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.

  • Syl ⏚@jlai.lu
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    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
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      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.ca
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          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.lu
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            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.