TIVO vs. BitTorrent
Why do I want to watch TV in my computer you might ask? You don’t have to. You can burn a DVD of the show or connect a powerbook to a TV. The compression quality of the shows are usually good enough to be watched full screen on the Mac or TV. These video files are made by viewers who record them, edit commercials out and the post them online for people to download. This is a visual guide to downloading them.
Disclaimer: This of course is for research purposes only. Use at your own discretion and do not hold me liable.
What is Bit Torrent?
Bit Torrent is a free peer to peer cooperative file sharing system. In plain english please? It is a way of downloading files. What makes it special is that as soon as you start downloading you start sharing the bit u have downloaded. So the load gets spread out through many users. The more users, the faster it should be. That’s why it’s important to get the files while they are popular.
How does it work?
There are three parts to Bit Torrent: The tiny Bit Torrent file, the server who tracks it, the application that downloads/uploads the content.
Where are the shared files located?
Not one place in particular. That’s the beauty of it. Say you go to a Bit Torrent Tracker and download a file you are interested in. That Bit Torrent file is just a few k in size. It has info on the data shared and the tracker server. When you launch that tiny file in a Bit Torrent application it will connect to that tracker server. The server tracks who’s all connected and how much they have downloaded/uploaded. The first time it connects it will know you you need the whole thing and it will redirect you to them to download a tiny piece of the file. If there are many users connected, then u might get this piece from this user, this bit from that user until you get the whole thing and Bit Torrent will peace it all together. The beauty of this is that the load gets spread out, the net work traffic requests are of very tiny pieces of data and the more demand for a file there is, the faster your download will be. The downside to the system is that once there’s no interest in a file, there is no value to it because you can not download if no one is sharing. This is called a dead Bit Torrent file. Servers usually have information on how many seeders(sharing the whole file) and how many leachers are per file.
Step 1: Get the App
Download the BitTorrent Application at the official BitTorrent site.
Step 2: Find the show
Find a show you want to watch and download the Bit Torrent file. In this case we are getting it from Torrent Reactor. This site shows the date the file was added, name, size, users seeding the file and users downloading it. Seeders are users that have downloaded the file completely are now sharing only.
Step 3: Start downloading
Launch the Bit Torrent file you downloaded in the Bit Torrent application. Download times depend on your connection and the amount of users downloading the file. The time estimate in the application is usually inacurate. A few hours is a good estimate for an hour long show.
Step 3: Get DivX
Video files can be compressed in many different formats called codecs i.e.mpeg, avi etc. Although QuickTime can play many of them, there are a always a few video files that do not play with an out of the box QuickTime Player. In this case you can track down the codec to see of there is a QuickTime Component you can install. In this case we’re getting the free DivX codec. This codec should allow you to watch most avi movies you will encounter online. Download and install it.
Step 4: Watch and Enjoy
Once the file is downloaded you can go ahead and watch the show using QuickTime Player. Or you may choose to bring it into iMovie and Burn a DVD of it. Do keep in mind that it might be nice to just share for a while so that other can download too.
BitTorrent Links
Since Bit Torrent sites change constantly, the best way is to Google them.
Torrent Reactor
Mini Nova
The Pirate Bay
Torrent Spy
My bit Torrent
Btefnet
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a small addition to everybody who wants to skip the dvd burning part: I got myself a eyehome from elgato (www.elgato.com), you connect it to your tv and to your ethernet (or airport) and voila: your movie folder (containing the .avi or .mpg files) appears on your tv. with the rc you just select what you just downloaded and watch it. The eyehome also brings your photos and music library to the tv. Have fun!
Speaking of TiVO and MacOSX, I blogged on “iSee iTunes” a Tivo Media application that acts as an remote graphical display and remote control for iTunes. As long as you have a TiVO Series 2 that is connected to your network, your golden.
iSee, iTunes Remote for TiVO
I miss BitTorrent, ever since my ISP started blocking BT traffic, there have been no more TV shows for me. I’ll have to record them some other way. :(
How would your ISP block BT traffic? BT Can run on any port. just set it to anything other than the default port and it should run great. You also need to forward the new ports appropriately in your router of course.
Step 3 should be: Get MPlayer OSX from http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/ It is free, open source, has a pretty good GUI and it will play almost anything plus it will play movies fullscreen.
Didn’t you leave out something important? When publishing this kind of stuff, you have a responsibility to point out that doing what you describe here is completely illegal in the United States, the EU, and any other country that’s signatory to the Berne Convention or the WIPO treaty. You can get sued for it, and if you do it enough, there can be criminal penalties.
Don’t you think you have a responsibility to your readers to tell them that the advice you’re giving them can land them in jail?
VLC is better than Mplayer.
Jeff,
it is only as illegal as videotaping tv shows (which is illegal unless you are using them as an educational aid). No-one has ever been prosecuted for sharing tv shows, it is just like lending a video to a friend. You’re blowing this totally out of proportion.
VLC rulez!!!
MPlayer is teh SUx0rZ!!
wouldn’t it be great if the tv networks release shows using bit torrent with their own tracking sever? they would benefit from knowing exactly how many viewers they have online by the amount of downloads. they would benefit from the fact that user who download are uploading so everyone shares the load. all they need to do is change their commercials to “embedded” commercials (which they already do in reality tv shows). and who’s to say they can’t include commercials on the shows? i wouldn’t mind watching the commercials (or skipping them) for the benefit of watching on demand.