Findmoviemovies at home without piracy: a reference guide

An independent reference on watching films legally at home. We do not distribute films or files and are not an online cinema; we are not connected with the former site on this domain.

Glossary

Glossary

Home viewing quickly builds up its own vocabulary: menus mention tracks and bitrate, film descriptions mention HDR, and conversations about old films bring up the public domain. Here these words are explained briefly and without excess jargon, so it's clear what exactly you're adjusting.

Understanding a term means knowing which button to press and which one to leave alone.

— In short

How this section works: the definitions are deliberately simplified. For precise technical descriptions of formats and legal wording, see the standards and the text of the law.

Picture and streaming

Streaming
Watching video as a stream: the film is sent over the network in small pieces and shown as they arrive, without the whole file being saved on the device.
Buffering
Loading part of the video ahead of time so playback runs without stopping. If the network can't keep the buffer topped up, the picture freezes and a loading icon appears.
Bitrate
The amount of data sent per second of video. The higher it is, the more detail the frame keeps, but the faster your connection needs to be.
Resolution
The size of the frame in pixels, width by height. For example, Full HD is 1920 × 1080 pixels and 4K UHD is 3840 × 2160 pixels.
Frame rate
How many separate images are shown per second. The classic cinema standard is 24 frames per second.
HDR
High dynamic range: a picture with brighter highlights and deeper shadows. It works only if both the screen and the film itself support it.

Sound and text

Subtitles
On-screen text of the dialogue at the bottom of the screen. They can be in the original language, translated, or made for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, with descriptions of sounds.
Audio track
A separate sound version of a film: the original dialogue, a dub, a voice-over translation, or audio description for blind and low-vision viewers.

Rights and sources

Rights holder
The party that owns the right to allow a film to be shown, sold and distributed: a studio, a producer or a company that acquired the rights by contract.
Public domain
The status of a work whose exclusive rights have expired. In Russia, as a general rule, the exclusive right lasts for the author's lifetime and 70 years after death (Article 1281 of the Russian Civil Code). Terms differ from country to country.
Rip
Slang for a copy of a film taken from a disc, a TV broadcast or another source and re-encoded into a file. Such copies are usually distributed without the rights holder's permission.
  • Guides

    Step-by-step setup for watching at home: internet, screen, sound, subtitles and profiles. Our catalogue of articles lives here too.

  • Comparisons

    Subscribing, buying or renting a digital copy, free legal viewing, discs and movie theaters: what each path offers. Plus a table of video resolutions.

  • What rips are (in Russian)

    An archived address from the former site: what labels like DVDRip and TVRip mean, why they usually point to piracy, and why that's risky.

  • Old films (in Russian)

    An archived address from the former site: film archives, libraries, retrospectives and the public domain, and where to find old films legally.

What we rely on

  • Civil Code of the Russian Federation, Part Four (Article 1281)
  • Descriptions of video resolution standards (Full HD, 4K UHD), in general terms

Figures for frame size, frame rate and the term of exclusive rights were checked against descriptions of the standards and the Russian Civil Code as of the date this material was prepared. Rules set by services, movie theaters and hardware makers change over time, so reread their current terms before you buy or subscribe.