Basic Torrent How To Needed

[Dustin Mustangs]

Ok, I'm not sure if I just missed the boat somewhere along the line on this one but this Torrent stuff has me baffled.  I really don't understand any of it.  Bit torrent vs. torrent, what they are, how they work, how to use them, where to find them, ect; it's all a mystery to me.  All I know is that I am sick of running face first into a brick wall anytime I come to something referencing a torrent. 

So hopefully this has already been written up some where and someone can just post a link, but if not would someone care to school me on this subject.  I would really appreciate it.

If it matters, my latest case of "oh crap that's run through a torrent" is the mame intro movie collection.  I would also like to have the option of updating my romsets when I feel there is enough of a need which I also believe requires a torrent.




Please help!!

 

[headkaze]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent

Download something like uTorrent and you shouldn't need to worry about them anymore. They are just small files that contain tracker info so people can share files using P2P technology. Install uTorrent and when you click a *.torrent file it will automatically download the file for you. Do a search on Google for torrent and search and it should give you some places to search for them.

[lordtodd75]

Make sure torrents are live as well. You can download a torrent client, utorrent is currently considered the best by most I have talked to. Then google for a torrent you wish to download. But make sure the torrent you are trying to download has seeders or you will get nowhere. Good places to start looking for torrents are [romsite name redacted] and [romsite name redacted], a lot of there torrents are still live and well seeded. Make sure you share back!!! If you need to get through a firewall try www.portforward.com

[unclet]

Download a torrent application .... I highly recommend "uTorrent".   I believe it is at the www.utorrent.com site.   It is small and does tons of stuff .... eveything I need it to do.   I would stay away from "Azureus", since that torrent application just sucked all my PC processing speed away from other apps.  A torrent application simply manages all of the torrent files, uploading and downloading whicih is going on.

A torrent file is simply a file which tells your torrent application (ie: uTorrent) where to download from.   The file is not really located in "one" place, but is downloaded from many various computers over the internet at one time and "reassembled" on your computer.   Once all the "pieces" have been gathered and reassembled on your PC, then your download is complete and you can enjoy what you downloaded (ie: TV show episode you missed).   Now, after you download your file completely, it is considered nice to keep the file around for a while to allow other downloaders to access some of the file pieces from your computer.  Kind of let sharing back the file once you obtained it fully.  Actually there are sites out there that will monitor how much you download and how much you upload back (ie: share back) and will ban you from their sites if you are not a good sharer.   The rule is pretty much try to upload (share) as much as you download.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Download "uTorrent" and install.

2) Now, lets say you want to find a TV show episode you forgot to watch or tape and would like to download the "file" to watch.   You would search the internet for your TV show name, episode and the word "torrent" perhaps.

3) Once you find a "torrent" file relating to your TV show, then download the "torrent" file.    This is a small file.

4) Open up uTorrent and "Open" the torrent file you just downloaded.  That is it.   The uTorrent application will contact the "tracker" (which is the computer which maintains where all the pieces of the file comes from ... I believe) and request the file you want downloaded.  The tracker will connect your PC with other PCs in the world and start downloading the file (as long as people exist out there which are sharing the file at the time you want it).   If it does not start to download, then wait awhile or search for another torrent file and start again.   You will become familiar with which sites are good to download from and which are not so reliable.

Make sure you know where your torrent file is downloading from and whether the site is a "Ratio" site or not ..... a ratio site is a site which requires you to share back or get banned.

This is the real basic stuff you need to know to get started.......  of course if your computer hangs off of a firewall and/or router then you will need to make sure the firewall permits access for sharing and also that specific ports are "opened" on the router to allow for access.

If you do not have good download speeds for your torrent files, then your router ports are probably not opened correctly.

Good luck.....

[Howard_Casto]

My suggestion is NOT to get a torrent manager.  They are usually more trouble than they are worth, and some of those sites that require you to keep your ratio up get "confused" with various clients. 

Keep the troubleshooting down to a minimum by using the official bittorrent client, which is compatable with everything.

Btw torrent searching via google isn't always the best answer either.  I'm not sure if it'd be a good idea to name some of the search sites here, but just do a google search for:

"the world's largest bittorrent search engine"   

[Chemixtry]

In a related vain. How do you use RSS feeeds to automatically download files? LEts say I want to download and entire season of scrubs. How do I set it up so that it will automatically download new episodes as they are posted?

[Generic Eric]

In a related vain. How do you use RSS feeeds to automatically download files? LEts say I want to download and entire season of scrubs. How do I set it up so that it will automatically download new episodes as they are posted?

Which client are you using?

Here is a link for setting up Azuerus for "broadcatching"

The other posters gave good info.  My suggestion to you is to get a bigger or many bigger hard drives.  Once you get on a few private trackers, your hard drive will fill up fast.

[Dustin Mustangs]

Good stuff here.  Thanks for the info everyone...

 



Off topic:

Chemixtry: In case you weren't aware, you can set a pc up to perform tivo type operations and much more for just over $100 nowadays.  Add $100 more and you are watching it on your tv and controlling it from your couch.  Check out SageTV and their media extender.  Pretty slick setup...

http://www.freytechnologies.com/

[SirPoonga]

Keep the troubleshooting down to a minimum by using the official bittorrent client, which is compatable with everything.

That is probably the worst client out there.

uTorrent or Azureus are your best bets.  Highly customizable, tons of features.  I prefer Azureus since it does plugins.  I have several plugs that I use that aren't available as uTorrent features.  But the cool thing about uTorrent is it is a small exe, and that's it.  No resources, no install, just an exe.  And it will do what most people want.
I think the most important features of a torrent client is scheduling downloads and limiting bandwidth usage.

If you use one of those and look at the swarm details you will see those two programs are what ~80% of the people use.

[Howard_Casto]

Yes is absolutely is the worst client out there.  If by worst, you mean simple.

But it is also the only client that is universally supported by all webpages that require ratios. 

[Buddabing]

That is probably the worst client out there.

I use it, it works fine. Every once in a while I get to see a picture of Bram's cute little baby girl!

Who needs features, anyway? All it needs to do is download.

[SirPoonga]

Not many websites use ratios though.  I have never come across a torrent that required ratios.

uTorrent and Azureus are easy to use.  Use what you like, I just thing the one off bittorrent's site is crappy.  Managing the torrents is difficult and you get no flexibility in how the torrent gets downloaded.

[Howard_Casto]

Not many websites use ratios though.  I have never come across a torrent that required ratios.

Every single emulation-related torrent site uses ratios.  Out of the 30 or so torrent sites I frequent, 25 of them require ratios. 

I don't know where you are going, but to get the "good stuff" you have to become a member of a site and maintain a ratio. 

[cdbrown]

I guess you haven't tried to get the mame vids SirP?  That tracker requires a 1:1 ratio.  However you are right in saying the torrent does not require a ratio, because they don't, but the trackers watching those torrents can.