Well, the mods opened this for conversation, so I guess that means this is the right place.
Personally, while I find everything online, I'm not so fond of reading or watching (ESPECIALLY watching) them online. Netflix and the library are my two best friends, with a Tivo-variant being a close third.
Similar to what the previous poster said, only I'm fine with watching online. I love taking a bubble bath and reading a library book or watching some Netflix movies on a nearby laptop.
Das kann doch nicht sein!
Most things, may it be games, movies, anime, manga or books, I get physical copies of. I get some stuff from the internet, may it be because it's not released here or legally when there is no other way to get it. I prefer to own things legally, so when something I already know gets releasd here (for example the Mirai Nikki manga of which I finished a scanlation before), I buy it.
People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.
I'm an Irene!
Video games, computers, mainly. With a bit of TV and meatspace jokes.
I also play card games on motorcycles. Mostly Yu Gi Oh.
I get everything online if possible. I find books to be awkward a lot, and who even needs discs anymore these days?
I have catholic tastes in how I do things. (note, small case "c" to imply universal, not large case "c" to imply anything else).
I read books on my Ipaq, my Life Drive, on my computer monitor or in hard copy form. I play games on all of those formats and more. I watch television on my flatscreen television and on my flatscreen monitor.
'80s TV Action Hero
If it's a film buy it on Blu-Ray or DVD from Amazon or Play.
If it's music I hunt down the original LP on music collector sites or the local second-hand record shop.
If it's a book...I probably already have it around here somewhere. If not I'll try local bookshops then Amazon.
edited 26th Mar '12 10:07:19 AM by InverurieJones
'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'
Books I tend to get either via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the library, or via local bookstores. The concept of "e-books" on Nook/Kindle intrigues me, but I think I prefer being able to hold the book in my hands.
TV series I tend to watch via DVDs checked out via Netflix, or occasionally on Hulu. Same with movies. I watch The Rachel Maddow Show via podcast the next day, and just about the only thing I regularly watch on TV is football games.
Video games I also tend to prefer having physical copies of.
Oh My
If I can I buy physical copies of the things. If I cannot I will purchase digital copies of games or use the horror of Netflix for movies. I will not, however, buy ebooks or anything remotely resembling them. It is a swear in my household of book obsessed weirdos. We lament their rise...
I rather hate my digital copies of games though. I can't organize them on shelves and gaze at the wonder of their boxes with their manuals and possible extra bullshit. Organizing things on shelves is a portion about what I like about media...Which is silly.
edited 26th Mar '12 10:38:01 AM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah
Almost everything from the internet, generally digital and occasionally having a physical thing delivered, but I make what I consider a singular exception for books, comics and graphic novels. While I have many ebooks and when it comes to publishing stick digital I massively prefer solid books/comics/graphic novels and it's much easier to go into a shop or library and buy them or borrow them.
Lost in Space
What little television I watch, I get through my iPad or my PC, except for American football during the appropriate season for that. I watch movies mainly on DVD, although I have recently acquired a Netflix account and have started using it occasionally. I rarely buy hardcopy video games any more, preferring to download them whenever possible. Same with music. The rest of my video entertainment comes from You Tube.
I do go to the theater to see new film releases, mainly for my young son's benefit.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Prima Donna Director
I use iTunes for all of my music, Netflix for older movies and series I've only heard of, the theater for new movies, television for Breaking Bad and The Daliy Show/Colbert Report, DVD/Blu-Ray for my favorites, and hard copies for video games and books.
edited 26th Mar '12 4:14:56 PM by DirectorCannon
"Urge to thump... rising." -Fighteer
We have satellite TV, but if I want to catch up on a show I haven't seen a lot of I go online. I get most movies from either TV or onliene.I get most of my books from the library.
I buy books either in big stores (Fnac, Virgin) or online (Amazon), depending on whether I think I'm likely to get them on the store. I know getting the books in dead tree form is quite unreasonable given the storage space I have, but keep doing so (not to mention birthday/Christmas gifts which in my friend circle are almost always books).
Nowadays, I almost only get videogames from Steam, or freeware/abandonware. And my music from Bandcamp.
edited 27th Mar '12 6:08:38 AM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Anwalt der Verdammten
I get my music from a local record store (*Or iTunes if someone gives me a gift card*), my books from the library.
The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.
'80s TV Action Hero
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Steam sucks. If your internet goes down your games are useless. Steam can fuck off and die in a hole.
Lost in Space
False. Steam runs fine in offline mode. If a game requires always-online DRM, that's something the developer added, not Steam.
A mode which you have to start in online mode in order to use, making it useless for when your Internet is actually down.
I haven't been able to start Steam in offline mode a single time.
You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!
Lost in Space
Works for me 100%. You're doing something wrong, most likely not telling it to cache your login credentials.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Last I tried, Steam worked fine offline. Of course, you do need a working connection at least (IIRC) once every two weeks, but I have not encountered a situation where my internet was down at that point and I had any time to play.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Oh My
So it does work. I just never figured out how to get it to work.
Interesting.
I figured it would, but that it would likely require something other than "Just click on the thing when it pops up and hope" since I don't believe in things being easy or intuitive with computers like...ever.
I blame vista for filling me with that fear.
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah
Video games: Either buy direct to download or get ones that were indie/freeware to begin with. If I want a physical copy it's usually for the Wii.
Books: Project Gutenberg, Amazon, the used bookstore near my school. Also garage sales.
I don't watch television, usually go to the dollar theater even if it means I have to wait months to see whatever movie it is I want, unless I'm really dying to see something (rare).
Music: Itunes, Bandcamp, used records at aforementioned used bookstore. And once again, garage sales. Or just listening to the radio.
A lot of my entertainment also comes from reading Fan Fic or comics posted online, which is free.
And then I also try looking for free or cheap things around town, like concerts by local bands and small conventions/fairs and such.
TV: Usually watch it 'live' broadcast, but if not, I have Sky+ which records TV programmes for me.
If not that, then I can always catch-up on BBC iPlayer, 4od, etc.
If it's an American programme or anime, then definitely torrent.
Films: Cinema, or DVD. Occasionally torrent, but not usually.
Games: I still buy games on optical media for my Xbox.
Music: Well... I'm a 16-year-old. Guess what I use to get it? 
???
The only TV I watch is football (american variety) and hockey, which means cable, except for big games which you can get on network channels. College ball can be streamed online, which is nice. I keep toying with the idea of a netflix account, but I really don't watch much else, including movies, so there's little incentive to subscribe. Well, I guess I sometimes watch Food Network when I'm working out, but I don't own those TV's.
Video games are my biggest media expense, and I get most of those off Steam. If it's a console game or not available on Steam/directly, then Amazon or Gamestop. I used to use a private torrent site, but it's just so much easier to buy something online for sale than to crack it.
I guess the iPhone app store counts as giving me entertainment since I've been on a huge Draw Something and Words with Friends binge lately.
Comics I get from Amazon. Everything else I try to get for my Nook, and if it's not in the Nook store, I get it off a private books/music torrent site and may or may not buy the thing offline. I've also started "converting" physical books I've bought in the past to electronic form by torrenting, unless it's really good/cheap in which case it's like 10x more convenient to just buy it from the Nook store.
I also get music off that same torrent site or rip from youtube, mostly because the stuff I've start listening to (game music, random indie bands who were responsible for the upload in the first place, etc) is just not for sale online. If I don't feel a need to actually own the songs, which happens pretty often for older rock and rap, I just use Spotify or youtube or content myself with the radio. I dunno why I haven't switched to iTunes or Amazon yet. Probably just habit, because I'm pretty sure if I bought stuff off iTunes, it would be much more convenient to let the player organize my library.
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter
Books, Shows, Films, The Internet, all the stuff this wiki is about, how do you, personally, get to it? I'm not quite sure if this is the right place for this topic, seeing as how the rest of this forum tends towards Serious Business. This is really just a 'share-and-compare' thread, for someone like me who might be trying to find new options to access media.
Living out in the sticks of Arkansas, the only realistic options are satellite-based for me.
For TV, My family's had Dish Network for years now, and its been pretty much satisfactory; plenty of channels, free previews, adequate customer service, almost no malfunctions or errors. Yes, we do lose signal during bad weather, but that happens maybe once a month for about a half-hour. And DVR boxes probably are, IMO, the best invention since sliced bread.
Now, when it comes to the Internet, where you can pretty much get(legally or otherwise) any and all the other forms of media, satellite IS Ps haven't been as pleasing. My childhood is filled with the memories of painfully slow, noisy dial-up, which we exchanged for a fancy, advertised as 'super-fast' satellite connection curtsey of 'Wildblue by Via Sat' a couple years back. Much improved over dial-up, yes, but the kicker is their 'Fair Access Policy', which basically limits your downloading and uploading, and if you go over, they slow your speeds down to nearly unusable levels. So yeah, were looking for alternatives...
Films could be so much easier to get through Netflix, but streaming whole movies just can't be supported with our F.A.P. (hehe), and with most of our local video stores closing down, I'm usually reduced to searching on You Tube or TV. I'd rather not do something legally questionable. And for the more obscure stuff, don't even get me started...
So, that's really all I can say, hope it doesn't seem like too much of a rant or anything. I really just to see how other people are getting their Anime/Favorite Old Show/Art House film/etc fix.