J's Essential HowTo Guide: Bittorrent 101

Hola, people. Yes, I know I've not been updating as regularly as I used to do. Busy la. Plus I've been feeling quite lazy recently. I blame the fuckin' 35 deg. C heatwave for the recent bout of laziness. Sigh.

I've recently been getting lots of mails from you fine people out there asking me how I'm able to download these episodes you see over there *points to left hand side column*. And since I seem to be giving the same answer to the same question week after week, I think I'm going to put all this info together in a single article today to help answer all your nagging emails (Kidding, I don't find your emails nagging. Well only except for those that are offering penis enlargement, breast enhancements and so on. Goddamn spammers. )

So, on to today's topic. It's going to be a pretty technical one... and helluva long. You've been warned! If you've ever heard of Bittorrent and are interested in getting started, well... pull up a chair, amigo. ;)

J's Essential HowTo Guide: Bittorrent 101

Part I: Prerequisites: What you'll need to have & what you need to know
So, what exactly is this "Bittorent" I've been hearing so much about? What are you looking at me for... go Google it! :P In a nutshell, Bittorrent (henceforth referred to as "BT") is a nifty piece of software technology that you install on your PC. It utilizes peer-to-peer technology (P2P) that allows you to download pretty much anything you'll ever want or need. Anime, porn, PC applications, games, porn, movies, music, porn and TV episodes. Did I also mention porn?

The great thing about BT is that the more people who are downloading a particular file, the faster that particular download becomes. BT is right up there with the condom as one of Mankind's Greatest Inventions. Like all good technology, it can be used for good or evil. Since I'm no angel, that pretty much leaves you with a general idea where this blog title is heading... ;)

Before you get started, you're going to need the following:
1. A good ADSL connection. If you've got a 1Mbps Streamyx line, that's perfect. I'd say the bare minimum would be a 512kbps line. Anything above 1Mbps broadband is great.. the more bandwidth, the better. Especially that connection in the office. Don't reccomend you download illicit stuff at work though, unless you don't mind getting fired or are planning to quit anyway ;)

2. A good router. Though not completely necessary, since you can run BT on a direct cable/broadband connection anyway... I always reccomend you use a router. Why? So you can do something called "port forwarding" which will be explained later. Also, most routers have a built-in firewall which prevents Evil People from hijacking your PC and doing other Evil Things to it. I reccomend routers from Linksys. A good one goes for RM$200 or so, depending on what other features come with it. Go get one, you won't regret your purchase. Check www.lowyat.net for the most updated PC hardware pricelists in town.

3. A huge ass hard disk. You're going to need a big (and I mean B-I-G) hard disk, folks. Depending on what you download and if you're a hoarder, I'd say get a 120GB++ HDD. Those puny 40GB/70GB hard disks isn't going to cut it. A simple TV episode will be around 300-400MB large. A high quality DVD-rip movie will take around 700MB - 1.3GB. Do the math, and you'll see it all quickly adds up. Again, check http://www.lowyat.net/ for the most updated PC hardware pricelists in town.

4. Bittorrent software - get Azureus. Think of BT as the service provider for your cellphone. In order to actually receive calls, you need a cellphone proper. Similarly, you're going to need software to run your BT downloads. There are tons of BT software out there, but I highly reccomend Azureus. It's a free download (click the Windows icon on the page) and works beautifully. A very clean interface means hassle-free downloading and it allows you to do port forwarding easily.

5. Print out and read Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide. Everything I will cover here is explained in more detail over at Brian's page. This is where I first got my feet wet. If it worked for me, it'll sure as hell work for you. Go read it, enuff said.

6. Willing to leave the PC on overnight. Depending on what you're downloading, you will most probably need to leave the PC overnight to finish the download. This is where laptops come in. If you've a laptop, go ahead and use that as your BT downloading machine. Not only do you save on power bills (PC monitors take up 70% of the total PC power consumption), but you also save on not having the whole PC turned on, as opposed to just one small laptop. I usually let my laptop do the downloading, and just close the screen when I'm off to bed. The downloads continue in the background and are done by the time the sun rises the next day.

7. Do not use Wireless connections to download! Wireless connections, especially with laptops, slow everything down. If you want to finish downloading a file in this lifetime, do NOT use a wireless connection. Use a wired connection instead. (Note: those of you lucky enough to have wireless 802.11g cards, this doesn't apply to you :)

8. Upgrade to Windows Media Player 10 and install K-Lite Codec Pack. In order to view most of the movie/TV series files you've downloaded.. you need to install a plugin (called a video codec) on your PC. I reccomend the K-Lite Codec Pack, which contains all the major and popular codecs the BT community uses.

Now that you're done with your homework and installed Azureus AND read Brian's guide... go ahead with Part II.


Part II: The Good Stuff. This is where the fun starts.

So. You're all fired up and ready to go. Then you realise you have no idea what's next. This is where Part II comes in. Next, you're going to need to hunt for the file/download that you want. What you're looking for is a called a "torrent file", and is usually available on websites offering Bittorrent downloads.

A little history lesson before we proceed. Back in the days, there used to be a website called SuprNova.Org, which was the grand-daddy of BT downloaders everywhere. SuprNova was THE place you went to, to get everything and anything. Of course, like all good things in life... the site didn't last long and had to shut down or risk getting sued. In the months past since SuprNova went offline, tons of other BT sites have taken it's place. Reccomend you read Slyck's Top 10 Alternatives as well.

Here are my personal favs, reccomend you bookmark em!

J's Top 10 Suprnova.org Alternatives

1. BTEFNet: THE place to go, to get TV series. Everything you see on the left hand side of my blog, comes from there. Looking for latest episodes of 24? Alias? West Wing? (Sorry Kat, must've touched a raw nerve there :P). Look no further.

2. MrTwig: A site that specializes in Southpark episodes! Complete seasons, from Season 1 to the current season 9 can be found here.

3. TorrentSpy (free registration req): General purpose site for anything under the sun. Good place to get movies and music albums, especially.

4. TowerSeek: A Google-like search engine for hunting that particular file you can't find anywhere else.

5. TorrentCrawler: Like TorrentSpy, but not as popular. Useful to have in case TorrentSpy goes down.

6. TorrentPortal (free registration req): Again, another good site to get everything and anything.

7. Novatina/VIP Torrents: Extensive collection of a helluva lot of stuff. Seeing is believing.

8. MusicTorrents: Excellent place to get music albums from.

9. DJMixes (free registration req): The best place to get trance music and DJ livesets from. (thx babe.. you know who you are ;)

10. Torrent News: This site doesn't offer torrent files like the other 9, but it sort of keeps tabs on what everyone else in the BT community is up to. A good place to check in, to find out which sites have gotten sued, and who's the hot new BT player in town.


Part III: Other Misc. Things You Need to Know.
1. Port forwarding: Adding Turbo Boost to your downloads. If you're going to be doing some serious downloading, you need to know how to enable port forwarding. This is why I reccomended earlier you get a router.. especially a Linksys one. It makes port forwarding really easy. What's port forwarding you ask? Think of downloading life before port forwarding like a 4 lane highway, with heavy traffic going in all directions. Now, imagine a 8 lane superhighway, with all traffic heading in one common direction. Very fast, smooth-flowing traffic... just like your downloads. That my friends, is what happens after you enable port forwarding on your router/modem ;) Won't explain p/fwding in detail.. read on more here, at Brian's BT Guide.

2. I just finished downloading an episode of Alias. What the hell does the filename "alias.s04e11.hdtv.xvid-tcm.[BT].avi" mean?
You need to understand the lingo used in the BT downloading community. Every TV series follows a standard file-naming nomenclature. In this case,
- "alias" is the name of the program
- "s04e11" means Season 4, Episode 11
- "hdtv" means High Definition TV. In short, it means that episode is very high quality & clear.
- "xvid" refers to the type of codec used to encrypt/package the file.
- "[BT]" refers to the group responsible for the time & effort in providing this file to y'all.
- Read "Slyck's Lingo of the TV Downloading Scene" for more info.

And that's it folks.. that's all there is to know about Bittorrent. Phew, that was a long post. The next person who emails me asking what BT is, I'm going to reply in Hokkien and be rude :P

Spread the Love. Send this guide out to your friends and get them started on Bittorenting. No one should miss out on one of technology's greatest inventions ;)

Happy downloading.

:)
J
PS: As some of my regular readers will undoubtedly note.. I've started adding Calvin & Hobbes comic strips to the start & end of every new post starting with the last 3 articles past. Think I have enuff C&H strips to make it a regular feature on every new post from today onwards. Now, who doesn't love C&H? (if you don't, you oughtta be mauled by a pretentious tiger :P)