BitTorrent newbie help thread.

Discussion in 'Technology' started by M9fanatic, Jan 14, 2005.

  1. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    So thanks to all who answered my questions in the other thread. I'm onboard now :D. But i figured I;d have some more questions and rether than clog the other thread....

    can you guys give me tips on how to tweak my system to make downloading faster? I'm running XP with McAfee Security Center ( i don't like it much but its a free trial)
     
  2. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For starters, make sure you have the appropriate port range opened in your firewall/router. The "default" is 6881-6889, but a number of clients allow you to move that to another IP range. Some trackers *require* that you use another IP range, since some ISPs block the standard range. Moving it to a very high port range makes ZERO difference in performance, unless your ISP blocks/limits the original port range, in which case you will get better performance.

    Torrents also have a life-span. You will get best performance if you join the swarm at some point just after a full copy has been uploaded to the network. That's when downloading speeds up dramatically. Of course, depending on the torrent popularity, it tends to die out as it ages (and more people complete the torrent and disconnect), meaning that if you wait too long your download speeds will plummet, and perhaps even get to the point where you will NEVER complete the download. There is no harm in connecting with a torrent prior to the "takeoff point" - everyone's download speed is limited by the speed the initial seeder can upload, until they've uploaded at least one copy of the file. If you connect during the initial upload phase, and there are a bunch of leaches in the torrent, you will rapidly catch up to whatever percentage they are sitting at, and then stall down to the same speed they are currently downloading at.
     
  3. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    can you download more than one file at a time?
     
  4. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes. I *usually* have my client (Azureus) limit it to 3 simultaneous downloads and 2 seeds (upload only files).
     
  5. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    thanks foos....

    so i downloaded a movie. how do i burn it on a dvd now?
     
  6. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Depends on the format. If it's a bin/cue, you can load it in virtually any burning program (and there are free ones) and burn it. If it's a MPG, it *might* be in the right format to just drop in it in a DVD authoring program without reencoding.

    If it's an AVI, if your DVD player supports it you can just burn it to the root folder of a disc of the appropriate size and play it.
     
  7. flanoverseas

    flanoverseas New Member

    Mar 2, 2002
    Xandria
    OK, I've downloaded Azureus.

    Now I've got some things downloading and I can check the details, for example:

    Downloading Desp Housewives first four episodes and the details say:


    Seeds: 0 connected (0 in swarm) Peers: 1 connected (4 in swarm)


    Does that mean that I'll never get it downloaded cause all the seeds have gone away?
     
  8. pc4th

    pc4th New Member

    Jun 14, 2003
    North Poll
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm sorry to say but yeah.

    Only the Seeds have the full file. So if there is no Seed, you will never get the full file.

    hey, go to www.animesuki.com

    Try some anime, you might like it.
     
  9. flanoverseas

    flanoverseas New Member

    Mar 2, 2002
    Xandria
    Is it possible that the seeds come back?
     
  10. scaryice

    scaryice Member

    Jan 25, 2001
    If somebody feels like coming back they will. People seed more on sites where the sharing ratios are recorded. BTW, I got a link for you to get all the Desperate Housewives episodes, seeded really well: (there are two of each episode, go for the ones that aren't vcd)

    http://w1.tvtorrents.tv:7070/?search=desperate
     
  11. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It is possible that between the 4 leeches in the torrent, there is one complete copy of the file. Azureus will tell you (open up the details on the torrent) how many complete copies are in the swarm - but only counting the clients you are connected to. Bittorrent tries very hard to get distributed copies out there as fast as possible to increase the robustness of the network.
     
  12. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    lmao.... there's an episode of The West Wing that i've been trying to down load for a week. There is one seed out there and they come and go. So I leave Azureus open when i can to catch the seed when they're on line.

    I suppose i have to be patient.
     
  13. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    the little icon next to the torrents i download always stay on yellow. it says i "may have a NAT problem". what does this mean?
     
  14. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It means you may have a NAT problem! [​IMG]

    Seriously, you probably need to open some ports on your router. Usually, you want to open 6881 thru at least 6890, and forward them to the LAN IP of the PC running bittorrent. This will dramatically speed up your download speeds.
     
  15. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    well.... jeez how do i do that? I'm using Azureus.
     
  16. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    How is your computer hooked to the internet? Mine is DSL Modem -> Router -> PC(s). The router has a web-based interface where you can make these kinds of changes. I can't give you any more specific instructions until I have more details of your setup.
     
  17. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    yep im set up the same way.

    dsl modem>wireless router (d link G) > notebook.

    Thanks man.
     
  18. Own Goal Hat-Trick

    Jul 28, 1999
    ColoRADo
    anybody know why, with azureus, im now getting "error: torrent unauthorised" messages that prevents me from downloading music?
     
  19. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=1347

    That usually means that the specific torrent in question is a) not allowed on that tracker, or b) you are not currently allowed to access that torrent. I'd check the web site for the torrent.
     
  20. M9fanatic

    M9fanatic Member

    Oct 31, 2000
    North Side.
    WOW! what a difference!

    Thank a bunch Foos!
     
  21. Own Goal Hat-Trick

    Jul 28, 1999
    ColoRADo
    when you say check the website what do you mean?

    im getting this on freshly downloaded torrents, from sites to which i am registered. of course, ive only started getting this error message since suprnova went kaput.

    but yeah, like, 75% of the music torrents i try and DL get this message, and as i said, its RIGHT after i just downloaded the torrent from the tracker....
     
  22. HiJazzey

    HiJazzey Member

    Jan 29, 2002
    London
    Club:
    Al Ittihad Jeddah
    hey guys,

    do you know any good torrent sites for mac stuff?
     
  23. TheKing G

    TheKing G New Member

    Aug 19, 2004
    california
    I have a couple questions , using bit torrent can you preview a file and typically how long would it take to download a soccer match.
     
  24. Mad_Bishop

    Mad_Bishop Member

    Oct 11, 2000
    Columbia, MO
    1. no, you can't really preview, and 2. it really depends. I can do it in two or three hours, but BitTorrent's speed is entirly dependent on how many seeds/leechers there are with that file when you're downloading it.
     
  25. Foosinho

    Foosinho New Member

    Jan 11, 1999
    New Albany, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sometimes you can preview. Occasionally a torrent will contain a "preview.mpg" or similar, and you can set your client to make that file high priority. Then, once it's finished that file (and is happily downloading the rest) you could watch it, and decide to cancel the download.

    But most torrents don't have that. And the default client behavior is to try to maximize file distribution across the network, so if a lot of people already have that "preview.mpg" complete, your client will automatically try to grab other parts of the file unless you override it.
     

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