There is a large underground of media swappers. Many cruisers have lots of time and little
money so it goes. Most guys I have seen have some sort of
laptop setup for watching movies. It is not unusual to have a dinner party, bring your terrabyte external drive so the host can download all your stuff. You may leave with the hosts drive and a promise to pick it up the next day.
For
legal stuff the
iPad has become my go to tool. I have the component video cable and
plug straight into most modern tv sets.
Netflix - needs good to excellent
WiFi. $7.99 a month and all the media you could ever watch. Outside the US you need a vpn solution.
ITunes - rent movies or selected tv shows. Buy movies or most tv shows. The advantage is you can subscribe to the absolute latest seasons of most tv shows. You can store purchased and rented movies on the devices for later viewing. And becuase it is not streaming it is a good option for
anchorages with weak
WiFi. We decided what
movie to watch that night. Starter the d/l - did our afternoon stuff, made dinner and by that time the whole movie ws ready to go. Another advantage is that you can preview movies in advance - I have avoided a lit of clinkers this way...
Hulu - I dont use but also needs a vpn hook up
Youtube - entertaining but not much use for any movies or television
I did bittorrents for a while about 10 years ago but finally gave up. If you need to know how to do this stuff ask a 20-25 y/o. My nephews and nieces (allegedly) almost never pay for content...