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Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

whereto.stream

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Re: Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

#111

Content is available on Stremio on any country. Problem solved.

Yeah its the only way to keep sanity, and to fight back greed, like having one series with seasons split between different services

Just like some times we use the "obligatory XKCD" around here, this time it applies more a funny "obligatory Dunkey" :)

https://youtu.be/yvhv7bgmz64

Re: Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea it all depends on if the service allows it. Netflix commonly showed me a “sorry you’re using a vpn so disable it” message and no amount of new sessions or incognito windows or exit nodes would fix it. Perhaps this has changed since that time, but I imagine it’s more likely a pacification measure to streaming services to point to for rights holders and if it “accidentally breaks” all the time, they can point the b…

> Netflix commonly showed me a “sorry you’re using a vpn > Perhaps this has changed It is an ongoing arms race. Sometimes the VPN providers are winning, sometimes the streaming services make a temporarily successful counter-offensive, sometimes the battleground is a mess with things working for some mixes of vpn/country/streamer but not others.⁰ The streaming services block the address ranges of known data-centres, t…

They could just use the country of the credit card as an indicator for what movies to allow access to.

I believe the reason for not doing this is simply because streaming providers would like to keep that option open to avoid losing a customer.

Re: Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

#113
post #48

Content is available on Stremio on any country. Problem solved.

How is the UX with Stremio? Would it pass the "wife test"? Like, does it buffer and cut out constantly, or require fiddling with settings all the time, or does it Just Work(TM)?

Stremio works with plugins. There's certain plugins that are able to fetch contents directly from torrent downloads, so the typical warnings about torrenting apply there (not to receive an undesired letter on the mailbox).

However, that same plugin is able to use some paid for services that download the torrents for you, which is safe(r).

IMO if subtitles aren't needed, it does pass the wife test once it's all configured. Subs wouldn't pass it though; it's common having to fiddle with sync settings to fix them. Chromecast casting definitely doesn't pass the test either: it is finicky, it resets the connection completely for each change (like seeking or changing subs), and it very frequently ends up erroring out with issues.

Re: Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

#114

Improvement ideas: let the user set their country. If I live in Germany, and I don't want to bother with VPN, knowing that a TV show is available in Argentina and 30 other countries is not important. Also, I don't think this takes care of the case where some seasons of a show is available but not the others. Maybe that's also the reason for false negatives in some cases (others mentioned this). Another thing: be able…

How would it work as a NordVPN ad then - probably the only reason this site exists, with astroturfing HN comments to match...

Really does seem to be the case. I just tried with The Omen and was given a list of countries. Next to the US was an ad to "Stream with NordVPN", suggesting that's the only way to view it here. However, I clicked the Hulu button, and it said US without the ad. Sure enough, I checked Hulu itself, and it's there—no VPN required.

The ad placement is confusing. Hopefully it's not intentional. JustWatch may not be as clean and may have ads of its own, but its entry for the same movie has zero confusion.

Re: Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

#115

How do you get you data? Are you using APIs?

I think I found a candidate: https://developer.themoviedb.org/reference/tv-season-watch-p...

No, TMDB doesn't have deeplinks to the providers, but based on the requests the site is doing it's most likely https://www.movieofthenight.com/about/api as it's hotlinking the provider icons from there.

Re: Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

#116
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a few years since I've used a VPN with streaming, but I recall some services not working well with it. I was in Australia with NordVPN to the US on a fibre connection.

Yea it all depends on if the service allows it. Netflix commonly showed me a “sorry you’re using a vpn so disable it” message and no amount of new sessions or incognito windows or exit nodes would fix it. Perhaps this has changed since that time, but I imagine it’s more likely a pacification measure to streaming services to point to for rights holders and if it “accidentally breaks” all the time, they can point the b…

Residential VPN

they're just blocking data centers

Re: Show HN: I made an app that helps you find where to stream movies and TV shows

#119
Nice app! Congrats on launching!

I was about to start building something similar but a bit different use case (maybe you can add it to your app?): if the tv show is not available in my country, I want to be able to set an email alert and get an email notification when it becomes available.

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