Once again, cannot stress enough how great usenet is.
I can download blu-ray quality rips (720 and 1080) in an hour or two. I mean the big problem alot of people have with downloading their movies or shows is the time it takes to actually download them. With usenet, an hour long show takes less than 4 mins to download. A movie rip takes less than 10.
I have recently been actively hunting for a way to free myself from broadcast TV. It's good to start a bookmark folder and do some searching for free tv links like
www.alluc.org or
www.joost.com. More and more networks are offering their episodes in HD now for free. There is a limitation on some networks where they only stream to US residents, but this can be circumvented with the right know how.
If you're not willing to pay $15 a month for usenet access (which pays for itself 10x over), and are still using sluggish torrents, check out Torrent Episode Downloader. Which can be set to automatically download new episodes of your favorite shows and notify you when they're available.
http://www.ted.nu/download.phpThis is inspiring me to make a thread about my experiences with banishing pay for tv services. I'll get this done in the next day or two.
Seriously, we're living in a new age where paying for TV is a thing of the past.