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I am pouring one out to this little champ. Stripping HDCP and letting me... archive streaming services from 2016-2023 RIP
(lemmy.world)
What killed it, well after reviewing some PS4 gameplay I noticed that it was having audio issues, like it would allow some sounds but not all. It was almost as if it was receiving a 5.1 audio output but was missing the centre channel. Even though the PS4 was set to stereo.
After trying various cables, configs, and boxes. I narrowed it down to this box. Not sure what killed it, whether it's just old, or that it's been powered on for over 5 years straight. But its long service will never be forgotten in the hours of Netflix and Disney Plus it passed through to my recorder.
That's the thing though: Ultimately, there is no stopping it with restrictive technology.
The only real way to stop piracy is to offer a good service for a good price.
Biggest evidence of that is Epic will give away games for free, but there will be people who prefer to pay for the Steam version over the free version.
That's the biggest evidence that piracy is a problem of distribution and goes against the idea that those who pirates are against paying for a product.
I'm one of these people!
Second.
I also waited out the release of some games that launched on the Epic store first. I begrudgingly bought them on Steam, and I hope enough others did to discourage other companies from doing that in the future.
I do the same thing. I never got an Epic account, and really spend more money on GOG.
I enjoy the Epic exclusives because when it lands on Steam or GOG, it's usually feature complete and less buggy.
Seconded. I like having all my games in one place, on all my devices, with Linux support out-of-the-box thanks to Proton. Also, Steam DRM is easy to bypass with code available on GitHub if you really wanted to.
Epic does none of this for me, and I won't support a company that called all gamers "shmucks" or whatever that C suite said
Yup, outside of legacy PC titles which will never get a re-release, a 1-2 combo shot of GOG and Steam, I don't pirate games. I even took the time to find way to backup my games so I can get legal ROMs too.
Yep, GOG and Steam are pretty much the only ways I play games and I've bought a shitload of games from them both over the years.
I have a FHDB PS2 and soooo many games to back up 😭 ughhh.
I have a few titles that I "backed up" 🏴☠️ already, but i'm not looking forward to ripping my physical disks... my PS1 library took the entire day and two cd drives, sadly most of those disks were partially unreadable
PS2 discs can be ripped on a PC with a DVD player. Same with PS1. The PlayStation copy protection was on system not the media.
Same, I have never pirated any game since the day I installed steam for the first time. It just makes buying games so much easier, and I don’t have to worry about drm or malware at all.
In my case, I rather pay a one-stop reasonable price for content than deal with the hassle of piracy.
Especially with music and video. At some point it has to enter your eyes/ears, and even if HDCP wasn't shit, you could always just record what was on your screen or coming out of your speakers.
Ah yes, the classic analog hole. Next thing you know, "premium" content will need Premium Certified custom eyes and ears, only for the small installation fee of $59.99/month.
How much for the ad-free plan?
Oh wait, it's from Amazon, so there's only an ad-fewer plan.
There will always be many ways to circumvent this stupid bulllshit
They haven't learned and the cycle starts again with streaming services doubling, then they wonder why they're losing revenue.
The only legit media service I pay for now is YouTube. Before I get Amy lectures I am well aware of the issues with it, but also people still keep paying for Netflix as it cancels shows just as they start to grow, so... I'm a legacy google music sub, so moving over for me was a tiny cost increase to no longer mess with adblock on the site, though recently I do feel the YTM 'radio' algo is not as good as legacy google music. Self employed manufacturing stuff in my workshop all day either video or music is always on so its a bargain to me. My point being, that's the only streaming sub I find worth paying for, out of everything. Maybe I'm an edge case but I just don't see 4/5 of these services still existing in 5 years, its too much. Unless they can all survive on people subbing for 2-3 months a year