Area 77

Update at the bottom..

This is a guide for downloading “torrents.” I won’t bother to define what torrent is because I literally don’t. All I can say is that a torrent is virtually a ticket that allows you to download TV shows and movies.

ONE. You must download a torrent client. This is the program that does the actual downloading. For my Mac, I use Azureus Transmission because it allows me to select which files I want to download in a torrent. With basic clients, you download the whole file/folder as it is. Transmission is light and easy to use, but if you don’t like Transmission there are other good clients you can go with. Such as BitTorrent, BitComet or BitTornado for now. BitTorrent is the classic beginner’s client.

TWO. I’m a little OCD with my files and folders on my computer so everything has to be organized. But it is up to you if you want to do the same. Create a new folder somewhere on your computer and give it a distinct name so that it wouldn’t be confused. “Torrent Downloads.” That folder will be where all your torrent related stuff will be stored.

THREE. You installed your torrent client and have a spanking new empty folder. Now you are ready to start downloading. Torrent search engines are very abundant but there are just about a handfull of good ones. The ones I use are btjunkie, torrentspy and The Pirate Bay. When I can’t find what I’m looking for in those three, my last resort is TORRENTScan. It searches all the popular search engines for you.

FOUR. Good searching techniques:

* happy days season 2 [that will turn up results for torrents of the whole/partial 2nd season of the show]
* fresh prince bel air 317 [that will turn up results for torrents of the 17th episode of season 3]
* ugly betty im coming out [stating the name of an episode could give you some results as well, use TV.com to look up episode titles]
* babel [movie titles are pretty simple]

You have to be smart when searching for a TV show or movie or else you could be actually downloading something totally different than what you asked for. TV sitcoms (20-22 minutes) are usually sized around 175mb, TV shows (40-45 minutes) are around 350mb and movies around 600-800mb depending on the length. Also, video files are usually in .avi, .mpeg, .mp4, or .mov format. Any other formats could still be available but further converting or installing of programs could be needed. So if the sizes or the formats look unusual, you know it’s a fake. Many search engines allow users to post comments for each torrent. You can check to see if someone has claimed it to be a fake or of bad quality or something.

FIVE. When you get your list of results, choose the one that has the better “health” (a lot of people are downloading and seeding it). The better the health, the faster the download rate. Downloaders are like you, downloading the file. Seeders are people who have finished downloading but are allowing others to download from them. If there are no seeders then there is nothing to download. Click on the torrent you have chosen and go to it’s page. Check the comments to see if you are satisfied with the responses. If not, go back and select another result. When you find a torrent you want, download it to that new folder you created. The torrent file is really small, around 17-24kb.

SIX. Start up the torrent client that you downloaded in step ONE. Go to the preferences or options section of the client and make sure that your downloads go directly to that new folder you created. Now open the little torrent file in the client. Usually, it will launch the downloading process imediately, but some clients only start downloads when you actually tell it to. It is EXTREMELY important not to change or edit any of the file names or folders or move anything to another folder on your computer of what you are downloading. It will cause an error and stop the downloading process. If something happens by accident, change it back to whatever it was originally and relaunch the download process. Your progress will not be lost (it will resume downloading where it stopped). You can pause downloads and exits the client program whenever you want and resume later if you wanted also. Many of the torrent take a really really long time. Days is not an unusual “time remaining.” So it is preferred for you to be on a high-speed internet connection.

SEVEN. When the download is 100% complete, it would be really nice if you would keep seeding the file for a day or so so that you would return someone else’s generosity for seeding while you were downloading. Do not edit or change the names or move anything to another folder while you are seeding as well. When you feel that you have seeded enough, you may edit or change whatever you want and move the file wherever you want as well.

That is pretty much it. It is a pretty easy process but I just wanted to explain every step for those who wanted to understand.

Update: After downloading, you might find that your video plays only sound and no video. If that happens, play it on VLC Player. If there’s still a problem, download and install the divx codec for Windows or Mac. You can then play them on any compatible media player. If that still doesn’t solve the problem, the last thing you must do is download and install the xvid codec. One of these should solve the problem.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 5:36 am and is filed under Asides, How To, TV/Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.