Nice try, FBI.

I use a NAS running the Unraid OS, with a Docker setup using the Servarr apps to find and fetch media using SABnzbd and qBitorrent to download from Usenet and private trackers. It pipes movies, TV shows, and music into my Jellyfin library, which has all the features of Plex, but is free. I don’t believe in telling corporations what shows I’m pirating. Bazarr automatically fetches appropriate subtitles for everything. I have the Servarr apps set up to fetch the best quality using the Trash guides.

For visual media discovery, I use Jellyseerr, which allows me to easily find new shows and movies, and allows my family and friends to request shows to be downloaded. Jellyfin automatically cleans up watched media so that it doesn’t take up space after it’s been watched.

For audiobooks, everything is fetched from private trackers, specifically the mouse site, and automatically piped into Audiobookshelf, to it can be streamed to friends and family. Ebooks get likewise sent to a Kavita server, so they can be quickly sent via email to physical readers as desired by users.

And of course, all ebooks and audiobooks are seeded in perpetuity, meaning I get a lot of points on the tracker from seeding hundreds of torrents. I use those points to buy free leech tokens, so I don’t have to worry about ratio. Other types of torrents are usually seeded until they are at 1.5 ratio, then they are deleted.

Video games I download are automatically synced to all gaming PCs on my network via Syncthing, so they can be installed by everyone. Save games for each person are also backed up to the NAS and to any other PCs or portables used for that game by that person.

All this is protected behind an obscure domain proxied by Cloudflare and protected by an LDAP server that authenticates and validates access for each user to the services they are allowed to use. Torrents and Usenet media are downloaded to the NAS using a bound VPN located in a country that doesn’t cooperate with Western governments. Everything is streamed to users on a fiber connection.

1. Mostly Lemmy/Reddit/social circle recommendations

2. Download

3. I used to download directly to my phone and watch there. Then I got a NAS and started copying from my phone to the NAS. Then I set up download software on the NAS to have it always on. Then got Plex set up. Then the Arr’s (although these are janky and I end up doing a lot of manual additions).

4. Plex

I would highly suggest getting a NAS and playing around with it. Self hosting is complicated, but I got it as a “dumb” network drive on my LAN. Then slowly I started adding on different Docker containers and added to it. Each setup was a painful learning process of errors and troubleshooting, so don’t try to do everything in one go.

You don’t even need to be a pirate for self hosting. You can buy dirt cheap physical media on eBay and rip it to make a pretty huge personal library on the cheap.

I search for stuff in qBittorrent and download it directly onto my home server using the web UI. I’ve got most of my family’s devices set up to be able to access it either via an NFS or SMB mount, and then it’s just a simple matter of opening the corresponding video in VLC.

I use the *arr suite to manage things for me. There’s lidarr for music, radarr for movies, sonarr for TV, readarr for ebooks, bazarr for subtitles, and prowlarr to manage trackers/usenet.

1. Jellyseer is what I use, also allows others to request stuff
2. I download via torrents, automated with the *arr suite
3. My seedbox, fast speeds also help with my ratio
4. Jellyfin, just because i prefeer FOSS
5. Jellyfin covers that, if i happen do delete some show then Jellyseer still remembers if i finished it or was only partially done

Lots of seedbox providers offer all these tools with their boxes so you dont need to host anything

1. I hear something there or from my friends. It’s funny, but our small Lemmy did make me watch a bunch of stuff, not by posts mostly but by references in comments. MOTHERLAND NEEDS YOU TO MAKE AT LEAST ONE MOVIE REFERENCE PER COMMENT;
2. I manually download it via qB and keep it seeding OR find it in VK if I’m short on time and it’s there. I don’t care about quality since I have shit for sight and can’t care, but I know how russian dub can either save or ruin things and not having a choice makes me avoid all streaming platfroms altogether, not to say what shitty companies own them and how their contemporary local-produced suggestion are irrelevant to me;
3. It sits on my non-system larger hard drive. I put it onto some USB stick to take it to where I can watch it with others;
4. On Win it’s MPC-HC\VLC, on Linux it’s VLC mostly. I’m still in a search of a Linux player that can find and play external subs and dubs itself without me clicking around;
5. Usually, just from my memory. Sometimes I put notes or send messages to myself at what point I stopped.

1. everywhere?

2. download. to download I use a bunch of websites through prowlarr/sonarr/radarr with qbittorrent nox for automatic downloading and importing to jellyfin

3. my server (laptop on my shelf)

4. jellyfin

5. jellyfin

Nzb360 for Android.

I buy apps. But I never donate again.

I’ve donated several times to the dev. It’s an amazing app.

1. Mostly movies from yts . mx, and movies and tv shows from watchsomuch . to.
2. Mostly for convenience and I think information should be free. I cam back to the high seas after they decided to have 4,758 different streaming services and kind of hate exclusive as an excuse to get you to pay for one service over another.
3. I have a dedicated 6TB hard drive(wish I would have paid a bit extra for an 8 or 10 though). I also used it for rsync back ups but that’s it.
4. I switch back and forth between Jellyfin and Plex. Jellyfin is a bit fiddly but open, Plex “just work” but is closed source. I try to use free software as much as I can.
5. Both JF and Plex will keep track, but I’ve had issues with JF if a movie or show doesn’t want to run(I think it’s a transcoding issue) sometimes I lose progress of my most recent watched stuff. Kind of sucks. I’ve had more issues with JF than with Plex which sucks.

I was about to post my arr suite until i read your last line :D For recommendations i follow some youtube critics (like stories of old, mubi) who regularly provide recommendations and my tastes match with theirs. Then there’s reddit/lemmy movie forums. And i just use QBittorrents in built search to just download if i’m not tracking the movie/tv on my arr stack. And for playback locally i use mpv. I tried streaming services a long time ago but they are incredibly inconvenient compared to how flexible it is to watch/find something on torrents and the quality is also better.

Same as you, I also haven’t fully dipped my toes to the world of self-hosting (yet).

1. For non-animation movies/series, I wade through the popular/trending categories or read recommendation from friends, lemmy or, god forbid, reddit. I don’t really need to do this lately as my shows backlog is as long as my games backlog.
2. For convenience always. 720p is fine for me.
3. I stream. Unless it is one of my favorites I want to keep.
4. Real-debrid+Stremio.
5. Stremio does it for me. Also for anime, I have Anilist.

I mostly hate when fat large torrents disappear, I use private trackers, but it is not for everyone, and sometimes they are slow to respond. But movie is not my speciality its music. Love it more ;0]

I use Plex, emby, and Jellyfin shares.

1. Various sorts and browse for recommendation
2. Stream in 4k when available, 1080 when not
3. I don’t
4. Plex, emby, Jellyfin
5. It’s automatic. Favorites, individualized playlists, watchlist. Sort by played.

1. Where do you find what shows/films to watch?

I don’t discover it any certain way but once I know what I’m looking for I just search in qbittorrent. For anime I have RSS feeds set up.

2. Do you stream for convenience or download for superior quality?

I download.

3. Where do you store media?

Internal storage, currently some SSDs.

4. What software are you using to watch it?

mpv + fsr/Anime4K shaders.

5. How do you keep track of your watchlist, which episode you already watched or where you left off in a movie?

I use trackma/taiga with MAL for anime, for regular shows/movies I don’t use anything.