Rogers sucks; Bell sucks; which one sucks less?

tim1_2 wrote:What's your issue with just downloading whatever you want? The legality of it?

A few things:
- legality of it (my wife works for the RCMP; no, she doesn't "carry" but, still)
- warning e-mails (depends on whose content you d/l; anything owned by Disney/ABC and you'll get a warning)
- not as easy to watch (especially now that I am in-between tablets)
- actually, being in-between tablets makes it more difficult to d/l as our IT department detects the presence of bittorrent clients on the laptop

wprager wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:What's your issue with just downloading whatever you want? The legality of it?

A few things:
- legality of it (my wife works for the RCMP; no, she doesn't "carry" but, still)
- warning e-mails (depends on whose content you d/l; anything owned by Disney/ABC and you'll get a warning)
- not as easy to watch (especially now that I am in-between tablets)
- actually, being in-between tablets makes it more difficult to d/l as our IT department detects the presence of bittorrent clients on the laptop

I've never gotten one. What makes you think they send one to anyone who dl their stuff?

EDIT: Also, have you ever gone to an RCMP party? If you're telling me that you're worried about legality because of a connection to the RCMP, I'm guessing no.

Just don't want her to have any hassles for top-secret clearance (they do a fairly deep search into just about everything).

As for Disney, the only warning e-mail I'd ever received were after downloading something they owned. I don't use a VPN anonymizing service, maybe it will be worth investing in one.

I don't use a VPN and I've never received a warning. I have a desktop computer that I use to DL stuff. It runs a media server called "Plex". https://plex.tv/

Plex automatically downloads the content info for anything I get, and as long as the desktop PC is running, I can stream stuff from it to any Android and Apple device using the Plex apps, and also to my two TVs, through my Roku 3 boxes. It works flawlessly and automatically transcodes video formats to be compatible on what I'm watching on. If you pay for the Plex membership, you are then able to access your media library over the internet if you're away from home, in addition to some other bells and whistles.

Anyway, I get that you don't want to download stuff, so this isn't really an option for you...but wow, is it ever awesome.

Hmm, so Plex is running as the media server. Do you know if you can stream to a ChromeCast device? Upstairs TV (where we do most of our watching now that the kids aren't tucked in by 9PM like the good ol' days) has not "Smarts" except for ChromeCast. Back when I had Netflix (and a tablet) I could run Netflix that way. Streaming other content from the tablet (using BubbleUPnP or other apps) was often problematic (sometimes would freeze, ffw/rew issues, no "bookmarks" to resume watching at a certain point, big issue with subtitles).

Cool, found this guide which includes instructions to install/configure Plex and how to use it with a ChromeCast.
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tvs-entertainment/media-streamers/1400825/how-to-use-plex-with-chromecast-ios-android-apple-tv-nas

I still need an Android device to start "casting" to the ChromeCast. Guess I'll have to use my wife's phone until I get a new tablet.

Also it looks like Plex integrates subtitles (configured properly it will go and fetch the subtitles to match your video). Not sure if this part works with ChromeCast, though. Couple years ago when I was first starting out with ChromeCast (and with DLNA on my smart tv) I had some issues. Hopefully things have changed for the better, recently.

OK, so step 1, I have to install a bittorrent client on my home PC and download some stuff. Step 2 is install Plex and then configure it (apparently I have to be careful about separating the movies from tv shows on disk, as well as put everything in their own subfolders (a subfolder for each movie/tv show, a sub-subfolder for every season, and again for every episode).

OK, this will probably take me to the end of the playoffs Certainly easier to just pay the man the extra $14 per month.

It takes about half an hour to set Plex up. Folder structure is a breeze:

For movies: one big movie folder, no need for subfolders.

For TV shows: show folder>season folder>episodes (no episode subfolders).

So when you're downloading, you just set the download location to the right folder, and stuff will automagically appear on Plex as it auto updates when it senses file changes/additions.

If you're getting a torrent client I recommend uTorrent.

The last one I had was uTorrent. The PC client was pretty good, the Android app was not. Constantly popping up ads and such. Also did not do very well with the search -- search would simply run a browser with "bittorrent" added to the search terms, then I had to click on the correct link (all those torrent sites including a million links in their search results and it's hard to tell which one is a link to the torrent file and which ones will take you where you don't want to go, or download something you don't want to download. Anyhow, I found with the app that in some cases, even when I clicked the *right* link it sometimes did not know what to do with it. Ended up having to go in the file browser and clicking the downloaded file, then selecting to open it in uTorrent.

Anyhow, all that is gone now, hopefully the PC client hasn't changed drastically (for the worse) since the last time I used one.

The PC client of uTorrent is very good. Then you need a good site to download from. I use The Pirate Bay because it sounds so legal.

tim1_2 wrote:The PC client of uTorrent is very good. Then you need a good site to download from. I use The Pirate Bay because it sounds so legal.

Kickass torrent is pretty good too.

I thought Kickass was down, but yeah, if it's up, it works well too.

tim1_2 wrote:I thought Kickass was down, but yeah, if it's up, it works well too.

I have it bookmarked, but kickass.to autodirects to kat.cr.

And 2 days later still no Shomi or on-demand.  Three calls in, after them doing whatever on their end and me power-cycling the PVR 3-4 times and waiting 30 minutes, as instructed, on the third call the CSR said they'll have to schedule a technician's visit.  Out of frustration I say "But it was just installed today!" to which the guy goes, "Oh, just today?  Well that means you'll get it tomorrow because it won't be authorized on our end until 2AM."  So last night I finally had a chance to try it again after the "2AM" thing that happens, and still the same error.

Still no Shomi or OnDemand. Last call to the CSR she said the catalog error is usually because it downloaded a corrupted catalog file. So power it down (again), wait 30 minutes (to re-download the file) and try again. She apologized because I'd already done this a few times but assured me that *this* time it will finally work.

It didn't.

On top of that I'm having issues with the WiFi. Couldn't connect when I got home (the SSID wasn't even being broadcast. Power-cycled the modem, then was able to connect. But while I was talking to the CSR about Shomi it dropped the connection again. This time, even after power cycling it I could connect to the modem but it was a "Limited" connection (little yellow triangle with exclamation point over the WiFi icon in the sys tray).

Had to call a different CSI since this one didn't know anything about the internet side of things. This one changed my network name, had me re-start my laptop and connect to the "new" one. Basically, she thinks another device is causing issues which results in the modem just shutting everyone out. Now I have to add devices one at a time to see which one is causing issues. I think it might be the USB WiFi adapter we used on the desktop. Could be wrong, but I've connected it direct for now.

Having digested what the CSR said, I wonder if it's some security setting on the modem. If a device is misbehaving and the modem interprets that it's being attacked it could shut the WiFi down.

I've had a device before that enjoyed rebooting my router, but have never experienced something shutting the WiFi down.

Sounds like you're having a great time with Rogers. Should of thought that one through.

Troll.

OK, so far:
- downloaded uTorrent and got Orphan Black S4E01
- created media/tv/OrphanBlack/S4 folder and moved downloaded folder there
- downloaded Plex
- signed up for a Plex account
- added the media/tv folder from above as a media library
- installed Plex on android device

Now, when I fired up the Plex Android app it found the Plex media server, no problem. Selected the ChromeCast device. Pressed play. Problem.

All it does is tell me it had problems playing. The Plex app is in trial mode, but it still allows you to play up to a minute of a video. Tried playing back on the phone itself, same problem.

It is very possible that I wasn't quite finished configuring the Plex server. But it finds it, then finds the Orphan Black content, so what else could I be missing?

Open Plex up on your PC. There should be an icon down in the lower right notification area to do this.

Go into all your settings and make sure it's set up to transcode. Also, try playing Orphan Black on your PC to make sure the file works OK. Is it an MKV file?