Places to get high def content?
 

Aside from vuze what else do you guys use for high def content?

well that depends on what kind of content you want. personally I dislike Vuze tho.

hd-bb + jdownloader

astraweb ftw

This plan on Astraweb is actually cheaper ($96/year). Works out to $8/mo (pay the year in advance). If you're on the month to month, e-mail them and tell them you've switched to this plan and they'll pro-rate refund you what's left in the month.

This plus an nzbmatrix VIP ($5 lifetime I think) and you're maxing out your connection getting up to the minute releases.

Is there a demo of what i can get off astraweb? How fast for releases etc? Do I need a special program to use it? What kind of format does most of the stuff come in? Is it easy to stream it to ps3?

I don't see a trial account on their page. You may have to e-mail them to see if they offer something like that. (I know usenetserver.com offered a 3 day account for a few bucks if you want to try them out)

Astraweb just gives you access to the servers. You'll need another website to manage the links. NZBMatrix being one of the best on the net. There are free ones, but won't have as good a search.

The content is the best on the web. you can download SD and HD content. Any BR-Rips will be on there. I've only had trouble finding obscure albums, etc. But you can usually find lossless audio rips, as well as high quality mp3 rips.

I was downloading at ~2200kbps while I was in London - while on a 50 megabit connection... here in Vancouver, I get around ~550kbps on a cheap ass broadband plan...

I find newsgroups are good for fairly current stuff. Like gars said, it's not so good for obscure stuff. For that, stick with torrents since you'll have a bigger user base.

I get 1700KB/s (that's bytes, not bits) regularly. Burst it'll hit 2400KB/s for a little bit.

i have a friend on Shaw Extreme in Surrey and he gets 2400kbps on a regular basis... this is one thing that really depends on your connection speed. Newsgroups definitely max out your connection.

Keep in mind, when you first get it, you'll realize that instead of downloading one episode, you'll find yourself downloading entire seasons at a time, because it really downloads that quickly.

tv shows get uploaded right away, as soon as they're broadcasted, and you don't have the problem of having too many downloaders and not enough peers, resulting in slow download speeds - like with Torrents.

i realize newsgroups are probably really fast, but i still can't justify paying for this stuff

i get regular releases from rlslog, irfree, or any of the release sites that post up mirror links from $$$$$$$$$$, rapidshare etc. and can get any show as soon as it's posted. it's almost certain that the links that ppl upload it to multiple mirrors as soon as they get it from newsgroups.

Time = money

I think its a great deal to be paying $11/month and being able to get episodes of your favourite tv shows in minutes. No upload. No ratio. No bs.

but u can do that on any release page? it won't be posted as fast as a newsgroup but it'll d/l just as fast. i constantly get over 1mb/sec on jdownloader

i'm sure there must be something i'm missing here ...

I've never used those release sites - do they release a lot of high def content, or high quality mp3 rips / lossless rips...

I didn't download much high def content - because I was running my netbook in London, and can't watch High Def, but with the newsgroups, you can download full 1080p movies to watch. an 8gb file downloaded in 2 hours isn't bad. I doubt content like that is released on those sites.

my friend does that to watch on his big screen tv. I mean, it just depends on what quality and how much stuff is really released.

all the releases that eventually become torrents (unless private/ single user) get put onto newsgroups and onto file hosting mirrors. the release sites post the links of these file hosting mirrors.

where i can see newsgroups excel at is if they put up ftp links for you to download from

i just don't feel like paying for it if it means i get it an hour later, or even a day later (depending on file size and how the file is split up)

i frequent rlslog (down at the moment), irfree, and hd-bb

it's free so... u've got nothing to lose for trying it and comparing

It's the same as spending money to up your ratio on a torrent site...

Like above though, I can't justify paying for stuff like this. Now if I was paying the TV channels a few bucks a month to FTP shows direct from them, then I'd consider it.

you can also buy high def stuff on the store...or make an antenna and grab high def tv (if you have an atsc tuner) for free

Newsgroups are basically like an FTP.... It's a direct download from newsgroup servers - you are paying to access the servers...

personally, I see it like viewing a movie. I go see a movie maybe twice a month or so, at a cost of $10-13 each movie. I'd say half of the movies I can really say I enjoyed it. The rest of the time, meh. On the other hand, the money that was spent on being the newsgroups - the amount of content that was downloaded through the servers - definitely worth the price of one movie.

I guess it would really depend on how much money I was making. If I was still a student, and not working much, then this $11 might be a little harder to swallow - but since it's the price of a cheaper dinner now....

^ yes I get all that, but if I'm gonna be paying for content, I just figure I should be paying the station or producers or whatever that put out the program for it.

Man, when I jumped from Torrents to Newsgroups, I've looked back.

Well, that is a lie. I still use Torrents for the older obscure stuff but even then ... most of the time I am downloading and watching shit in minutes.

Like Weeds. 3 minute download. My shits take longer than that.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to buy every season of whatever. Nothing beats original. But then again, nobody here is made of money.

So my main question is what format does the stuff in the newsgroups come in? Do I have to convert them to be able to play them via ps3?

It's usually rar or zip, but you'll need a binary newsreader to decode and extract the files.

Another app you might find useful is QuickPar. Most nzb's include the par files (parity files you can use to reconstruct damaged and/or missing files)