I like watching things like educational tv or some competition shows if they are objective and have good sportsmanship… stuff that definitely does not appear in the top ten list, probably not the top 50 list. Assuming I should not mention show names here but will mention on DM if woul;d help.

I’ve found public torrent sites and dht searches can be hit or miss. For older episodes, if I can even find torrents at all, then there are no seeds. But some of the shows I like, it seems like the scene release groups just completely ignore them… despite covering past seasons. I’ve had this happen with 2 different shows (one while rarbg was still around, another just this last month). One I’m currently looking for, I found only EZTV covering and they completely skipped one of the episodes.

I’ve had bad experiences with private trackers in the distant past. But even if I was willing to try again, I saw one or too that want you to reveal your real (e.g. non-VPN) IP addres and am waay too fuckign paranoid to do that. Do you guys think I’d have better luck on usenet? If not, is there something else you guys would recommend? I am looking to have offline copies similar to what you get with torrents (streaming might be an option if there are ways to download that don’t require me being smart enough to do video editing or having to manually record)

edit: just to clarify, I ahve read the megathread here and on the old pre-reddit migration r/piracy. have tried practically every public torrent tracker and dht search engine (btdig/solidtorrents/etc) i can think of as well as looking on most of the direct download sites i can access.

  • practisevoodoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Depends on the urgency. Usenet, indexer and something like sonar is effective if used in a fire and forget style. Episodes will be downloaded when they are reposted but that may be months or years later.

    • drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      In this case, one of the shows was aired recently and my public torrent rss feeds didn’t find it (I did not have a rss for EZTV at the time and they appear to be the only ones who covered it, but like I said, they completely skipped one of the episodes…). I think for sonaar, I would need to have usenet indexer already for it to pull from it (used to use it just for torrents) so seems like it wouldn’t make a big difference here cz its a cart before the horse kind of problem.

      e.g. sonaar would need me to add more sources first… but i don’t know which sources other than public torrents are good for this kind of thing.

  • Syl ⏚@jlai.luEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Usenet most likely. I’m in the same boat, french documentaries. I found a private torrent tracker, but you need to share.

    • Zedstrian@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      Have you found a private tracker that works well for documentaries? I’ve tried TorrentLeech, FileList, MVGroup, and usenet so far, but my to-find list still has several releases I have yet to find in 1080p (despite most such documentaries having released since 2010). MVGroup is the best tracker for documentaries I’ve found so far, but they tend to upload lots of documentaries a tier below their optimal resolutions (ie 2160p documentaries in 1080p and 1080p documentaries in 720p).

        • LoganNineFingers@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Are they safe for taking money? I’m trying to download some of my kids shows in French but it’s says my ratio will be too low and I need to pay. I’m happy to pay but if my visa becomes compromised I’m not too pumped…

          • Syl ⏚@jlai.luEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            I didn’t pay. You open an account and you have a ratio, so you can start downloading some torrents. But you need to keep them active and seed to have at least a positive ratio.

            I didn’t share enough the first time and my account was closed, so I opened a second account through proxies.

  • b1ab@lem.monsterEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Can you provide some examples of what you are looking for? There are a handful of private edu trackers that may have the content you desire.

    • drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      edit: was thinking i couldn’t mention show nsmes but after re-reading rule 3, i think it meant more for linking to specific things or requesting links. especially after seeing posts like this I think merely mentioning show names might not be as big a deal as I originally thought.

      Mods, if i am mistaken, please delete this comment or message me and tell me how i fucked up

      shows I was referring to in main post were Forgeed in Fire and Tuff as Nails. TAN is the one I currently having issues with.

    • Zedstrian@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      Problem with PBS is that each of their releases has an availability time limit, making finding their older content at optimal resolutions difficult.