After my last post on here asking about convenient streaming options at higher resolutions, I got a few comments recommending Stremio with Torrentio and Real Debrid.
I ended up going through with that and streamed a 4k movie. That said, what’s the catch? I’m a little paranoid because I’m not sure if this still counts as torrenting, and if I should be using a VPN while watching something from RD.
No such thing as free lunch, so I’m assuming there’s other downsides to this solution, could someone let me know what they are?
Definitely use a VPN. My roommate got us DMCA’d for Transformers of all things when he used a stream from Torrentio (not Real Debrid). Brought him onto my VPN and Real-Debrid after that.
Was he using another debrid service? Because from what I understand you can only stream if the file is cached by the service, otherwise torrentio just gives you the torrent. Without a VPN it makes sense why he got DMCA’d
torrentio just gives you the torrent
If it’s not cached there’ll instead be links that makes RD start a new download of that torrent (this can be disabled in Torrentio settings). The reason not to use those links would just be because you have to wait for RD to finish the download, but in either case you’re never torrenting yourself. You’ll see “RD+” above the quality label of streams which tells you it’s from real-debrid, so you’ll always know if it’s not.
Paying for Real Debrid puts them in a legal grey area/they do log your IP. So use a VPN.
I use it and don’ care much but it’s definitely Torrenting so if you are in a country with bad laws and very paranoid you whould probably use a VPN but just know that the few actual lawsuites that came from this bs are at best symbolic and your chance to get hit by a lightning is probably a lot higher.
Using a debrid service is paying for a third party to do the torrenting, so your IP is not in the torrent swarm. Your ISP knows you’re using the service, but they don’t know whether you’re streaming illegal content, which means there are no grounds to subpoena neither the ISP nor the debrid service logs.
a VPN is probably not needed imho.
I am not a/your lawyer.
I can’t see any downsides. I’ve switched recently from an *arr stack to Stremio and can’t be happier. Even with all the automation, I found it annoying that I first had to download something before I could watch it, after which Bazarr had to download subtitles (which only happens every couple of hours) and Kodi had to be updated before it was visible there. And downloading obvious requires storage.
Stremio also works across devices which is awesome. I bookmark shows on the go and watch it in the evening on my CCWGTV.
We’ve already noticed that we enjoy watching media more.
