I would agree in the past, you needed something like a dedicated media center PC. But these days it is cheap as hell for an old PC, or laptop or smart phone that can handle video just fine. Even a new computer device is pretty damn cheap to have just for your TV. Also, everyone is assuming people are downloading torrents for their media piracy, but everything you can find on a torrent website you can easily find on a streaming site. The only reason to torrent a show or movie over streaming an illegitimate copy is if you plan on watching it a dozen times over and you have limited bandwidth.
While legit streaming servers are a bit easier to use, illegitimate streaming websites are only just barely behind that and also contain pretty much every tv show or movie you could ever want to watch. The only real downside I see is the usual lack of closed captioning support. If my choice is to pay money for 4 different streaming services and having to hunt around through each one to find what I want to watch, versus clicking one extra link and closing a pop-up ad for an unlimited catalog, the choice doesn't seem that hard.
>The only reason to torrent a show or movie over streaming an illegitimate copy is if you plan on watching it a dozen times over and you have limited bandwidth.
Or you don't want to have to weed through half a dozen ad-filled sites that claim to have the film, but don't, and end up with a 200 MB rip for your trouble.
With some services they cycle through the different copies and stream them.
Netflix is easier and quicker. Next comes kodi with an addon. Trying to watch a full series on demand from your cable company. The experience is so much slower to navigate between shows.. this is before we talk about ads.
maybe just get P4S (Plex for share) and you can get all of that for couple bucks a month. Literally cheaper and no hassle compared to running your own setup.
While legit streaming servers are a bit easier to use, illegitimate streaming websites are only just barely behind that and also contain pretty much every tv show or movie you could ever want to watch. The only real downside I see is the usual lack of closed captioning support. If my choice is to pay money for 4 different streaming services and having to hunt around through each one to find what I want to watch, versus clicking one extra link and closing a pop-up ad for an unlimited catalog, the choice doesn't seem that hard.