Anyone here experienced with Torrents?

[Pacifist Patriot]

I am totally hooked on a television show from Great Britain. I have duly purchased the seasons on DVD or via iTunes. Unfortunately, they are in the habit of making Christmas specials that are absolutely and totally unavailable in the United States. When Googling to find them I noticed they are available in Torrents.

What the heck is that?

Is it legal?

Cheers!

[Pacifist Patriot]

1. P.S. Actually there is probably no point in even asking. I am such a techie loser...

if I did try to do anything with a new file format I'd either destroy my computer in the effort or spend 48 fruitless hours unsuccessfully attempting something my husband (out of town) could figure out and execute in 48 seconds. The bastard! ;)

[malta blue]

2. I'm curious too....

I want to download "Slacker Uprising" and I don't know which options to use (Torrent is one).

http://slackeruprising.com/download/location.php

So if anyone can tell me how the hell to do this, I would really appreciate it.

[Runcible Spoon]

3. if u want to download torrents u need a program...

I use azureus. Instead of typing it out here's a useful link:

http://www.wikihow.com/Download-Torrents

[mr blur]

4. I reccomend uTorrent as a client -

http://www.utorrent.com/?client=utorrent181B

and here's a "Beginner's Guide" to torrents:

http://www.utorrent.com/beginners-guide.php

[Pacifist Patriot]

5. *sigh* Sadly I was correct. I'm hopeless.

I found utorrent before you posted and am having a devil of a time. The beginner's guide is not helping me much. For one thing, I'm downloading just one television show to test if I am able to follow written instructions. I have my doubts.

For one thing, the bloody show (600+MB) should be downloading at a rate of 1.7MB per second according to my speed test. In reality I am lucky if I am averaging 3 or 4 kB per second. At this rate I should be able to watch the show some time in early November.

I absolutely detest this because of feelings of inadequacy and competitiveness. I know my husband is going to waltz in here on Saturday night, click a few buttons and have the damned thing downloaded faster than I can blow my nose. It's maddening!

Essentially, I've downloaded and installed utorrent. I've saved the torrent link to my laptop and it's now "downloaded" in utorrent. At the appalling rate mentioned above.

So should some miracle happen and the stupid thing reaches 100% before the next century, what do I do to actually play and watch the show? All the instructions I have found involve downloading and uploading but not actually enjoying whatever it is you've downed or upped.

Cheers

[hobbit709]

6. Your connection speed has nothing to do with downloads

How fast you download something has more to do with how fast the source is uploading it to you.
It's like trying to fill a swimming pool from a fire hose when the hose is connected to a 1/2 inch faucet.

[hunter]

9. You got it working, but yeah, some torrents are ...s...l...o...w...

I remember downloading "big" files over a 300 baud modem, and it can be like that. (Our university, one of the major institutions on the internet, had something like 56k connections to the outside world. If you hogged too much of the pipes, people got pissed off at you.)

Try some other torrents. Hot torrents can be almost as good as your connection.

[SecularMotion]

10. The download speed is going to vary according to the number of users

connected at the time and the speed of their connections. To see if the utorrent is set up correctly, you could try the Michael Moore film. You have to provide an email address and they send you the link.

http://slackeruprising.com/#signup

There were over a thousand users on when I downloaded. If you get a good rate off "Slacker Uprising" then your settings should be correct and you'll just have to be patient with the TV show. It works that way sometimes.

[SOteric]

7. I just became familiar with them myself and it's really not complicated.

First, download this:

http://www.vuze.com/Download.html

It's free and will help you in your viewing and quest.

Second, obtain a login account at places like:

http://www.mininova.org/

and

http://isohunt.com/



There are others, a google search can help. Then you just search the torrents at Mininova and ISOhunt for the shows you'd like to view and download away.

[hunter]

8. The Opera web browser does torrents like any other download.

http://www.opera.com

Click on the torrent, accept the default torrent settings, and depending on the "health" of the torrent (how many people are online just then offering the torrent as "seeds" & "peers,") it will start downloading. Sometimes you might have to wait a while if other people's computers are busy doing something else. Computers that are set to only download files, not upload files, are known as leeches, but it's only derogatory if the leeches greatly outnumber the seeds and peers.

Legal??? Many torrents are not. Maybe try this to be safe:

http://www.legaltorrents.com (go to the beta test...)

In my experience there are a lot of things that can get in the way of torrents -- things like computer or home network settings, etc.

[bbernardini]

11. Sent you a PM about it. nt

[bikebloke]

12. Number of seeders

The number of seeders will determine your download speed. If there's only one, and they're on dial-up, you'll be waiting until the end of the next ice age.

When you grab the torrent from one of the search sites, sometimes they'll show the number of seeders. Use the one with the most.

I used torrents for an Australian mini-series (Underbelly)that wasn't even shown through all of Australia due to an ongoing criminal trial.