I'm not sure how the numbers were doled out, but in 2000 it was a big deal having a sub-9-digit ICQ number.
yukichigai
86336930 checking in. Pretty sure I remember the password, but it's not like I can check now.
You will be missed, ICQ. When no other messaging service worked, you always did.
Ah damn, so that's why a bunch of channels disappeared from my IPTV list. My fault for not diversifying I suppose.
Anyone got any suggestions for sites of a similar vein? Sites, not telegram/discord groups.
Seems like if they didn't want content being viewed by anyone who can connect to a stream they might wanna put some authentication on the connection or something. Crazy idea, right?
EDIT: Yes, I know some of these streams are pirate streams being hosted elsewhere, but a bunch of them are straight from the companies themselves, available in the clear without any authorization checks.
I like to watch TV shows in the background where I'm not going to be watching the screen obsessively, so I have several shows in 480P or sub-480P. There are also some shows where the "official" HD versions are just awful (most 90s sitcoms) or the show was made for 4:3 and has a different feel converted to 16:9 (MASH, The Wire).
Going beyond that though, I spent years on a really limited connection (2.6m down/400k up) and my instinct for saving bandwidth and storage space is still there, along with my need to pay it forward since I ain't no leech. I've become fond of making what I call "Bonsai Encodes", where the files are small enough to be sent over damn near anything. With mono Opus and VP9 video you can cram 45 minutes of perfectly watchable content into a sub-25mb file that'll play in Discord, with VTT subtitles even (though those won't play in Discord itself). Looks a bit like watching it on an old tube TV, but it's watchable.
Guessing they used Sonarr, Radarr, qBittorrent, maybe an NZB client....
Would you look at that, I'm sophisticated now.
Damn Leftists. They ruined Leftism!
It's become harder to get clean(ish) audio captures for theater films, but it's not impossible. There are still theaters with hearing impaired seating and headphone hookups, still a few drive-in theaters that broadcast via FM (one of those here in Reno, actually).
If anything, I think it's because digital rips/DLs seem to come out more quickly. By the time a group has tracked down a clean audio stream and takes the time to sync it with footage, someone's probably snagged a digital copy and released it.
Now Telecines, those are basically unseen these days. Almost no theaters still use actual film, and the few that do are way more careful about their inventory management. Gone are the days when a whole film can just get "misplaced" for a few days while someone with a Telecine setup copies it, to say nothing of how few people have the setup for Telecine anymore in the first place.