Downloading TV shows/music from the net - How? (Experts needed)

blueoval · 09-01-2006, 11:47 AM

I dont want to get into a big debate about the moralities of this. I just need to know how to do it.

I am a newb to the whole downloading thing and need help into knowing a few things.

First of all, I am looking to download TV shows that have already been aired in the states from a site called torrentspy.com. My friend told me about this site and it has all the up to date episodes of all TV shows that havent been aired in australia yet, hence the reason I want to download. My problem is that I was told I need to download a 'bit torrent'. What is that? How do I do it? Do I need it? Why cant I just download the episode straight off the site and just watch it on media player?

Also, how do you download music? I've never done it, and am confused on how to do it.

Can anybody in the know help me?

lisa76 · 09-01-2006, 11:58 AM

I don't know about tv shows, but music isn't too hard. I downloaded a program called LimeWire and I just do a search on there for what I am after and just double click on the one I am after and it automatically downloads it to my computer, for which I can use media player to listen to it.

klawsterfobik · 09-01-2006, 12:06 PM

BitTorrent can be downloaded from http://www.bittorrent.com/, i use BitComet which is basically the same thing.

What you do is you go to a torrent search engine, such as www.torrentz.com plug in the show that you want, if it comes up in the results, you follow a few links til you get to something that says "download torrent". Click that, it will download a small file, which will then open up in BitTorrent.

BitTorrent will download a bigger file, which is the episode or TV show that you wanted.

It all sounds a bit complex, but its not. Enjoy.

klawsterfobik · 09-01-2006, 12:18 PM

Also...
A couple of terms you will need to know, "seeds" and "peers" usually represented like this [x/x]. So if you see [4/6] it would mean there are 4 seeds [people that have the file and are willing to share] and 6 peers [people who want the file]... then theres health percentage of the torrent and all kind s of stuff. basically go for the one with the most seeds to get the fastest transfer.

pauljh74 · 09-01-2006, 12:29 PM

Basically you use a site that is a bit torrent search engine. I find www.isohunt.com to be good and better than torrentspy. You download a torrent file from the search engine site which really is an index which tells your bit torrent client software where to download the target file from. There are a few client programs to choose. I use Azareus myself.
The bit torrent system seems to be very popular for new release stuff, like TV shows.

MickyB · 09-01-2006, 12:53 PM

Once you have got the hang of bit torrent you will want to open up your ports, or 'port forward' them. This is done through adjusting your NAT setting in your router setup, the site http://www.portforward.com/ will be a massive help in that regard. If you don't do this, you will still be able to download, just not at a great speed.

Valknutr · 09-01-2006, 01:03 PM

everyone has told you everything you need to know soi will say one thing
SCAN absolutely EVERYTHING you download off those things, especially limewire, but hey we all know this dont we

blueoval · 09-01-2006, 01:14 PM

cheers guys, I will try what you have mentioned and see how I go.

Like I said, it's all new to me so it will take some time to get used to it. But if I get into trouble, at least I'll know who to ask!

M14A-Mclaren · 09-01-2006, 01:57 PM

www.mininova.org <--Torrents
www.utorrent.com <-- Client (very small footprint, loads of features)

If Australia has a private torrent site that you have to be a member of to get access to it helps alot, The one I use for NZ is very good, I'll often download a show in about 20-30 minutes because I get full bandwidth from people with really good connections, where as international torrent sites can be quite slow at time because there is heaps of leechers or the seeders are crap.

blueoval · 09-01-2006, 02:11 PM

Ok, well I downloaded the Bit Torrent program, and installed it.

I downloaded the Azureus program and installed it.

I went to http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=main&id=5 and tried to download an episode of Lost S2 and clicked onto 'download torrent', it then asked me where to download, and I made a file, nothing happened. I have opened up the Bit torrent program and its doing nothing. Where am I going wrong?

M14A-Mclaren · 09-01-2006, 02:13 PM

You have to open up the torrent file with the torrent client, then it'll ask you where you want to save the contents of the torrent in this case the episode of Lost, unless the client has a default location, which will be in the options somewhere.

MYVYSS · 09-01-2006, 03:08 PM

www.pireatebay.org all you Tv, Music and Movie needs based out of Sweden so you are Technically NOT breaking any copyright laws....

Venomous · 09-01-2006, 03:18 PM

Hmmm, everyone i would have said has already been said in here, just make sure you pick one with a high ammount of seeds and peers, otherwise most likely it will download really slow. Ive been using torrents for agges now. Port forwarding can be abit of an annoyance, it always screws up on me, Oh and anyone using the latest version of azureus, i have a question, for me it disconnects my whole internet and then reconnects quite often. I dont know why, but its definatly azuerues. Anyway get downloading lost, so i can discuss it with people. *Heads off to make a lost thread* lol. Anyway

M14A-Mclaren · 09-01-2006, 03:54 PM

XR8 Guy, use uTorrent, its got all the game features of Azureus but its more efficent.

EB-maen · 09-01-2006, 04:05 PM

I use http://www.bitsoup.org to get latest lost and sg1/atlantis episodes, usually get them around 250-350kbps which is pretty decent I reckon. You have to signup, which is easy, and then you use the browse feature of the site to search by category. I've been using BitTornado to d/l torrents from it and it's worked like a charm so far.

One other thing, a fair few tv episode downloads are downloaded as a series of .rar archives. If you have around 26 .rar archives, download winrar and double click on the archive without a number suffix, then select the avi from there and extract, it will automatically re-assemble the clip.

XCGS351 · 09-01-2006, 06:31 PM

I use emule no probs, takes less than 24 ours to download 350mb but i'm a patient man.

blueoval · 09-01-2006, 06:59 PM

can anybody explain to me the reasons for downloading 'torrents' and why?

Am I supposed to download many torrents or just 1?

Please break it all down in 'lamens' terms as I am VERY SLOW at understanding this new information. :(

Sorry for the dumb questions

09-01-2006, 07:02 PM

The "torrent" file is pretty much a pointer for the Bittorrent program where to find the file on the internet.

So you need to download the tv show's torrent file so that the Bittorrent Program can find where to download the file. Hope that helps.

09-01-2006, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blueoval

Ok, well I downloaded the Bit Torrent program, and installed it.

I downloaded the Azureus program and installed it.

I went to http://www.torrentspy.com/directory.asp?mode=main&id=5 and tried to download an episode of Lost S2 and clicked onto 'download torrent', it then asked me where to download, and I made a file, nothing happened. I have opened up the Bit torrent program and its doing nothing. Where am I going wrong?

With this file, just click OPEN.

tbearz · 09-01-2006, 08:19 PM

torrents arent the only way......

pauljh74 · 10-01-2006, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blueoval

can anybody explain to me the reasons for downloading 'torrents' and why?

Am I supposed to download many torrents or just 1?

Please break it all down in 'lamens' terms as I am VERY SLOW at understanding this new information. :(

Sorry for the dumb questions

Download the small torrent file.
Have your bit torrent client open.
Then double click your torrent file. If it asks you what program to use with that file, choose your bit torrent file

This will then make the bit torrent client software take over. It will ask you where to download your target file to. With Azareus and other client programs you can put a speed cap on all or some downloads. Or automatically turn them on or off at a certain time - useful if you're on a peak/offpeak download allowance like I am.

Deadman · 10-01-2006, 12:29 AM

limewire is also another useful program (very easy to use)

max^power · 10-01-2006, 01:56 AM

for big files, torrent is the best way, sure not the only way, but with a torrent, you get CRC checks for every peice, fast downloads from an array of people, rather than just one, and most of all, torrents tent to be less full of junk (wrongly labled video or song for example. you don't want to download ACDC and find it's Kris Kross or something! haha) - at least on a site that you have to register with.

nang3 · 10-01-2006, 08:44 PM

yeh i hate getting the wrong song when trying to download something!!

like the other day i downloaded Doom the film and it ended up being a top quality (If there is such a thing) high res Swedish pron flick with a ratio of about 10 women to every 1 man..
Rest assured i immediately looked for other versions of doom mwajhah

pandaman · 10-01-2006, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nang3

yeh i hate getting the wrong song when trying to download something!!

like the other day i downloaded Doom the film and it ended up being a top quality (If there is such a thing) high res Swedish pron flick with a ratio of about 10 women to every 1 man..
Rest assured i immediately looked for other versions of doom mwajhah

Theres a very nice italian version of that going around limewire actually. Blade 3 in french also comes with my personal reccomendation. A bloke at uni has the best attitude towards this I reckon. He says: "I wouldn't mind the relabelling so much if I didn't already have the pron"

Blueoval: For ease of use for the beginner, I'd have to reccomend limewire, range of what's available can be a tad limited at times though.

blueoval · 11-01-2006, 10:46 AM

thatnks for ya comments guys, oh and by the way your posts are useless without pics of pron!

Well I downloaded an episode successfully BUT, I found that I couldn't open the file up in Window Media Player without it shutting the program down, plus I found that after the file downloaded, it started was the upload a 'share file' or something like that straight after. What's the story there? The download rate was reasonably quick => between 25-30kb/s but the upload rate was at best 6kb/s and REALLY slow. Is there a need for this to happen? What can I do? How can I speed this process up faster? Why cant I play some files?

mustang · 11-01-2006, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by XCGS351

I use emule no probs, takes less than 24 ours to download 350mb but i'm a patient man.

i do over 700mg in 24 hours

klawsterfobik · 11-01-2006, 11:24 AM

it automatically uploads the file so that you share it, and other people have a chance to download it. You can just stop it and then play the clip.

You'll either have to shut the program down, or right click on the name of the file in the program and select something along the lines of "Clear Downloaded", that will clear the file from the program. Then you should be able to play the tv show in media player. You have to clear it otherwise the file is trying to be accessed by two different programs, and they don't like that.

mrs xa coupe · 11-01-2006, 04:19 PM

when the files are created they can be made using one of many different formats (known as a codec). There will actually be a video codec and an audio codec for each file. Some of the most common ones are called divx or xvid. you sometimes need to download an add-in to windows media player to tell it how to decode the files. Often if you dont have the right codec for a file it will run but you will get video with no sound or maybe sound with no video showing.

To fix this there are a couple of things i suggest. Firstly go to http://www.download.com/AVI-Codec-Pa...ml?tag=lst-0-4 and download and install the AVI codec pack 2.0 there. This should give you most of the commonly used codecs. Secondly go to http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0....pot&tg=dl-2001 and download a program called Gspot. When you run Gspot you point it to the file you are having problems with and it will analyse it for you and tell you if the file is damaged or not, what codecs it needs, and whether your computer has these codecs already installed. It is a grest little program and has fixed lots and lots of problems for me.

Good Luck

nang3 · 11-01-2006, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pandaman

Theres a very nice italian version of that going around limewire actually. Blade 3 in french also comes with my personal reccomendation. A bloke at uni has the best attitude towards this I reckon. He says: "I wouldn't mind the relabelling so much if I didn't already have the pron"

Blueoval: For ease of use for the beginner, I'd have to reccomend limewire, range of what's available can be a tad limited at times though.

hehe thats so true, there should be some kind of standard when mislabelling pron mwhaha..