortunately a ton of 720p still, but going to start working on upgrading it soon.

I think you probably belong to almost every site I belong to, but just in case, do you have, or are you looking for, Torrentleech or PassThePopcorn? Both of those would be horrible for downloading massive amounts of movies all at once and trying to maintain ratio, but thought I'd offer anyway. Honestly when I'm looking to upgrade quality or get something I lost, IPT is where I go, but I know you have that. I've just started getting Dolby Atmos remuxes/4k if available in preparation for hopefully upgrading my home theater system, and I've gotta spend those 75k bonus points somewhere!

Or if there's anything else I can do for you, as you're vaguely aware of what kind of content I have, PM me.

Crone I don't know everything about this, but I do know that if you don't have a specific player that can handle Atmos it will fuck everything up. Just look at comments on most of the Atmos torrents on IPT and you'll see what I mean. Were you playing it directly through the TVs own functionality? If so, I'm certain it wouldn't have Atmos capability since no one would buy a super-expensive receiver like I just did then.

As far as the buffering and all that, without knowing your specific setup I can't say what the issue might be. Assuming everything you have is gigabit, that should be more than enough. You might have had something in Plex still trying to transcode, who knows? What are you streaming to anyway? Not every device streams 4k the same from what I understand? Having just ordered a 4k TV I'll probably be facing this soon too, but until then I can only guess. I seem to remember a_skeleton_03 saying something about not using Plex for local playback, you should use Kodi instead. Perhaps that is the reason. I know I will be using Kodi simply because I don't really like the Plex layout at all, and only use it when I am forced to.

Speaking of USB though, if you hadn't already bought the USB one I was going to suggest you get a network-capable external drive, since I seem to remember you saying you had a router or switch right nearby. I just can't fathom moving shit around every time I want to watch or copy new items.