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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Here’s a cool way to record shows off your DVR/TIVO. Get a firewire cable and plug it in to your DVR/TIVO and plug in to your MAC (i got a powerbook). Download a little program called AVCBrowser 0.3.1 (http://home.comcast.net/~macpvr/avcbrowser.html). Run the program and find your DVR/TIVO in the list and press open device controller. Another window will open. Setup your recording folder and and basically hit record. It will record whatever is playing. It creates a file with the extension .m2t Use streamclip, it’s free, to convert your .m2t files to divx or whatever. Have fun. HEADS UP: HD programs can be HUGE so have lots of disc space available.
All hail the Philips DVP-642 DVD! When I first read about it’s “play anything” capabilities I was skeptical to the least. But it was only $70 at Target so i tried it out.
I liked it so much I bought another. I copy my Stargate’s and Battlestar Galacticas from the BT network, burn them to DVD-RW, play them just as they are with no conversion, the erase and play the next one.
All hail the Philips DVp-642 DVD!
Your links (at the bottom) for Torrent Spy and “My bit Torrent” are the same. What’s the URL for the latter? Thanks…
Downloaded BitTorrent and will try it out soon.
i must confess to all of you, i am a tivo subscriber. i initially looked into bittorrent when my tivo had a hickup and had a blank tv guide. when this happens, tivo does not record because it does not have any info on what’s on. this has happened twice to me in the last few months and i quickly fixed it by restarting the machine. but, it forced me to go online to find the shows i missed. tivo is a wonderfull technology and if u know me personally i probably talked to you about tivo. the shows available on bittorrent are limited to what’s popular at the moment. whereas tivo has a wonderfull feature called whishlist, where i can have it record anything realated to a keryword or genre. i have been surprised many times by what tivo recorded for me based on my wish lists. so by writing this post i am not advocating a tivoless world. i am just sharing about what i learned.
I have been using BT since the start of this TV season…I had been using eDonkey2000 with the site ShareTV…but ShareTV closed down in the wake of SuperNova’s shutdown…just as a precaution…ShareTV was not under any direct threat…but I had already switched to BT by this time anyway because I found it to be faster…and with RSS feeds that start downloading shows as soon as they become available (as described in Pedro’s how-to) it was the less time consuming choice…
I am of the thought that sharing TV online is no different than sharing a VHS tape with a friend…the internet just makes it possible to share that tape with thousands of friends…The supreme court is ruling on the use of BitTorrent technology…mainly in the case of Grokster…Grokster argues they do not house any of the files and that their service is no different than supplying people with a photocopier…and while yes, it is illegal to photocopy a book rather than buy it…no one is sueing Xeorx…and while some may argue that it is illegal to photocopy a TV show the same way it is illegal to photocopy a book rather than buy it…this comparison not an accurate one…because we do not pay for most of the TV shows that are shared online…TV shows are broadcast for free over the airwaves for anyone with an antenna to receive…even HDTV is broadcast this way…
For this reason I download broadcast TV shows without fear of prosecution…I am simply downloading a computer file of an already freely distributed stream of video and audio…
(There is of course a line to be drawn considering cable TV shows and freely broadcast songs over the radio…but a line in an area like this can be a bit fuzzy)
lhawkins..ISP blocking BT traffic? wont surfin a proxy fix that?
hey this is good info on torrent :)
but could guys help me with stuff about openig ports for torrents?
and other such small details…cant download the files…but i have installed bittorrent and opend ports 6881-6889…why can i download in bitr torrent…i have also made an exeption for the program in my firewall?
Definatly check out Xbmc then. Its the best way to watch this form of content on your tv. It basically gives you the ability to watch all of those videos using “computer codecs” on your tv. So you aren’t tied to your computer to watch this content.
If yo udont know anything about Xbmc, its powered by Mplayer. so you name the codec, it plays it. its an open source project and you need to hack your xbox to get it to work. Basically my xbox boots strait to Xbox Media Center, and it controls everything. I play all my content streamed over the network from a Suse linux box that i dubbed my Media Server. I actually have 2 xbox’s, living room and bedroom. All my content is centrally located on one server, reachable from both tvs in the house. This is the way to go. Hands down. Add in bittorrent and RSS, and you’ve got a tivo. with much better quality :)
Check out my post here to see how to really jazz up your entertainment center: Rss + Bittorrent + xbmc == Bliss