Chewy7324

If you're concerned about privacy, you could build your own NAS. It's more work, but also more powerful for the money. Wolfgang's Channel on YouTube has quite a few videos about low power diy home server.

A regular capture card will adhere to the HDMI DRM HDCP, which means it'll only record a black screen. As you guessed, there're capture cards which either don't implement HDCP (unlikely for major brands), or which have been hacked and can be flashed with custom firmware.

I've read OBS on Windows also only records a black screen, at least with hardware encoding enabled (NVENC, AMF, Quicksync also implement DRM as part of the driver). Software encoding might work.

As always with content: If it's on your device, it can be copied.

PS: Now I remember Crunchyroll also uses Widevine, but I've seen it streamed over Discord. So either Widevine L3 doesn't prevent recording, or it doesn't work in Firefox, or Discord doesn't use hardware encoding on Windows (unlikely), or something in my comment is wrong information -> Disclaimer, I'm just repeating from memory what I've read.

Roku is really locked down, which allows them to control what users can do. This means DRM is more powerful on Roku Linux, than on desktop Linux. Same is true for Android. Not allowing Linux makes sense from the rightholders standpoint (just like it makes sense for me to pirate).

On Windows Microsoft/Nvidia/AMD sign their graphics drivers, which guarantees the DRM that the content isn't recorded on the system.

Disclaimer: The following is my understanding from reading things here and there. I'm a layman on this topic, so please don't quote me.

On Linux drivers aren't designed to prevent users from recording on their system, so the DRM doesn't play high quality content. Also, because drivers aren't directly provided and signed by MS/NV/AMD, there'd be no way to prevent users from patching the graphics drivers to allow recording again.

That is, if DRM support was implemented in the driver, which it won't, because there's no interest and the current distribution model makes it near impossible.

tl;dr

DRM is (always?) closed-source, else it could be easily circumvented. The Linux driver/desktop stack isn't designed to prevent users from accessing content played on their own device, so rightsholders disallow playing high quality content on Linux.

PS: I've noticed on Amazon or Netflix some shows are higher quality than others on Linux. I guess this might be due to rightsholders requiring different Widevine levels for the same quality.

Using Linux means DRM protected content either plays in terrible quality or in RakutenTV's case not at all. Netflix is limited to 720p with low bitrate and Amazon limits to ~540p.

Changing user agent doesn't work because it's the DRM who decides whether the OS is supported.

Linux users have to decide between low quality legal streaming services, or piracy with high quality. It's not a difficult decision for me and my giant HDD.

Edit: I forgot the third option: streaming sticks (Roku, FireTV).

In some countries making a private copy isn't legal if copy protections are in place. Even if those copy protections are useless.

Gitlab.com also follows takedown notices, as do all other hosters based in a jurisdiction with similar rules.

Edit: The devs could send a counter-notice and reinstate their Github page, but that'd open them up to a lawsuit, for which they likely don't have the resources. It's the same situation as tge takedown of Tachiyomi.

But I agree, hopefully switching to another code host will solve the issue for the time being.

Iirc Plex supports transcoding for downloads, while Jellyfin only allows downloading the original file. But I've heard transcoding downloads is broken on Plex, so ymmv.

Intro skip is only available as a plugin on Jellyfin.

Also, Findroid has a better ui and supports downloads, while the official app has more features (ie. settings/admin panel).

Jellyfin is great and open source. I've never tried Plex, but I've heard that Plex has apps on more platforms.

Also, I'd recommend checking out Findroid if your on Android. Its UI is native instead of the usual web interface in the official apps. Iirc iOS has a similar project.

Large hard drives aren't free of cost either.

It adds somewhere in the ballpark of 200ms to app spawning time on the flagship devices and is only very noticeable on lower-end devices with a weaker CPU and slower storage.

"Very noticeable on lower-end" devices is definitely true. Default GrapheneOS has really slow app start times on my Pixel 4a. It even made me switch to CalyxOS for a while, befiore I found out I could disable this security feature.

It's a fork, done by a previous Tachiyomi developer and maybe a TachiyomiSY developer too. So it's partly a publishing team change, as the main developers are different.

Since Mihon is exactly the same as Tachiyomi, besides changed branding and requiring Android 8+, it's also a rebrand.

Edit: It's also functionally exactly the same software.