Your local Library has videos.

Workin' on it! Got me a used laptop that's about as recent as possible to still have a slim bluray slot built in. Learning all the things.

What's the iPlayer done?

Bring back Blockbuster so I can just pay, like, $3 once to rent a movie instead of $20/month when I'm probably only gonna watch 1 or 2 movies in that time. The rental prices aren't much cheaper than buying a copy on digital platforms.

… when there’s literally no other option to own it in a way it can’t be just taken from you …

There’s at least one legal route that’s still viable.

I buy lots of Blu-ray and 4K UHD discs. I rip them straight on to my Jellyfin server. In fact, there’s been renewed vitality in disc releases during the past few years. Small shops like Shout Factory and Arrow are buying rights to old (‘60s through ‘00s) films that were shot on 35mm. They re-scan and remaster for UHD 4K and then straight to physical disc. That’s a cheap production pipeline with modern tech.

I’ve been having a blast re-visiting films that I never saw in the theater and only know from VHS or DVD rentals. Seeing them again with fresh eyes in 4K has been really gratifying.

That, plus new release discs keep me with more options than I have time to watch.

There are still options for disc-by-mail rental online. Netflix shut down their business but there are smaller companies still serving the remaining market.

I think i have more Laserdiscs than Blu-rays

When there was 3-4 big streaming platforms things were great... now everyone is just copy/pasting their services and slapping their own content and logo on it and charging a premium.

That movie you watched on Netflix 5 years ago, is likely no longer on Netflix. If you want to rewatch it you'd have to find it on another platform, pay their monthly fee - or pay the rental fee... ironically from one of these streaming services.

Man if there was only a convenient program that can be used to make mkv’s from optical media

It's weird watching 4k re releases of CG animated movies from the early 2000s. Some of them they re-rendered at 4k and you can see that major characters are high res, but all the background assets are not. Same with some early special effects in 4k. You can really see the rotoscoping and how some effects were done

Yohohoho

Stremio + Torrentio FTW.

Have you heard of our Lord and Saviour, Jellyfin?

Nah, I have more room without bookshelves of physical media.

I'm a huge fan of Shout Factory, and I'm at a place in my life where I can generally afford to pay for my media, so I do. I'll have to look up Arrow.

Voting with your wallet works both ways, and while most of the payment will be eaten by corporate interests at least it signals "I want more of this sort of thing".

My comment was mainly meant as a response to the statement regarding later seasons of Always Sunny simply not being available to purchase physically. In situations like that, I see no reasonable objection to raising the sails.

And you forgot the good'ol laserdisc

Torrents and Jellyfin - streaming is better if you do it yourself

My local torrent site has them without getting off the couch.

I just got mine set up with a custom domain name and CloudFlare tunnel, it seems to work a treat. Now to start selling user accounts...