I’m in my first month of Usenet. I own several popular BluRay Movies but thought I’d save time ripping them manually and instead see what I could get off Usenet (NZBGeek + Eweka) now that my niece is visiting and needs entertainment.

I noticed a number of popular titles are consistently difficult to obtain (“aborted, cannot be completed”), even when live within only a few days, or even hours.

I assume this is a very vigilant DMCA takedown bot. How commonplace is this? And why does it only apply to some titles and not others?

Is it worth continuing with Usenet? I thought paying for content would ensure a certain “quality” of experience. So far, I’m a bit disappointed.

  • GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    Usenet, while way better than torrenting, still requires multiple indexers and providers for this reason. I have 3 of each and rarely ever run into this issue except for very niche releases.

    • navi@lemmy.tespia.orgEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      I’m inexperienced with Usenet, but why is it better than torrenting?

      I have 5-6 trackers which provides me basically everything I need and it sounds like Usenet might be similar in that regard.

      • GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        The main benefit is that you don’t need to use a VPN, so you get full download speeds. Also the availability and download speed isn’t dependent on seeders, so more obscure content tends to survive longer on Usenet.

        • navi@lemmy.tespia.orgEnglish
          1·
          7 months ago

          That’s interesting about the life time. I’ve actually heard the opposite, where niche/old things can be easier to get from specific trackers vs Usenet because of their lack of popularity.

          I suppose it’s probably mostly about which websites you are a part of and if they specialize in specific content.

      • GlitzyArmrest@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        For indexers, I have DrunkenSlug, nzbgeek, and nzbplanet. My backbone providers are UsenetExpress, FrugalUsenet, and Giganews. You can use https://whatsmyuse.net to make sure you don’t have overlapping backbones.

  • TFO Winder@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    7 months ago

    Isn’t usenet paid?

    I tried once exploring it but found out have to pay my ISP or something, so went back to torrenting.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      Man I remember 20 years ago, Usenet came included as part of my Internet service. Grabbing stuff was so much simpler back then.