The Inquisitor and Quarantine Missing from iPlayer

[Ben Kirkham]

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but both The Inquisitor and Quarantine seem to have been removed from iPlayer…

Topic

[Flap Jack]

Oh wow. At the weekend the whole BBC era was missing (as discussed in the comments of the ‘4 Fuck’s Sake’ article), so they must have overlooked those 2 episodes when they were updating the expiry dates to bring the episodes back.

Also, The Promised Land is still AWOL.

[Warbodog]

There’s doing minimum effort and then there’s what Red Dwarf gets from streaming platforms.

[Moonlight]

This is stupid. The future is stupid. Bring back DVDs.

[Asclepius]

Was gutted on Saturday morning. Sat down with the kids to watch the next episode with them, which was set to be Emohawk – and there were no episodes available until Series 9! So we watched something else.

At least they’re back now. And there’s a longer wait between the highs of Gunmen and the lows of Emohawk.

[Jonathan Capps]

This is stupid. The future is stupid. Bring back DVDs.

Sorry, they’ve all crumbled to dust.

[Ben Kirkham]

Maybe they were judged unworthy…

It’s physical media for the win every single time.

[Rushy]

The happiness I experienced when I got all the Dwarf DVDs at once (from I to Promised Land) will be hard to recapture

[gerrydelasel]

If you can’t play DVDs anymore, download the episodes from wherever and keep them on your hard drive.

[Jonathan Capps]

The future of preservation is for sure digital, there’s no other way. DVDs get discontinued and degrade over time. Everyone should be doing their best to build their digital libraries locally. It’s just a shame everything is setup to discourage against that so there’s an annoying accessibility barrier to it, so my hope someone smart solves this and makes it ridiculously easy for people to backup their copies and store them.

[Dave]

I do get the advantages of digital, but I do like to have the option to own something physically. Which is why today’s GTA VI announcement is a bit of a bugger.

[Doomitron]

That’s been how video games have operated for a while, though. All of them are just discs to download the game from this is just cutting out the middle man.

As for the thread, my Plex still has all the episodes and I don’t anticipate them going away soon.

[Flap Jack]

While there have been plenty of releases like that, it absolutely is not “how video games have operated for a while”, nor is it “all”.

Nintendo Switch 2 cartridges are often just download keys due to cartridges not having the kind of memory needed for a lot of modern games, physical PC games are just download keys due to Blu-rays never becoming a PC gaming format, and occasionally disc based games on console require downloads to get all of the content, but generally, if you have a PlayStation or Xbox game on disc, the game is literally on the disc and you don’t need any kind of network connection to play it.

[gerrydelasel]

so my hope someone smart solves this and makes it ridiculously easy for people to backup their copies and store them.

Piracy means most TV shows are already available online for free and it only takes one click to download (not necessarily in HD, but meh). 

[Jonathan Capps]

Yeah, it’s remained the big difference between console and PC gaming, but the shift to digital only has been there, just very softly softly while Game Stop still had influence and they knew it wouldn’t be popular with the customer. But ever so slowly games have started needing that initial download to work, and I’m guessing the next consoles won’t have disc drives options at all. Every console company is desperate to kill physical. I’m pretty sure piracy and emulation is the only proper way forward for preservation, as not a single bastard company out there is going to do anything about it.

For video and music, the situation has long since gone past my preference (I would prefer physical) and more into adapting to what the world is inevitably becoming. Physical things are increasingly uneconomical and nothing will change that, so if I’m to ‘own’ anything then I’ve realised it needs to be digital only, and locally hosted. I think given a few years, some smart open source developers and designers will figure out software to make this a more accessible solution for everyone, as like it or not that is how you will have to preserve the media you want over the next decades. New disc will stop being made and old discs will return to atoms.

[Jonathan Capps]

Piracy means most TV shows are already available online for free and it only takes one click to download (not necessarily in HD, but meh).

This is true for the people who are comfortable achieving this, but for the vast majority of people going down the piracy route for TV is absolutely lethal. It’s never been more dangerous.

I will keep banging the drum that open source alternatives need to be more and more accessible. I have a whole mess of different applications to handle VPNs, trackers, requesting media and tormenting safely and as automatically as possible and my dream is that everyone in the world will have a one installer solution that sets up all that for them one day, because 99% of people absolutely should not have to be fucked with all that.

[Technopeasant]

For real though, why has Red Dwarf been consistently been easier to stream in Canada (and I assume the U.S.) than in the UK for the past several years?

I’m pretty sure piracy and emulation is the only proper way forward for preservation, as not a single bastard company out there is going to do anything about it.

GOG, Zoom Platform, libro.fm, Bandcamp, etc.
You just have to know where to shop and especially with games actually have the guts to boycott the bad guys (you will find lots of great stuff you would never try too). Or, you know, pirate it.

[Dave]

That’s been how video games have operated for a while, though. All of them are just discs to download the game from this is just cutting out the middle man.

You can resell a disc when you’ve finished with the game, though.

[Doomitron]

If that’s something you care about ig, point being its emblematic of a larger trend that’s gotten us to where we are now.

[Ben Saunders]

Do I just have survivorship bias if I think piracy isn’t dangerous at all? I’ve been at it for ~26 years and nothing bad ever has happened to me. Viruses are much less of a concern these days than they were in the past because even your in-built Windows virus detection will do most of the work for you. I got an e-mail once asking me to stop torrenting Family Guy but that’s all. I keep getting TV license letters but they’re very easy to ignore.

[Doomitron]

E-mail should’ve asked you to stop watching Family Guy period.

[Rushy]

Do I just have survivorship bias if I think piracy isn’t dangerous at all? I’ve been at it for ~26 years and nothing bad ever has happened to me. Viruses are much less of a concern these days than they were in the past because even your in-built Windows virus detection will do most of the work for you. I got an e-mail once asking me to stop torrenting Family Guy but that’s all. I keep getting TV license letters but they’re very easy to ignore.

No, I’ve done it since I was a child with no issues. Ironically, my parents who taught me to pirate have now moved on to streaming services and think I’m out of touch for still torrenting stuff. 

[Ben Saunders]

Ironically, my parents who taught me to pirate have now moved on to streaming services and think I’m out of touch for still torrenting stuff. 

Streaming services were very briefly the answer to piracy, when it was pretty much just Netflix and they had everything. But now there are 4,012 different ones and they’re getting more and more expensive and even forcing ads upon paying customers. Corporate greed and every company under the sun wanting a piece of the pie killed streaming as a truly convenient answer to piracy. It’s been said many times before that due to things like Denuvo and DRM and whatever actively making paying customers’ experiences worse, you can actually get a better overall experience by just stealing shit now.

[gerrydelasel]

If you have a VPN and ad blocker I don’t think pirating film/TV is dangerous. You just stream videos from a website, no different from watching a video on YouTube. But I don’t torrent so I don’t know about that side of things.

[Warbodog]

I didn’t mention piracy to be polite, but I’m also in the 25+ year gang. Sometimes the current streaming site I’m using will disappear (once a year or so), or doesn’t have something, so I just look up a new one or alternative. I did stop torrenting when I moved back to the UK in 2020, but streaming had replaced it anyway.

[Jonathan Capps]

For the record, nerds on a Red Dwarf forum are exactly the sort of people I would expect to be able to torrent without issues. It’s real people I’m concerned about.

[gerrydelasel]

Sometimes the current streaming site I’m using will disappear

Flixbaba.is has been up for a few years now with no issure, fyi. I use it to watch Red Dwarf when I can’t be arsed to get the DVDs out

[Technopeasant]

You can resell a disc when you’ve finished with the game, though.

This is one thing that does annoy me about GOG.COM. I should be able to transfer my download key to a different account if I want to, even for a small fee.

Sure you can just copy over the offline installer, but…

But now there are 4,012 different ones and they’re getting more and more expensive and even forcing ads upon paying customers

Which is why I did selfishly hope that Netflix had in fact bought Warner, as I have that bundled with my ISP and not Paramount+.

For the record, Max never launched in Canada and instead had its content, along with Peacock’s, licensed to a local service called Crave.

Kinda hoping once the market consolidates Telus will just sign on Paramount+ to the bundle along with Prime, Netflix, and Disney+.

The only extra one I pay for is Britbox, initially since I didn’t have my Dwarf discs on hand and then my wife got into Call the Midwife. You can watch a surprising amount of good stuff for free on Pluto and Tubi.

[Ian Symes]

Anyway, The Inquisitor and Quarantine are back on iPlayer now.

[Moonlight]

Viruses are much less of a concern these days than they were in the past because even your in-built Windows virus detection will do most of the work for you.

I recently got the first piece of malware I think I’ve ever gotten on a computer (an adware browser hijacker that would try to redirect to a page of ads when I typed in addresses like amazon.com, except it always failed because my browser was doing its job and blocking it) and Windows Defender didn’t notice a goddamn thing. I only realized because of the suspicious URL differences and looked into it myself. I installed MalwareBytes and it immediately found the program that was doing it.

So I don’t really trust Windows Defender to protect me by itself anymore.

[Nick R]

At the risk of turning this into our “streaming is ephemeral” thread: I hope no one here bought any Studio Canal films on a PlayStation:

https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/psvideocontent/

[Technopeasant]

So I don’t really trust Windows Defender to protect me by itself anymore.

[Rudolph]

[Jonathan Capps]

So I don’t really trust Windows Defender to protect me by itself anymore.

[tombow]

 I recently got the first piece of malware I think I’ve ever gotten on a computer (an adware browser hijacker that would try to redirect to a page of ads when I typed in addresses like amazon.com, except it always failed because my browser was doing its job and blocking it) 

I remember around 2004, I was hanging around on imdb forums all the time, and I got this thing where all the threads I read had certain words turned into links to spam sites. I was assuming it was imdb having been hacked and everyone was seeing it, till someone helped me get rid of it.

[Ben Saunders]

My mate had that one time I was over at his and when I pointed it out he thought it was just a normal Windows/browser feature until I got rid of it for him lol.

[Warbodog]

ZoneAlarm kept me safe for years for free, thank you for your service. I can’t get nostalgic about functional early 21st century computer applications though.

[Jonathan Capps]

I’m so old I remember when AVG was an actually useful piece of software and not malware in its own right.

[Rushy]

I’m so old I remember when AVG was an actually useful piece of software and not malware in its own right.

I liked the Angry Video Game tbh

[Nick R]

[Flap Jack]

[Nick R]

Verbing the word “Microsoft” has given me another idea…

[Jonathan Capps]

[Technopeasant]

[Nick R]

[Technopeasant]

[Jonathan Capps]

My people

[Technopeasant]

I’ll freely admit I am a poseur and only use Arch because my brother, the Red Hat Certified system administrator, does the hard bits and it’s the same distro he uses.

Otherwise I’d probably use OpenSUSE or Mageia after I quit Fedora after over fifteen years in protest of IBM’s source availability shit with RHEL. Or maybe Debian.

My other brother is feeling Linux is too mainstream for him and is looking into BSD…

[Doomitron]

Something about canaries and coal mines.

[Flap Jack]

This news definitely knocked me for six. I know people have long talked about platform holders pushing for the all-digital future, but I just didn’t think it would be this soon, or that Sony would be the ones to fire first.

Between the mid-generation price hikes, the dearth of PS5 exclusives, the ending of PC ports, the prospect of £1K+ PS6, and now the end of physical games, this is like a company – if not a whole industry – in a death spiral.

And of course they couldn’t even wait for the PS6 to do this, they had to do it for the PS5 too just to add an extra layer of “fuck you” to everyone who shelled out extra for the disc drive edition.

I wonder, will they at least finally make game codes a thing, so that people can still gift new PlayStation games and buy them in person, or is this Sony trying to fully kill brick and mortar game shops?

This is going to make the PS6 the most difficult sell ever. The diminishing returns on graphics and performance between generations were already getting ridiculous even with the PS5.

[Dave]

Yeah I agree. I might have been tempted by a PS6 but there’s no chance now. This might be the end of console gaming for me.

(Now watch those fuckers make Spider-Man 3 a PS6 exclusive.)

[Author]

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