The Poor Man’s Tivo
Posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2005 at 1:33 pm under Mac Geekery, Tutorials.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
Apr 22nd, 2005 at 4:15 am
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!
Apr 22nd, 2005 at 3:14 pm
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
Apr 25th, 2005 at 10:52 am
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. :(
Apr 25th, 2005 at 11:32 am
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.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
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.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
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?
Apr 25th, 2005 at 12:57 pm
VLC is better than Mplayer.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
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.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 1:24 pm
VLC rulez!!!
MPlayer is teh SUx0rZ!!
Apr 25th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
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.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 2:00 pm
Do you have any advice on burning HDTV files to a DVD in letterbox format? Apple’s iDVD claims it will do letterboxing automatically, but this feature only works on certain DVD players. I’ve been using ffmpegx, but this is a complicated multi-step process. Do you know of a simpler way?
Apr 25th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
In my experience there’s no way VLC is better than Mplayer. To name two things that pop to mind: you can use the arrows keys to quickly navigate through a video in Mplayer (left/right is 10second jumps, up/down is 30second jumps IIRC). Additionally, I’ve had plenty of problems with DivX (AC3 sound or otherwise) files dropping frames and freezing using VLC, but in Mplayer or even QuickTime they play flawlessly.
Also, if you want a lot of DivX AVIs to play using QuickTime you’ll need an AC3 decoder for the sound!! Get it @ http://www.insaneness.com/
Apr 25th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
I wrote a how-to on how to download shows automatically, as soon as they are released. Kind of like Tivo.
http://pealco.net/archives/2004/11/08/how_to_never_miss_an_episode_with_bittorrent_and_rss
Apr 25th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
Like Andy above, I am curious what is the fastest way out there to reformat the media files so that they can be burned to a CD or DVD.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
I agreee with Justins comments on Mplayer being better than VLC, I have both and have installed all the DiVX codecs, etc and repeatedly when I view files that I have pulled from BitTorrent or elsewhere, I have had better luck viewing files on Mplayer than VLC, case and point the new Matroska file format being used for a number of TV shows now. Its a container for a variety of video and audio file formats, including subtitle files. Its a piece of cake to view a movie w/ included subtitles file in Mplayer… Also, with some files I experienced issues w/ playback (ie. dropping frames, sound sync, etc.) with QuickTime and VLC, none of those viewing problems on MPlayer.
On another note, I have just started re-compression of some of my favorite TV shows (on Cartoon Network Adult Swim, Ghost in the Shell SAC is my fave) to my Sony PSP MP4 format. SO basically I am PSPcasting now. I use ffmpegX for OSX to do this, its actually an amazing product that has a whole bunch of compression/codec settings, for a variety of file size/formats/data rates… and is pretty quick on the compression. I took a movie file that was 1.2gb, converted to DiVX Widescreen w/ burned in Subtites qhich brought it down to 600MB, then re-compressed to PSP MP4 video and reduced it to about 325mb! This is a widescreen 320×240 MPEG4 w/ 32bit Audio!
I have a page on my blog showing what to use…
PSP Software and Hacks
Apr 25th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
A question: I’ve been downloading on BT on my mac for awhile. Is there a virus protection I could run on my computer? My computer seems to run slower after I download anything. Thanks!
Apr 25th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
Please note that Michael May, above, is as wrong as he can be. There is a clear difference between home recording and making unauthorized copies over the Internet. Doing what this article describes is completely illegal, period, end of paragraph.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 7:58 pm
Great step-by-step guide
Lots of good info and review from everyone!
when is your next post ? :)
…and Jeff take it easy with Koizumi on your web site. Unless you live in Japan, you don’t have all the cards in your hands to say this was a good move or this was a bad one…
Apr 25th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
There is a use for bitTorrents after all!
AllForces has put together a tutorial of sorts on how to use bitTorrent sites to watch TV programs:
http://allforces.com/2005/04/21/poor-mans-tivo
Apr 25th, 2005 at 10:23 pm
Illegal, you say, Jeff? Cite your sources, please.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 10:29 pm
please do not comment anymore on the legality issues. perhaps that’s a subject you guys can pursue at another site.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
Actually, you should just go out and buy a Philips DVP-642 DVD player, which is (as far as I know) one of the few DVD players that supports DivX video. It has the reputation for being the player that can play anything - I haven’t found a disk yet that it couldn’t play.
Then you just need to buy some DVD rewriteable disks, burn the files you’ve downloaded, and away you go.
TV is meant to be watched on a television, don’t you think?
Apr 25th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
Why would talking about the legality of this posting not be appropriate here? Clearly, the poster is advocating breaking the law. As someone who makes a living from copyrighted material, this concerns me, and this is where I will post to talk about the matter.
Apr 25th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
I’d like to see Jeff cite a source as well before spewing such FUD so matter of factly.
Apr 26th, 2005 at 12:03 am
Pedro’s tutorial is exactly what I was going to point you towards.
Way better.
Apr 26th, 2005 at 1:52 am
OK - as a lawyer (although this is NOT legal advice) I can tell you that the legality of this sort of copying is HIGHLY JURISDICTION SPECIFIC and often quite complex in its details.
I am very familiar with Australian law which essentially states (I’m oversimplifying things here BTW) that non-commercial copying is UNLAWFUL but it is NOT A CRIME. That is, the copyright-holder has to come sue you for infringing upon their copyright. The police WILL NOT show up at your door. However, commercial copying (ie for profit) IS A CRIME and the police may come arrest you for doing so.
I have just enough familiarity with US, UK and EU law to tell you that the provisions are NOT THE SAME in each jurisdiction (why do you think it’s taking so long for iTMS to appear in each jurisdiction). Let alone trying to decipher what the law is like in Russia, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Central and South America.
So anyone who says “X is illegal” better specify in which country and whether they’re sure it is a CRIME (police arrest) or (merely) a CIVIL WRONG (get sued by ARIA etc).
Apr 26th, 2005 at 10:47 am
I wish someone (network, studio) would put up legal BitTorrents. I tend to turn to BitTorrent only when my Tivo did not have a good signal and only recorded half of a show. The network won’t show the same episode again for maybe 6 months. I don’t mind the commercials and would be glad to support the show’s stars, writers, directors, etc. But I don’t have an option do do that unless I wait for the DVD to be released.
Apr 26th, 2005 at 11:01 am
There aren’t any Mac viruses, and probably won’t be for a long, long time. Don’t worry about it right now. Watch MacSurfer.com for more info.
Apr 26th, 2005 at 11:37 am
http://www.bitsonwheels.com
the rest is inferior :-D
Apr 26th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
The only trouble I have had with sharing files was with a Bit Torrent and for an episode of Star Trek Enterprise. My ISP disabled my service untiled I called them, then told me not to do it again or we will cancel your service. This was last year. The information about my shared file came to my ISP after a complaint given by Paramont Pictures which owns Star Trek Enterprise.
Apr 26th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Why bother getting Mplayer or VLC when you can just download the proper codecs (which are easy to find and incredibly easy to install) and then watch it on any media player you want. Also, use Azureus as your BT client. It’s the best one out there.
You people need to learn to not use the default ports. And if your ISP limits BT ports or moniters your ports… find a new ISP.
Apr 26th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
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.
Apr 27th, 2005 at 8:43 am
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!
Apr 27th, 2005 at 8:58 am
Your links (at the bottom) for Torrent Spy and “My bit Torrent” are the same. What’s the URL for the latter? Thanks…
Apr 27th, 2005 at 11:39 am
Downloaded BitTorrent and will try it out soon.
Apr 27th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
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.
Apr 27th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
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)
May 13th, 2005 at 7:49 am
lhawkins..ISP blocking BT traffic? wont surfin a proxy fix that?
May 15th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
hey this is good info on torrent :)
but could guys help me with stuff about openig ports for torrents?
May 15th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
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?
Jun 21st, 2005 at 9:56 pm
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
Jul 28th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
Hey Melvin! Great stuff, as always! I just wanted all your readers to know I’ve got a related article up on my site detailing how to browse through multiple torrent sites using RSS. Check it out and let me know what you think!
http://iamzachforrester.blogspot.com/2005/07/bit-torrent-rss-riffic.html
Jan 2nd, 2006 at 1:40 am
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 thd 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.
Jan 3rd, 2006 at 9:46 pm
The only trouble I have had with sharing files was with a Bit Torrent and for an episode of Star Trek Enterprise. My ISP disabled my service untiled I called them, then told me not to do it again or we will cancel your service. This was last year. The information about my shared file came to my ISP after a complaint given by Paramont Pictures which owns Star Trek Enterprise.
Sep 6th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
XMBC does NOT use mplayer… it uses the libavcodec and libavformat libraries that are part of the ffmpeg project.
Apr 5th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Can you tell me if downloading tv shows off of mininova is legal? I cant seem to find an answer and no one wants to answer me.
Dec 19th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
I’m trying to save the video off a Motorola DCT6400 on my Mac OSX computer.
I have a ReplayTV DVR and it’s a piece of cake with DVArchive to do anything you want, via Ethernet. I was hoping to replace it with the DCT6400, but I’m afraid it will be a big letdown. I’ll have to download stuff I want to keep longterm with BitTorrent. I *HIGHLY* recommend the ReplayTV DVR; too bad they haven’t continued that product line.
Good Luck, and Thanks For All The Bits!
Jim.
Jan 20th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
[...] The Poor Man’s Tivo: BitTorrent. I wrote about BT back in May, but I’m just reiterating how cool it is. I don’t know who records the few TV shows I’ve been getting, either. I believe they’re in HDTV, but they’re without commercials and basically flawless. Thank you. [...]
Mar 3rd, 2008 at 10:29 pm
It’s not illegal to download TV shows, they would have a very difficult time prosecuting you for that. All cable boxes have a firewire port on the back to access the raw feed.
It’s illegal to distribute (upload) to someone else.
Nov 20th, 2008 at 7:56 am
There has come winter :(
It became cold and cloudy!
Mood very bad :(
Depression Begins
Nov 20th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Depression Depression Depression aaaaaaaa
HEEEEELP :( :( :(
I hate winter! I want summer!