All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

Just a reminder…many people consider downloading shows piracy, as you are taking the content of the show without taking the advertising that goes along with it. Once you get into downloading DVD rips, you’re on even more dangerous ground, as these episodes might include exclusive extended footage, etc… Not giving my opinion on whether this belief is right or wrong, just mentioning that it could be considered illegal by many, and therefore not a good topic for such a public forum. :/

Posted by Cards on 5 May 2005 @ 12pm

Right, thanks for pointing that out. I’ll keep these last two episodes on my HD for a couple days before removing them. For the record, I’d rather not have to wait to download the show, and I wouldn’t mind sitting through and watching it right when it’s on.

I can’t imagine that it’d be too wrong, since it looks like quite a few people have been using the site for awhile. The DVD rips are a completely different story.

Posted by Bryan on 5 May 2005 @ 1pm

The site is awesome.

Anyways - My personal view (not to say it is correct or incorrect)…

These are perfectly legal, at least up until TiVo becomes illegal.

Sure you have to remove the ads with that too… But would people try to tell me if I remove the ads (which is pretty easy) and it’s okay for me to watch the show, but it’s not okay for the rest of my family since they would never see the ads?

…Right…

Posted by Anthony on 6 May 2005 @ 7am

Just a quick question - do you like Azureus? I used it (before new version), and it kept freezing up my PC. So… I’m currently using BitComet. Works much better for me (then again, maybe the new version is better).

-Dan

Posted by Dan on 8 May 2005 @ 2pm

Azureus has been freezing up my system as well, so I’ll try another one.

Posted by Bryan on 8 May 2005 @ 4pm

Okay, if nobody’s gonna be shy about their opinions on whether or not downloading tv shows is ok or not…I’ll chip in too. I’ll admit I download shows I miss (if I haven’t already caught them with my MythTV box) and watch them commercial free. It’s nice because of the extreme convenience and good quality rips people are putting out. However, I’m able to open my eyes to the grand scheme of things, and if everyone takes this approach, we will have serious problems getting quality programming. If everyone skips the ads, advertisers will stop paying for time…meaning networks/shows don’t get any money. If that’s how we’re going to go about things, we either have to prepare for lots of obnoxious product placement in our programming, or be prepared to have individual subscriptions to every show you want to watch. Remember folks, these shows don’t come out of thin air…the money’s gotta come from somewhere.

Posted by Cards on 9 May 2005 @ 12pm

Well said, Justin.

Posted by Bryan on 9 May 2005 @ 4pm

[...] The Poor Man’s Tivo: BitTorrent. I wrote about BT back in May, but I’m just reiterating how cool it is. I don’t know who records the few TV shows I’ve been getting, either. I believe they’re in HDTV, but they’re without commercials and basically flawless. Thank you. [...]

Posted by All Narfed Up » Blog Archive » The Poor Man’s Tivo on 21 November 2005 @ 10pm