Bittorrent

Sonny_S · September 26, 2006, 2:36pm

Finally decided to bear down and learn bittorrent. I knew the learning curve would be somewhat steep, as I’ve tried before, but I’ve finally been able to download a few things. I’m starting to get a hang of it. It is frustrating,because every time I learn something 3 new problems pop up:

-the video won’t play
-the player is missing codecs
-I receive all kinds of error messages which I don’t understand while I download and I have no idea what effect they will have
-there are many programs out there to burn dvds, but they don’t burn every format equally well.
-some files don’t play on the pc well, they’re coded to be viewed as dvds on a stand-alone
-many files have small video or audio problems which all have different solutions
-so on and so forth.

Anyway, I have some non-technical questions, for all my other ?s I’m doing google searhces

1-Is it supposed to be so slow? I’m downloading some very popular shows with 100s of seeders, but not that many leeches, and they’re taking 2 days. They’re in the 1.4 GB range.

2-Other shows with less seeders download quicker. What’s the deal?

3- Will I need multiple DVD playing programs? Which ones are trustworthy and won’t f#ck with my PC and its registry?

4-will I need multiple DVD burner programs? Which ones are trustworthy and won’t f#ck with my PC and its registry?

5-Are DVD RWs cool to re-use multiple times, or is that a bad idea?

6- Is it normal for bittorrent to use so much RAM? I have a brand new Sempron 1.8ghz, 128 L2, 512 RAM and 60 GB hard drive, and it slows down the PC quite a bit.

7- Why do some files with many seeders just sit for a day or 2 and don’t begin to download at all?

Thanks for any answers and SUGGESTIONS would be really cool

-Sonny

Houshin_Akai · September 26, 2006, 3:37pm

Codecs: http://www.cccp-project.net/

That should fix most playback issues. If not all of them, then

http://www.doom9.org/

Lastly, a decent player helps as well. There are many good ones, but I suggest Zoomplayer. The standard version is free.

For the questions:

1&2 - It’s normal. You dont always get the same number and quality of seeds, and the number of other downloaders is always changing. Quick note: Make sure your download/upload limits are set appropriately. You usually want to uncap download, but cap upload. The upload cap should be around 60-75% of your max upload speed (assuming cable), if you want the best download speeds possible.
Not too low a cap, or others wont upload, not too high, or your upload will use all your bandwidth.

3 - You shouldn’t always need one. The video’s on DvD’s are usually in a .vob file. You can play this file just like any other video in a regular player. There are enough DVD players to go around, so I cant specify any real recommomendations. Zoom’s pro version has DvD playback enabled.

4 - Again, varies. I like nero, but there’s enough out there that work well.

5 - Don’t know. I’d rather just use the regualr burn once kind.

6 - Heavily depends on the program used, but yeah, it uses ALOT of memory in general. As another note on this, since you mention video playback issues, you will probably need to close bittorrent when you want to watch videos. On slower computers they just cant spare enough system resources to play the video seamlessly while bittorrent uses those resources.

7 - That’s a troubleshooting issue, and largely depends on what your downloading, from where. It’s always possible that it’s a private/protected tracker, and you may need to sign up to a site to download. Or, your settings may be stopping you in some way. Or the tracker could be down, and your program may or may not be set up to remain connected to other peers.

pookie · September 26, 2006, 4:44pm

[quote]Sonny S wrote:
1-Is it supposed to be so slow? I’m downloading some very popular shows with 100s of seeders, but not that many leeches, and they’re taking 2 days. They’re in the 1.4 GB range.[/quote]

It’s pretty common. A lot of broadband service is asymmetric, with fast downloads and slow uploads. Also, some people are metered once they pass a certain amount of gigs uploaded in a month, so they cap their uploads at 2K or 4K…

You’ve found the holy grail: a seeder with a lot of bandwidth.

One should do. I don’t play DVDs on my PC much, so maybe someone can chime in with what’s the latest and greatest for DVD playback. Used to be PowerDVD and WinDVD.

ImgBurn is the best, free (donations accepted) and doesn’t fuck with your PC in any way.

It’s by the guy who wrote the original DVDDecrypter before he got tired of being harassed by DMCA enforcers and jettisoned the DVD reading part of his program. DVDDecrypter can still be found rather easily and is also a great program.

Some players have issues with rewritables. With DVD blanks costing around 35 cents, why would you want to rewrite them anyway?

If you’re using a Java program like Azureus, yes it is. Try something like utorrent instead. It’s a lean, mean, bit sucking machine.

Your config probably has a maximum number of simultaneous torrents set. It’s not necessarily a good idea to download too many torrents at the same time.

[quote]Thanks for any answers and SUGGESTIONS would be really cool

-Sonny[/quote]

You’re welcome.

doogie · September 26, 2006, 4:55pm

Utorrent doesn’t use so much ram

Sonny_S · September 27, 2006, 3:31pm

Success!

It took a longtime, and a dozen wesites, but I was able to play on my PC 2 of the shows I downloaded AND I burned them onto a DVD and my Philips 642 played them! Yes!

But, one show i cannot play on PC or on my DVD player, and I’m not sure what type of file it is or if its simply corrupted…and its the one I wanted the most

anon37909890 · September 27, 2006, 4:01pm

Be careful with Bittorrent. Your ISP can cap your bandwidth if they see too much shit going on. Happened to a few friends of mine.

You would be better off going the newsgroup route.

Remember, only download stuff you own

Ren · September 27, 2006, 4:02pm

[quote]Sonny S wrote:
Success!

It took a longtime, and a dozen wesites, but I was able to play on my PC 2 of the shows I downloaded AND I burned them onto a DVD and my Philips 642 played them! Yes!

But, one show i cannot play on PC or on my DVD player, and I’m not sure what type of file it is or if its simply corrupted…and its the one I wanted the most[/quote]

what player are you using? what error message does it give you? what format are the files in?

beebuddy · September 27, 2006, 4:32pm

Here is a good media player that comes with almost every codec.

Imbrondir · October 2, 2006, 10:00pm

[quote]Sonny S wrote:
1-Is it supposed to be so slow? I’m downloading some very popular shows with 100s of seeders, but not that many leeches, and they’re taking 2 days. They’re in the 1.4 GB range.[/quote]

You are probably behind a NAT’ed router. You need to learn how to do port forwarding on it (if you have access to it that is). Which ports to forward is depending on which torrent client you use. According to azureus, average download speed is about 55kbps. If you have configured everything correctly, and if the file has many seeders, you’ll be in the 100s.

Oh and azureus is the fastest torrent client I’ve tried. It got a LOT faster from JRE 1.4 to 5.0. Haven’t tried uTorrent though.

ftothe3 · October 3, 2006, 5:05am

get it.

torrentsites:
www.torrentspy.com
www.mininova.org
http://btjunkie.org/

doogie · October 3, 2006, 12:45pm

[quote]ftothe3 wrote:

get it.

torrentsites:
www.torrentspy.com
www.mininova.org
http://btjunkie.org/[/quote]

www.bushtorrent.com

RSGZ · October 3, 2006, 12:55pm

[quote]doogie wrote:
ftothe3 wrote:

get it.

torrentsites:
www.torrentspy.com
www.mininova.org
http://btjunkie.org/

www.bushtorrent.com[/quote]

http://torrents.to/ - Torrent site search engine.

nephorm · October 3, 2006, 1:59pm

You probably shouldn’t be downloading the full DVD rips. The divx version of a tv show or movie is MUCH smaller than the full DVD rip, while maintaining high quality.

beebuddy · October 3, 2006, 3:35pm

[quote]nephorm wrote:
You probably shouldn’t be downloading the full DVD rips. The divx version of a tv show or movie is MUCH smaller than the full DVD rip, while maintaining high quality. [/quote]

DIVX loads ‘flashget’ or some such spyware nonsense. Beware.

kingkrs · October 3, 2006, 6:28pm

I do not use any kind of bittorrent, however the way I do download music is pretty simple.

Google the name of an artist and or the album name followed by rapidshare (or any other file hosting service)

Example:
Pearl Jam ten Megaupload

after the search you will get a bunch of blogs and other forums where people have already posted links to the album you are looking for.

You will need to unzip the file after the download though.

I do this to find some really rare albums and never fails.

Sometimes you will run into a dead link.

nephorm · October 3, 2006, 7:04pm

[quote]beebuddy wrote:
nephorm wrote:
You probably shouldn’t be downloading the full DVD rips. The divx version of a tv show or movie is MUCH smaller than the full DVD rip, while maintaining high quality.

DIVX loads ‘flashget’ or some such spyware nonsense. Beware.[/quote]

You can use the codec without using the player. I believe the newer versions no longer have the spyware… but if you’re really worried about it, play using the xvid player.

MrChill · October 4, 2006, 12:21am

DivX has its advantages, but mpgs have an edge for previews: you can preview them with VLC without too much of a hassle.

beebuddy · October 4, 2006, 2:51am

[quote]nephorm wrote:
beebuddy wrote:
nephorm wrote:
You probably shouldn’t be downloading the full DVD rips. The divx version of a tv show or movie is MUCH smaller than the full DVD rip, while maintaining high quality.

DIVX loads ‘flashget’ or some such spyware nonsense. Beware.

You can use the codec without using the player. I believe the newer versions no longer have the spyware… but if you’re really worried about it, play using the xvid player.[/quote]

I wasn’t aware you could do that. Do you have a link?

daltron · October 4, 2006, 3:49am

[quote]Sonny S wrote:
Finally decided to bear down and learn bittorrent. I knew the learning curve would be somewhat steep, as I’ve tried before, but I’ve finally been able to download a few things. I’m starting to get a hang of it. It is frustrating,because every time I learn something 3 new problems pop up: