Thinking of ditching Virgin Media. Can I save/ transfer all my film purchases with them?

[BristolEcho]

As Existentialist says, you can sideload Kodi onto it quite simply then load a build onto that which will enable you to stream pretty much anything, past or present. That doesn't cost anything other than the price of the stick. If you seach "Amazon firestick" on here, you'll find a couple of threads where how to do it is discussed in detail. It's not dficult. The other advantage is that you get acess to stuff that's not on a lot of platforms.

Can you get Dolby Atmos and surround sound on the stuff you stream via Kodi?

I'm kind of tempted - I don't watch much TV really so could never be bothered with sorting out Kodi, or using Torrents. But my PC is really close to my TV now and all connected. I could also get a fire stick and sideload stuff on to it.

Would be a shame not to be able to get the full experience though as I've just got a sonos system in place. I assumed that Torrents etc might have sketchy quality.

We've just got rid of all of our physical copies of everything - books, DVD's, CDs as we didn't use them and we sadly didn't have the space in our flat.

It is shit that you can buy things to own digitally except music - I was trying to do it with audiobooks but it seems to be the same deal.

 

[Spymaster]

Can you get Dolby Atmos and surround sound on the stuff you stream via Kodi?

I'm kind of tempted - I don't watch much TV really so could never be bothered with sorting out Kodi, or using Torrents. But my PC is really close to my TV now and all connected. I could also get a fire stick and sideload stuff on to it.

Would be a shame not to be able to get the full experience though as I've just got a sonos system in place. I assumed that Torrents etc might have sketchy quality.

We've just got rid of all of our physical copies of everything - books, DVD's, CDs as we didn't use them and we sadly didn't have the space in our flat.

It is shit that you can buy things to own digitally except music - I was trying to do it with audiobooks but it seems to be the same deal.

No idea about Dolby and surround sound because I don’t use them to my knowledge but the streams via Flixtor are full HD and the same as you’d get from Netflix or any of the paid sites, so I don’t see why not.

 

[belboid]

"you will cease to be able to watch your purchased Content"

not really fucking purchased then is it, virgin?

I went to watch something I'd recorded onto my VirginBox years ago recently. Pressed play and it came up with 'As this channel is not available on Virgin any more, you cannot watch this.'

How the fuck did they do that? Did they come and explicitly wipe my bloody box. Tossers.

 

[belboid]

It pisses me off. For the CDs I bought on Amazon in addition to the physical copy I could and have downloaded the MP3s.

So does this mean that I lose all bought Kindle books if I fuck off Amazon?

You haven't bought any kindle books through Amazon. They are quite explicit that you only ever lease them. The wankers.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Can you get Dolby Atmos and surround sound on the stuff you stream via Kodi?

I'm kind of tempted - I don't watch much TV really so could never be bothered with sorting out Kodi, or using Torrents. But my PC is really close to my TV now and all connected. I could also get a fire stick and sideload stuff on to it.

Would be a shame not to be able to get the full experience though as I've just got a sonos system in place. I assumed that Torrents etc might have sketchy quality.

We've just got rid of all of our physical copies of everything - books, DVD's, CDs as we didn't use them and we sadly didn't have the space in our flat.

It is shit that you can buy things to own digitally except music - I was trying to do it with audiobooks but it seems to be the same deal.

It's why I prefer torrents to less legitimate streams. You can really make sure your getting high quality files, including sound. For example I wanted to watch Foundation recently, download it in 4k. Was a 100GB for a high quality copy, but that's the joy of fast Internet.

I've no real experience of the sound as I output from my TV to an amp from the headphone socket but it sounds pretty good. I see torrents marked as 5.1 though.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

There's a long running private thread about torrents. It doesn't see loads of activity, but if anyone wants to be added, just ask.

 

[skyscraper101]

There's a long running private thread about torrents. It doesn't see loads of activity, but if anyone wants to be added, just ask.

yes please

 

[two sheds]

yes please

 

[MBV]

Yes please

 

[Lord Camomile]

I think there was a brief moment where I used torrents, over two decades ago, but for some reason I think I became a bit unsure about them and never really went back, opting for the simpler (in my view) file sharing, instead.

 

[BristolEcho]

There's a long running private thread about torrents. It doesn't see loads of activity, but if anyone wants to be added, just ask.

Wouldn't say no.

 

[neonwilderness]

The other advantage of the Firestick is it's standalone, you don't need another device to cast to it (like a Chromecast).

I use Kodi for sports and stuff I'll probably only watch once. Anything I want to keep gets torrented to a server and I can watch it with Plex.

There's a long running private thread about torrents. It doesn't see loads of activity, but if anyone wants to be added, just ask.

Yes please

 

[Elpenor]

It's why I prefer torrents to less legitimate streams. You can really make sure your getting high quality files, including sound. For example I wanted to watch Foundation recently, download it in 4k. Was a 100GB for a high quality copy, but that's the joy of fast Internet.

I've no real experience of the sound as I output from my TV to an amp from the headphone socket but it sounds pretty good. I see torrents marked as 5.1 though.

I watch a lot of black and white drama from 40s and 50s. No special effects or anything like that. Does the quality argument (which I understand) hold water for this sort of material compared to say a 2023 action film with lots of flashes and bangs?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

I watch a lot of black and white drama from 40s and 50s. No special effects or anything like that. Does the quality argument (which I understand) hold water for this sort of material compared to say a 2023 action film with lots of flashes and bangs?

Honestly no idea as it's not my thing, but it's not like they were filmed in 4k to start with. I know some old film stuff can look really good though, like Godfather when it's been properly digitalised as the film they used was so good, but I'm sure someone else can explain it better.

 

[Spymaster]

I watch a lot of black and white drama from 40s and 50s. No special effects or anything like that. Does the quality argument (which I understand) hold water for this sort of material compared to say a 2023 action film with lots of flashes and bangs?

Flixtor is great for old stuff because you can search by release date/range. As UOS says though, the original quality wasn't HD, so unless they've been remastered the quality will be the same as you'd get from whatever medium they were uploaded in/from.

Basically, you should be able to find content in as good quality as is available anywhere else.

 

[Elpenor]

Honestly no idea as it's not my thing, but it's not like they were filmed in 4k to start with. I know some old film stuff can look really good though, like Godfather when it's been properly digitalised as the film they used was so good, but I'm sure someone else can explain it better.

Flixtor is great for old stuff because you can search by release date/range. As UOS says though, the original quality wasn't HD, so unless they've been remastered the quality will be the same as you'd get from whatever medium they were uploaded in/from.

Basically, you should be able to find content in as good quality as is available anywhere else.

Thanks, currently I cast from a phone via a website. It might be useful to look into the other options for more modern stuff I might choose to watch

 

[Spymaster]

Thanks, currently I cast from a phone via a website.

What you're doing is the same as what everyone else is doing on the Firestick, except that it's a pain in the arse. Doing it your way probably takes ages to find a watchable stream, right?

The Firestick with a Kodi/Flixtor sideload, effectively scrapes the web for you by title/genre etc, in seconds, so you have a far superior UI.

With a bit of set-up (about half an hour) you can create your own interface that's as simple to use as Netflix or Amazon Prime, but with 100 (1000?) times the content and at no (or minimal) cost.

I won't elaborate much further on here but anyone interested should join the PM threads that UnderOpenSky mentioned.

 

[Elpenor]

What you're doing is the same as what everyone else is doing on the Firestick, except that it's a pain in the arse. Doing it your way probably takes ages to find a watchable stream, right?

The Firestick with a Kodi/Flixtor sideload, effectively scrapes the web for you by title/genre etc, in seconds, so you have a far superior UI.

With a bit of set-up (about half an hour) you can create your own interface that's as simple to use as Netflix or Amazon Prime, but with 100 (1000?) times the content and at no (or minimal) cost.

I won't elaborate much further on here but anyone interested should join the PM threads that UnderOpenSky mentioned.

Actually no I have a good source for stuff, so it takes seconds to find what I want and the link always works. Perhaps my method is a bit more clunky.

So I’ll look into this, now being on the magic thread

 

[Rikbikboo]

There is an app call stremio. Strem.io it seems to have everything you can think of and then some. Might be worth a look

Edit. Incorrect link

 

[sim667]

I fucked off virgin on realising the only two non freeview channels I wanted via their service were on Samsung tv plus for free