Torrents vs. NZB

[robdutchmonkey]

There is no way a 1GB rip will compare to a 15GB 1080p in a decent setup - I can easily see and hear the difference of a 7GB 720p and 15GB 1080p movie

I can understand given your capacity the reasons you go for such large rips. I have to say though, I much prefer having smaller stuff with a little loss of quality (it is not bad by any stretch of the imagination) and having a lot more stuff, than going for just quality.

Take 2 of my 2TB hdd's, one filled with avi movies and one with hd movies varying from 3GB to 20GB, I fit +- 2100 avi movies vs 250 or so HD movies. And to be honest, I much prefer 720p 4.5GB rips to 1080p 15GB since I don't notice much difference if any

Oh and NZB's trump torrents any day of the week

[ponder]

I currently use downstorm which is a paid torrent download service (R50 - 6GB).

That's bloody expensive. News servers are MUCH cheaper, well Astraweb anyways but they are all more or less the same price.

I can't stand torrents, NZBs are much better. When I can't find something that's old I try demonoid or pirate bay.

[DrJohnZoidberg]

I can understand given your capacity the reasons you go for such large rips. I have to say though, I much prefer having smaller stuff with a little loss of quality (it is not bad by any stretch of the imagination) and having a lot more stuff, than going for just quality.

Take 2 of my 2TB hdd's, one filled with avi movies and one with hd movies varying from 3GB to 20GB, I fit +- 2100 avi movies vs 250 or so HD movies. And to be honest, I much prefer 720p 4.5GB rips to 1080p 15GB since I don't notice much difference if any

Oh and NZB's trump torrents any day of the week

I would download way too much stuff for the time I have to watch it in if I downloaded SD. I already have a bunch of stuff that I still haven't got around to watching.

[DrJohnZoidberg]

That's bloody expensive. News servers are MUCH cheaper, well Astraweb anyways but they are all more or less the same price.

I can't stand torrents, NZBs are much better. When I can't find something that's old I try demonoid or pirate bay.

I have a small downstorm account which I use on the rare occasion when I can't find a nzb for something, but the space is too limited and can only really use it for small downloads. If I bought a bigger Downstorm account it would work out waay to expensive.

[froot]

I have a small downstorm account which I use on the rare occasion when I can't find a nzb for something, but the space is too limited and can only really use it for small downloads. If I bought a bigger Downstorm account it would work out waay to expensive.

Seedbox. Much better

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Seedbox. Much better

Tried a seedbox for a month. It was an utter disaster so I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from the experience. NZB's fit my needs perfectly.

[froot]

Tried a seedbox for a month. It was an utter disaster so I still have a bitter taste in my mouth from the experience. NZB's fit my needs perfectly.

Thing is you need a proper one. I share it with a friend or two so it runs me down R35pm...

[Fudzy]

Are public NZB sources as prompt with new stuff as private trackers?

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Are public NZB sources as prompt with new stuff as private trackers?

I can't really compare the two because I don't know how quick torrent releases come out. but I can say that nzb releases are ready and downloaded the next morning (seeing that most shows air late at night for SA). Some or the not so popular shows will only be available the following day.

[robdutchmonkey]

I would download way too much stuff for the time I have to watch it in if I downloaded SD. I already have a bunch of stuff that I still haven't got around to watching.

True, but having a massive collection is wonderful as well knowing I can watch just about anything I want to whenever I want to

[Bryn26]

I'm also with Downstorm and I love them. Must surely be the easiest means of downloading media. I don't play PC games, so 6GB is enough to get series, music and almost all 720p movies. Plus they have an awesome portal page where all new TV show episodes are available for download.

I'd consider moving to NZB, but I don't know how much I would benefit, it seems like it would cost more per month, I have no idea how to use it and I worry that Mweb will shape it.

That's bloody expensive. News servers are MUCH cheaper, well Astraweb anyways but they are all more or less the same price.

I can't stand torrents, NZBs are much better. When I can't find something that's old I try demonoid or pirate bay.

Just to be clear, it's R49 for 6GB of storage space. You can download as much as you want as long as you manage your space.

[xrapidx]

Are public NZB sources as prompt with new stuff as private trackers?

I'm usually about 8 hours behind US series release times using Sickbeard.

[burn]

NZB gets my vote.

[diabolus]

I've been using Usenet (NZB as you people seem to call it) for awhile now, if you got it all set up then it is certainly much faster and easier than torrents.

You definitely need

1. A good "grabber" app (download+extract etc) , i use NewsLeecher (not free, there are good free ones like sanzb, but i prefer the app over the browser interface thing sanzb have)

2. A good news server , now Mweb / IS is generally pretty solid for most -new- stuff (if you are at those ISPs then it is obviously free and very fast) . I use Astraweb as backup for longer retention/rarer stuff, the main reason i use Astraweb is because you can buy once-off "per gig" download bandwidth (i.e. $10 for 180GB ) which never expires (as opposed to paying monthly at Giganews etc).
Also remember 1000 days retention on these international servers are like YEARS we're talking about here, that implies you'll get pretty much anything (old stuff too) .

I get like my full 3MB/s most of the time when download from a news server, so speed is pretty cool.

3. The most important i suppose , get a NZB Search Engine / Indexer . Do not even try to browse Usenet manually, this is where people start to think Usenet is useless because they don't got a proper search tool . I use NZBMatrix , you pay a once-off fee of $10 to get full access , trust me it is worth it, primarily because people comment+review the stuff on it (as opposed to downloading blind and finding "cam" quality content). Free Search engines like BinSearch, they are "ok" but very frustrating, just get a proper one.

4. Now if you throw in Sickbeard for Tv Shows....well then you got one hell of a well oiled machine going (in my case: Sickbeard search NZBMatrix and place the NZB in a folder where NewsLeecher picks it up automatically and then in turn downloads+extract it = completely automated)

Either way, so i don't quite see where all the "expensive" stuff is coming from, i get easily 80% of my downloads straight off the local free news servers (mweb currently) and the rest was once-off payments for NzbMatrix,NewsLeecher and Astraweb (about $40 total like a year ago) .

[Bryn26]

I've been using Usenet (NZB as you people seem to call it) for awhile now, if you got it all set up then it is certainly much faster and easier than torrents.

You definitely need

1. A good "grabber" app (download+extract etc) , i use NewsLeecher (not free, there are good free ones like sanzb, but i prefer the app over the browser interface thing sanzb have)

2. A good news server , now Mweb / IS is generally pretty solid for most -new- stuff (if you are at those ISPs then it is obviously free and very fast) . I use Astraweb as backup for longer retention/rarer stuff, the main reason i use Astraweb is because you can buy once-off "per gig" download bandwidth (i.e. $10 for 180GB ) which never expires (as opposed to paying monthly at Giganews etc).
Also remember 1000 days retention on these international servers are like YEARS we're talking about here, that implies you'll get pretty much anything (old stuff too) .

I get like my full 3MB/s most of the time when download from a news server, so speed is pretty cool.

3. The most important i suppose , get a NZB Search Engine / Indexer . Do not even try to browse Usenet manually, this is where people start to think Usenet is useless because they don't got a proper search tool . I use NZBMatrix , you pay a once-off fee of $10 to get full access , trust me it is worth it, primarily because people comment+review the stuff on it (as opposed to downloading blind and finding "cam" quality content). Free Search engines like BinSearch, they are "ok" but very frustrating, just get a proper one.

4. Now if you throw in Sickbeard for Tv Shows....well then you got one hell of a well oiled machine going (in my case: Sickbeard search NZBMatrix and place the NZB in a folder where NewsLeecher picks it up automatically and then in turn downloads+extract it = completely automated)

Either way, so i don't quite see where all the "expensive" stuff is coming from, i get easily 80% of my downloads straight off the local free news servers (mweb currently) and the rest was once-off payments for NzbMatrix,NewsLeecher and Astraweb (about $40 total like a year ago) .

Thanks for the helpful response. I don't think I'll change from Downstorm though, as R49 a month is cheaper than NZB, everything I want is on torrent, Downstorm has excellent service and fixes shaping whenever it crops up, allows me to download 200+GB a month and is super easy to use.