The BitTorrent Bible++

[Buddhist]

Note: This guide is meant to introduce users to the BitTorrent program and network, and use various filetypes that the BitTorrent network commonly uses. THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO INTRODUCE USERS INTO PIRACY.

Section 1: What is BitTorrent?

Let me simplify this for you. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) network that is based on the idea that many people sharing a file is more productive than a single host for a single file. It wasn't designed to be a haven for pirating and copyright violations, it just happens to be good at it. The network is based on the idea that EVERYONE shares 100%. That means if you download something, you stay connected to it until you've shared 100% of the bandwith (or more, more is always better) that you've downloaded. The more people who are sharing (better known as seeding) the file, the faster it goes for everyone. But before you can download and use .torrent files, you'll need a client.

A. BitTorrent Clients

Some people are going to disagree with my opinions here, but I don't really care. This guide is set up to give you the best overall experience with the BitTorrent network, so i'm giving you my opinions on what's out there.

A BitTorrent client is a piece of software that acts as the vehicle between your computer and the BitTorrent network. There are dozens of choices, i'll link to some and share my opinions.

1. BitTornado - A great piece of software, and probably the fastest overall client. Conversely, it also has the fewest features. It's not good if you want to download more than one torrent at a time, or if you need to schedule your downloads. As it requires very little power, it will run on almost any system.

2. ABC (Another BitTorrent Client) - Overall, a pretty good client. I don't use it personally, but lots of people do. It's okay. It doesn't have UPnP capability, which I will discuss better later on. You might want to avoid this one if you have a router and are uncomfortable with editing the settings on it. It's written in C++ instead of Java, and so it's stable and doesn't need a lot of power.

3. Azureus - Probably the most-used client overall. This has been my client of choice more recently (I also use uTorrent), but I don't recommend it to people who don't have strong computers. It supports UPnP, NAT traversal, scheduling, and it's very easy to start a torrent and seed it yourself. This client uses the Java Virtual Machine (VM), and thus it's available to most types of Operating Systems (Windows, Apple, Linux), but the Java VM has a nasty habit of bloating the longer it runs. It WILL slow down your computer after extended downloading/uploading. It is also available in 38 languages, and was SourceForge's most downloaded program of the year.

4. µTorrent - The µ means Micro, so thus it's also known as both uTorrent and MicroTorrent. It's one of my personal favorites, and also one of the better overall clients. It's extremely small and lightweight, and doesn't require an installation (unless you want it to). It's under 160KB in size, and routinely takes up less than 6MB of your memory (RAM). It supports UPnP, NAT traversal, scheduling, RSS downloading, and more. It also is skinnable and has trackerless downloading support. Probably the best overall client for those who don't have a very strong or powerful system.

5. BitSpirit - A very rare client that I used for quite a while. It has just about all the features of Azureus, but uses C++ instead of Java, so it isn't as bloated. It also has a very cool icon, but I digress. It's a really great client, but starting a seed isn't that easy, the only support is in Korean, and some torrent sites don't support it.

6. Arctic Torrent - Another minimalized BitTorrent client. It's used much less than µTorrent or BitTornado, but is a very stable program. It is written in C++ so it doesn't bloat like Java. It doesn't have a lot of features that most other torrent programs utilize (RSS downloading, searchbar, etc.), but if you have a slow or bloated Windows 2000/XP system, this would be the best client for you. Unfortunately, it only runs on Windows 2000 and XP.

7. burst! - One of the oldest torrent programs in existence (it recently celebrated it's fourth birthday), this is one of the better BitTorrent clients available. It lets you control multiple transfers from a single window, in addition to many other handy features. It has the same back-end as BitTornado, so you get all the developments used in BTornado as well.

8. burst plus! (now known as Flash! Torrent) - It is based off of burst!, but adds in some other useful features, as well as Spanish language support.

9. BitTorrent - The original client, written by Bram Cohen, architecht of BitTorrent. It has the fewest features of all the clients, and releases are much more conservative than the experimental versions. Use this if you want stability but don't need any of the common features of the other clients, such as upload rate limiting.

10. BitTorrent++ - This is an alternative to the official client. It supports extra functionality such as multiple downloads from a single GUI. Many people have experienced major bugs with this program, so consider it unstable and use a different client unless you want to experiment. It appears to be abandoned and has not had any bug fixes in a long time. Therefore, since these bugs have the ability to adversely affect the performance of the BitTorrent swarm, do not use this client.

[To Be Continued for a while, please don't post until i'm completed, thank you.]

[Buddhist]

11. G3 Torrent - A decent program that is much like µTorrent, but is written in Python, so it tends to use a lot of processor (CPU) power. If you have a processor that is less than 3.0gHz or 2.85gHz, I wouldn't recommend using this program. It has not been updated in over a year, and it also appears to have been discontinued. Personally I like it a lot, so if you're not one for µTorrent, try G3Torrent.

12. QTorrent - This is basically a crappier version of BitTornado. Avoid it.

13. BitComet - This client is gaining in popularity. I don't like it; here's why. It uses a variation on the original client that was never intended: multi-tracker announcing. Think of it like this: A torrent is hosted by a tracker. The tracker keeps track of everybody downloading and uploading the file and their information. Trackers can have hundreds and thousands of users at a time. This client announces you across every tracker attached to the torrent, as an attempt to get you more speed. I'd say 20-50% of the time it works. The issue is, you're getting much more than you share, plus, you're sticking your butt on the line. You run a much better chance of getting busted with a multi-tracker-announcing client than you do otherwise. Other than that it's a solid client, supports scheduling and UPnP, and doesn't use Java. I will add that multi-tracker announcing could be the future of torrenting, as it decentralizes the tracker. If it becomes more widely accepted, i'll go with it. It's my opinion that it was added to this client to cheat and get better downloads, but all's fair in love and torrenting, I suppose.

14. BitLord - I don't know who made this client, but they were morons. They used the BitComet core, tacked some ads onto it, made it crash routers, made the interface ugly, and spammed it all over torrent sites everywhere. Avoid it.

15. Bits On Wheels - A BitTorrent client exclusively for Mac. It has a cool feature that allows you to see a 3D rendering of your current swarm. Azureus does this in 2D and with less detail, but Bits On Wheels's version is much cooler. It requires at least Mac OS X 10.3.x or better to run.

16. Transmission - This is a nice BitTorrent client that runs on Mac OS X, Linux/NetBSD/OpenBSD/FreeBSD, and on BeOS. Probably the most lightweight BitTorrent client out there, mainly because it doesn't run on Windows. Varies in size from ~100KB - ~300KB.

17. Tomato Torrent - A native Mac OS X BitTorrent client that is based off of BitTorrent 4.2. It supports AppleScript, as well as most basic and more advanced BitTorrent features. Requires at least Mac OS X 10.2.x or better to run.

18. KTorrent - A BitTorrent client for KDE (the K Desktop Environment).

19. libTorrent/rTorrent - LibTorrent is a BitTorrent library written in C++ for *nix, with a focus on high performance and good code. The library differentiates itself from other implementations by transfering directly from file pages to the network stack. On high-bandwidth connections it is able to seed at 3 times the speed of the official client.

There are a million more, I encourage you to explore.

B. Software you need to continue

The rest of this guide assumes you have EVERY piece of the following software installed. If you don't have it, get it.

Nero Burning ROM, version 6.6.0.1 or later. Note that the version that I am using is 6.6.0.1, and Nero 6 Ultra Edition is generally regarded as a better version than Nero 7, so consider getting Nero 6 once you're done, I can send you the install file via email or IM.
WinRAR, or if you use OS X, UnRARx.
Alcohol 120% or DAEMON Tools. For the purposes shown here I will be showing you how to use it with DAEMON Tools, as DAEMON Tools is freeware, and Alcohol 120% is not.
DVD Decrypter or AnyDVD.
An antivirus program such as Kaspersky.
A firewall such as ZoneAlarm/BlackIce/etc.
ACE's Mega Codecs Pack or The K-Lite Codec Pack. I personally use the K-Lite Codec Pack because it worked better for me, but it's your choice.
Firefox internet browser.
VLC Media Player. It also pairs well with the AVI Movie Player, sometimes known as the 1337Player.
PeerGuardian, PeerGuardian 2, or PGLite.
The Blocklist Manager.

Don't worry about what it does right now, just get it and install it. The most important ones off of this list are WinRAR, Nero, Alcohol 120%/DAEMON Tools, AnyDVD/DVD Decrypter, Firefox, one of the codec packs, one of the PeerGuardians, and the Blocklist Manager.

Other helpful software:

MakeTorrent. A utility for creating torrent files, by the author of the burst! client. Version 1.x of MakeTorrent was a modified version of the Python 'completedir' program with extra features. Version 2.x is a complete rewrite in Delphi.
TorrentSpy. A Windows tool which allows you to query a tracker about a specific torrent, view metadata info, check a file's hashes, etc.

[To Be Continued]

[Famas]

Great list of clients. You may also want to post this in Programming, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

[Buddhist]

C. Expectations of a responsible torrenter

EVERY BitTorrent user should always seed files 100%. That means if a file you downloaded was 700MB, you shouldn't let people stop uploading from you until you have uploaded 700MB.

NO ONE should release a password-protected .rar as a torrent. It's lame.

NO ONE should release spyware/malware containing data across the BitTorrent network, regardless of how it is labeled.

D. Tweaking your client

Probably the most common question that is asked is "How can I make my downloads faster?". I'll answer your question, and it's simple. There are 5 basic ways to speed up your connection, and i'll list them and explain.

1. Change your default port.
2. Set up port forwarding/UPnP.
3. Cap your upload speed.
4. Buy a faster connection.
5. Disable Windows Firewall.

Now for the explanations.

1. By default, BitTorrent uses a series of about 7-10 ports. BitTorrent traffic accounts for 1/3 of all internet traffic (crazy, huh?). Therefore, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) like to throttle (limit the connection) offered on the default port. The default ports are generally in the 6881-6889 or 6881-6999 range. I recommend anything above the 16000 range, but you can go as high as 65535. Within your client somewhere there is a place to set up your default port. Pick a range between 16000 and 68000 (limit it to about 10 ports, say 1860-1870), and you're done, the client does the rest. You may want to play around with the ports until you find one that is faster than others.

2. If you have a router, you have some work to do before you get the best speeds. Routers like to think they're firewalls, and so they disallow connections they don't like. If you have a broadband connection (DSL, Cable, Satellite, T1 or T3) and NEVER EVER see speeds over 20kb/s, this is your problem. The easiest solution is UPnP enabling, which is only available to people using Windows XP. Some people say it's insecure, but you needen't worry if you're running a firewall such as BlackIce or ZoneAlarm like I told you to (the Windows Firewall DOES NOT count). Some people will tell you to use the DMZ. Don't do this...it leaves you out in the open.

To set up UPnP, you need two things: 1. A client that uses it (Azureus, uTorrent, etc.), and 2. a router that allows it. You'll need to log in to your router via Firefox. Linksys routers use the address 192.168.1.1, and D-Link routers use either one of these addresses: 192.168.1.100 or 192.168.0.1, depending on the model of the router. The Linksys login is blank, and the default password is "admin". D-Link's login is "admin", and the password is blank. Check your router documentation to be sure. SOMEWHERE within the setup there will be an option to enable UPnP. On the D-Link DI-624, it looks like this. You have to check enable before it works, duh. Now you have to go into your client and enable UPnP. Azureus automatically detects and configures UPnP after version 2.2. I believe BitComet and BitSpirit do as well, and uTorrent. Some clients don't support UPnP at all.

Basically, UPnP allows the program to tell the router, "Hey, I want traffic on this port, gimme", and the router will let it happen. If you can't use UPnP, you'll have to port forward, which is a hassle, especially if you're on a local network and won't always have the same local IP address. On Linksys routers, you'll have to find the section labeled "Port Forwarding". On D-Link routers, it's under "Virtual Machine". I suggest using PortForward.com to do your port forwarding, it makes it a lot easier.

3. Cap your upload speed. I can't stress this enough. I'm glad you want to share, but do it intelligently. I'm going to teach you some math now, so try and keep up. I'll link to some more helpful things afterward.

In computers, we have bits, bytes, kilobits, kilobytes, megabits, megabytes, gigabits, gigabytes, terabits, and terabytes. Let's learn the difference.

A bit is like this: 01. A byte is like this: 0101010101010101, or 8x longer. It takes 8 bits to equal one byte. Kilo means thousand, so for a kilobit, we need 1000 bits. For a kilobyte, we need 8000 bits. Generally, you can tell which we're talking about by the abbreviation. Kb is kilobits, KB is kilobytes.

Okay, now keep up with me. EVERY time you see an advertised speed for an internet connection, it's in bits. Kilo, Mega, or Giga, it doesn't matter, it's bits. Don't ask me why, it's probably so they can stick a bigger number on it to sell more of it. Example:

My DSL connection advertises 3Mb (3,000,000 bits) downstream and 768Kb (768,000 bits) upstream. At first thought, I might think, "WOW! I can download at 3000KB! That's FAST!" But alas, I cannot. I must divide by 8. I can only download a max of 375,000 bytes a second. Divide by 1000 to get my KB, and it's 375. So on a 3 megabit connection, I can only download 375KB/s at my max. That's still pretty quick, a megabyte every 3-5 seconds or so. Will I get that kind of speed on a torrent network? Very very rarely. Why? Because almost no one has a connection that can upload that fast.

Now, how does this affect us? Think of your connection as a pipe. If you're sending 100% of your possible data UP it, can you get much down it at the same time? Of course not. Now traffic is interesting, because it doesn't equally share -- you just have to leave a little for the downstream, what you're downloading, to go as fast as possible. So to do that, you need to cap your upload speed at 80%. Go into your client settings, find your upload settings, and let's get dividing.

[To Be Continued]

[Tommy]

At 6/11/06 05:32 PM, Delrith_Ur wrote: Great list of clients. You may also want to post this in Programming, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

Nope it's fine here.
- - - -
Exellent work sir.

*bookmarks*

[Famas]

I'm not sure if you listed it in there, but there's a program that patches windows to change the number of outbound/inbound connections allowed, which drastically improves the bit rates achieved on torrents. Using it allows you to completely max out your line if there is a decent amount of seeders/peers.

[Buddhist]

If you have broadband, the most common upload speeds are 128k, 256k, 512k, 768k, or 1.5Mb upstream. So we have to find your bytes. Divide by 8, remember?

So 128k is 16 bytes, and 80% of that is 12.8. So set your upload speed to 12KB/s. For 256k, dividing by 8 gets you 32 bytes. 80% of that is 25.6, so round down to 25, and set your max upload speed to 25KB/s. For 512k, it's 64 bytes. 80% of 64 bytes gets you 51.2, and you can round down to 51 or 50, setting your max upload speed to either 50KB/s or 51KB/s. For 768k, you'll get 96 as your bytes, and 80% of that is 76, so cap your upload speed to 76KB/s. For 1.5Mb, dividing by 8 gets you 128 bytes, and 80% of that is, 102.4, so round down to 102 or 100, and set your upload cap to either 102KB/s or 100KB/s. If you use Azureus, they have an excellent Wiki guide for this. Set your upload speed to the corresponding 80% mark, or do the math to figure out your recommended setting.

4. Buy a faster connection. Broadband is expensive, faster broadband is even more expensive. Your connection can only be as fast as your account, so especially if you use DSL (like I do), buy a faster pipe.

5. Disable the Windows Firewall. It's really crappy. Anyone who really wanted access to your computer could do it with the firewall running, it's really for peace of mind more than anything else. If you've downloaded ZoneAlarm like i've told you to, you won't have any problems, as Windows lets it become the default firewall. It doesn't like P2P, and it has a nasty habit of nagging the hell out of you when it's disabled and randomly reasserting itself. Oh well, get it like I told you to anyway.

But what if I use SOCKS to access the internet?

Download SocksCap. It can be used to socksify any normal program. The complication here is that you have to give SocksCap a command line to run, and the btdownloadgui command line will be different for each torrent. One suggestion would be to setup a command line in SocksCap of btdownloadgui.exe --responsefile "c:\downloads\file.torrent" (Substitute with whatever directory you want in the command). Now, when you want to open a torrent, save it as "file.torrent" in "c:\downloads" (or whatever directory you chose) and then run the command in SocksCap.

Section 2: Recognizing File Types

There are a lot of common file types in the BitTorrent world, mainly because everyone has their own personal preference as to what programs are best. I'll go over the most common ones.

- .rar, .r00, .r01, .rnn, .001, .part1, .zip, .sfv, .s7, .tar.gz

These are all files that WinRAR can deal with for you. In most cases, you can find the file within a group that's just called ".rar" or "part01" and right-click on it, and choose "Extract Here" or "Extract to xxxfilenamexxx/", which will put the extracted file in its own folder within the existing folder. .sfv is a recovery record which can be used to repair (sort of) a broken .rar archive. If you fail to click on the .rar or the part01 file, the extracted file will be incomplete if it extracts at all. Be warned, pay attention.

- .PAR, .p01, .pnn

These are parity files, used to reconstruct any missing parts of the archive. Ordinarily you will not have to do anything with them -- they are extraneous unless a part is missing or bad, in which case the torrent's creator should have fixed the archive before distributing the torrent. If WinRAR does give you a message about a missing or corrupt part, then get SmartPAR and open the .PAR file. The program will then check all the files and recreate any missing or damaged parts. For OS X, UnRarX should also process the PAR file.

- .bin, .cue, .iso, .ccd, .mds, .mdf, .nrg

These are disc images. They can be burned to CD or DVD using any popular CD/DVD writing software, or they can be mounted to a virtual disc using Alcohol 120% or DAEMON Tools. Check out the next section for help on burning images in Nero.

- .cbr, .cbz
These are comics in a compressed archive. You can use a program such as CDisplay, a better version of the Windows Picture & Fax Viewer. For OS X, try Book Image Viewer after extracting with unrar or unzip.

- .avi, .mpg, .mpeg, .rm, .mov, .mka, .mkv

These are all movie formats. AVIs are usually DivX or XviDs, and installing the codec pack (Ace's or K-Lite) will allow you to watch them on VLC Media player or Windows Media Player, your choice.

.MPG and .MPEG are generally video CD files, super video CD files, or KVCD files. They're usually slightly lower quality than DivX/XviDs, but if you burn them using Nero's "Video CD" option, you can actually usually watch them on your DVD player. To do that, load Nero, select "CD" from the drop-down menu at the left of the wizard screen, and then select "Video CD" from the menu below. Add your .mpg and burn, it will play on your computer and should play on your DVD player. MOST legitimate releases of VCDs are in .bin/.cue format so you don't have to fool with getting the right settings.

- .rm, .mov

.rms are RealMedia files, and .movs are QuickTime video files. RMs suck, don't waste your time. .MOVs are horrible too, avoid them.

- .mka, .mkv

MKAs and MKVs are the Matroska video formats. This format is seeing increasing popularity, but I wouldn't call it mainstream just yet.

- .vob, .ifo

These are DVD movie files. If someone packages a DVD like this, they're dumb, but you can still get the movie. Check out Section 3 for more info.

- .nfo, .readme

These are text files provided by the people who package the files that tell you how to install them. They will tell you where the crack is, how to apply it, what the serial number is, etc. Windows XP tries to open .nfos with the Windows System Information Viewer tool. So, the first time you try to open one, right-click on it and select "Open With...". Select Notepad or WordPad from the list and then check the box that says "Always use selected program to open this kind of file". You can do this with any file type in Windows, although sometimes you have to hold down shift and then right-click.

[To Be Continued]

[Charlie-Brown]

- .mp3, .ogg, .flac

Obviously, these are types of audio files. If you don't know that, go back to third grade. :)

Section 3. Burning. DVDs and CDs, not yourself. Please.

A. Burning .vob/.ifo's.

To do this, open Nero Burning ROM (NOT Nero Express) and select "DVD" from the drop-down list at the top-left of the wizard screen. Then select "Video DVD" from the window below that, and click "new". Then place ALL the files into the "VIDEO_TS" folder.

- Some people will tell you to put something in the AUDIO_TS folder. Ignore them, they're dumb. The AUDIO_TS folder is for Hi-Fi audio DVDs only, so ignore it for video.

Select "burn" and away you go. The movie should play in your DVD player.

B. Burning CD/DVD image files

When the program starts the wizard opens. Choose "Open". Select "DVD-ROM (ISO)" from the side panel menu. Then after you press open, change "Filetype" to "All Files".

Navigate to the folder where the file lives, and pick the .cue, the .iso, the .mds, the .ccd, the .nrg, or whatever the filetype is. Select "OK" and the Burn Compilation window will pop up. Click "Burn", and you're done.

C. Mounting with Alcohol 120%/DAEMON Tools

This guide works almost the same for DAEMON Tools, but DAEMON Tools requires a plugin from its website in order to right-click on files. The theory is the same though, you just run the program to mount instead of right-clicking if you don't have the plugin. You can also mount pretty much any image file using Alcohol 120%. You may have to go into the "general" settings for Alcohol and associate all the image types with A120.

After you've installed Alcohol 120%, your computer will have a "virtual drive", which is basically an imaginary CD/DVD drive on your computer. It tricks the computer into thinking it has another CD/DVD drive, which you can directly mount files onto. To do this, install Alcohol 120%, restart, and navigate to the location of your .cue, .iso, .ccd, .nrg, .mds, or whatever other image file you want and right-click it. By default, A120% gives you 1 virtual drive, but you can have up to 37 seperate virtual drives, though I don't know why you would need that many.

After right-clicking, select "Mount Image", choose the virtual drive, and it'll automatically load the file. In fact, if it's software or a movie, the Windows autoplay utility will probably open and ask you what to do next, as it does with actual CD/DVD drives. To install the software or watch the movie, just double-click the corresponding image of the virtual drive in My Computer. It behaves just like a regular CD/DVD drive.

Section 4. Passwords

Passwords suck, but there's a trick. Almost every torrent site has a forum or a comments section (or both). Search and read before you post for the password. It'll probably be there.

Second, the password for most passworded files is almost always contained in the filename. For example, in the filename Aeon.Flux.DVDRip.XviD-DiAMOND.[www.descarg
asweb.net], the password would most likely be "www.descargasweb.net" (Without the quotes, of course). Thus, when you go to unpack the files in WinRAR, when it prompts for a password for that file, you would enter "www.descargasweb.net" (Again, without the quotes). Always try that before you spam a site for the password for something.

Section 5. Backing Up DVDs

There's a lot of debate on this one. If you need more help, go to The Guides section of AfterDawn.com. I'll tell you what to do, and then you can choose to do whatever you want.

You basically have two choices:

1. Nero Recode + AnyDVD
2. DVD Shrink + Nero

I'm only covering #1 because it works with all DVDs, all the time, regardless of protection scheme.

AnyDVD is a program that acts like a device driver. It intercepts the video from the DVD drive and decrypts it on the fly. Basically, for your computer, there is no such thing as a copy-protected DVD ever again (Though you could just as easily use DVD Decrypter or DVD43, but DVD43 is Windows XP and 2000 ONLY). It also silently removes CD copy protection. Now you can play any DVD (thus the name AnyDVD) without WinDVD or whatever software. WMP works fine, but I personally prefer VLC or Winamp.

Nero Recode is a program that automatically resizes a movie based on your needs. If a movie is too big to fit on a single-layer (4.7GB) DVD-R (writable DVD), it'll make it fit. And here's the trick -- almost no movies are bigger than 4.7GB. It's the extra features that nobody ever watches that makes the size so huge.

[To Be Continued]

[Charlie-Brown]

Nero Recode is in Start Bar >> All Programs >> Nero Digital >> Nero Recode. When you load it, you'll see three options:

- Recode an entire DVD to DVD

It does just as it says, making a 1:1 copy of the DVD. This is best for special edition discs or seasons of TV shows, since they really need the main menus.

- Recode Main Movie to DVD

This recodes just the main title on the DVD. Some newer DVDs are tricky and may make this not work by trying to trick the software into thinking there's a smaller video file in the main title. I don't use it, but you could. This is essentially what we'll be doing, but we'll be doing it in a different way.

- Remake a DVD

Here's our choice for now. Ignore the other options, they're not so useful to us right now.

Select "Remake a DVD", and a new window will pop up. Select "Import Title(s)". This will pop up a selection window. Navigate to your DVD drive and click it. The window will automatically update to show what's the main title and what's the other junk we don't need. If you want, you can just select a file and press the green Play button and see what the file is. "Main Movie" is always what you want, but there might be more than one listed. Preview them to make sure you have the right one. Shrek 2, for example, has two copies of the movie. They're pretty much identical except one skips about 10 minutes of the movie. You can usually tell by the duration. When you've selected it, click "Add Title" and a new window will pop up, analyzing the movie. When it finishes analyzing it, click "Finish" from the title selection screen.

Now it will open up a window that says "My Own DVD Compilation". There are four main things in this window you need to take note of:

1. Compression - If a movie is long, you can consider shrinking the quality as low as 65% (down from 100% quality) to make it fit the disc, and you'll still have great video quality.

2.Audio Tracks/Subtitles - You can leave it with what it has, or if you want to boost the compression percentage to get a better copy, you can remove what you don't think you'll use. Chances are you won't need the foreign language tracks or the subtitles (though personally I like the subtitles on).

3. How much of the DVD you've used. It is possible to put multiple titles on one DVD, but i'm not going to cover that, sorry.

4. Fit to target - By default, it's a single-layer (4.7GB) DVD. If you have a dual-layer DVD burner and you've wasted money on the discs, you can change it. You can also input a custom value if you want.

Click "Next" and select whether you want it to be burned as an image (it'll burn as an .nrg, which you can open and burn at your leisure or mount using DAEMON Tools or Alcohol 120%), save it to your hard drive (it'll be .VOBs and .IFOs, refer to an earlier portion of the guide to see how to burn them to a DVD), or to your DVD burner. If you select this option, it will copy the files to a temporary folder on your hard drive before it burns it to the DVD. Let it go, and you're done. A perfect DVD, with no advertisements, no copy protection, no areas you can't skip, and all the chapters in perfectly.

Section 7. PS2 Issues

You may be asking yourself, "Well, how can I back up a PS2 game?" I'll skip telling you to hack into your PS2 and install a costly mod chip or swap discs. I will, however, advise you to check out PS2 OwnZ.com and/or PS2 Scene and read the guides there. I will help you back up your games onto your hard drive.

All you need is DVD Decrypter (DVD43 will also work too, albeit probably not as well). Stick your PS2 game into your DVD drive and open up DVD Decrypter. Select "MODE", then "ISO", then "READ". Select a directory to save the files to on your hard drive, then click the big button with the arrow on it. Once you're done, you'll have two files saved in the folder, an .iso and an .mds. To burn, select MODE>>ISO>>WRITE, navigate to the .mds file (NOT THE .ISO, even though the .iso is the actual image), and then click the burn button. I've never had a problem burning above max speed, but some people can't even do it above 1x. I think their problem is crappy media drives. :)

Now just follow your normal procedure for playing backups, and away you go. This method doesn't work on dual-layer PS2 games, but they're so few and far between that you needn't worry about it.

Section 8. Corrupted Downloads

So you've downloaded a file, got a helluva lot of .RARs, and you're ready to extract. What? One's borked, you say? Crap. You have a couple choices:

If you have a client that allows you to pick and choose what files in a torrent you want to download, you can delete the corrupted file, open up the torrent in your torrent program, and choose to download only the borked file. It'll grab it again. If you've already removed the torrent, you can re-find it and start to DL it again.

Alternatively, you can load up the first .RAR into WinRAR by double-clicking it. Choose "Tools" from the bar, select "repair archive" and point it to the .sfv file that came with the .RAR group. It SHOULD allow WinRAR to step over the broken piece and extract. Be aware that doing this may result in losing a couple minutes of your movie, or you'll have a game/program/OS that doesn't work because some files will be missing and/or incomplete.

Also at this point, you can choose to select "Keep broken files" from the extraction screen. Again, this is NOT recommended for programs/games/operating systems, as this will cause it to be missing files and most likely not work, and if you do it to video/audio/text, it will cause it to be missing a chunk in the middle.

[To Be Continued]

[Charlie-Brown]

Section 9. Firefox And Torrents

Firefox spanks IE, there's no question about it. However, Firefox is stingy and doesn't like it when you change clients, and I told you to try and experiment with different clients (remember that in Section 2?). Lots of Firefox users eventually run into the problem of having the "OK" button grayed out when they click a torrent. And, after all, you want your client to automatically open after you click a torrent, right? Well, here's the solution, and no, I didn't discover this. It took some time to search for on the Firefox BBS Support boards. Remember how I said to search before you ask a question? Well, it works, and here's the answer:

The Bug:
When you click on a link to download the OK button is grayed out no matter what option you choose. On here for example, when I try to click on a .torrent link, it was unavailable.

Solution:
The problem lies in the MIMETYPES. Have you changed your settings as to what program opens that filetype, etc.? I changed BitTorrent applications about four or five times before I one I liked. Follow these directions:

1. Exit Firefox.
2. Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Account Name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Whatever folder(s) is/are there>.
3. Open mimeTypes.rdf.
4. Do a search for the filetype that isn't working (in this case, .torrent).
5. Delete that selection. E.g.,:

[RDF:Description RDF:about="urn:mimetype:handler:applicatio
n/pdf"
NC:alwaysAsk="false"
NC: useSystemDefault="true">
[NC:ExternalApplicationRDF:resource="urn:m
imetype:externalApplication:application/pd
f"/]
[/RDF:Description[

(Note: I have replaced all the "<>"s with "[]"s, because otherwise Newgrounds recognizes it as attempted HTML coding.)

6. Repeat until all references to that filetype (in this case, .torrent) are removed.
7. Save file, and restart Firefox.

Section 10. Protect Ya Neck

So in case you didn't know this, a lot of people don't like P2P things like BitTorrent, despite the benefits of BitTorrent, such as being able to easily distribute programs/files and save many people's precious, precious bandwith, etc. They may even try to track you down for using it, even just using it legally. These pieces of software cannot protect you 100%. Nothing can. But, they do a good job. If you cannot cope with the consequences of your own actions (if you choose to do something illegal) and get a cease-and-desist letter from Disney-Pixar or the RIAA, don't download pirated material. I'm not condoning you do it either. I find BitTorrent to be the best and easiest way to download many types of Linux and free OSes, as well as free audio, open-source codes, free videos, free text files, eBooks, various documents, and spread news fast. It's a wonderful thing, but like any things, can be used for good, and for evil. You choose at your own risk, so don't blame me. I'll explain how to use PeerGuardian/PeerGuardian 2/PGLite, so you can keep yourself out of harm's reach from all types of bad folk.

Of the three PeerGuardians, I recommend PeerGuardian2, as it has a built-in Blocklist Manager that you can configure to update as you please. All versions of PeerGuardian contain a file called "Guarding.p2p" which contains ranges of IP addresses that have been identified as being nasty. PGLite is what we're using for these instructions, but if you use PeerGuardian2, you don't need to do any of this, as it basically does it itself. PGLite runs from whatever directory you extract it to, and doesn't install into your Startbar menu.

First install the Blocklist Manager. Then follow these instructions:

Open the Blocklist Manager. Go to Tools>>Options. Select "App Locations" from the list, and then click "Enable PeerGuardian integration" and show it where your "guarding.p2p" file is. It's in the SAME directory that you installed PGLite to. Now click "Sources". You can choose as many or as few as you want. Firefox/Opera & ZoneAlarm block all the spyware anyway, and the IANA ranges aren't really neccesary either, but do what you feel like doing. Anti-P2P is a must-have. Then click "Apply", then "OK", and you're back at the main screen. Press "download lists" and you're good to go. When it's done, make sure it's finished and then choose "Export/IP Blockers/To PeerGuardian" and it will then automatically overwrite the old guarding.p2p file and replace it. Now run or restart PGLite if it was already running, and away you go.

I recommend repeating this procedure at least once a week, and that goes for PGLite users as well as PeerGuardian and PeerGuardian2 users.

[To Be Continued]

[Charlie-Brown]

Section 11. BitTorrent Vocabulary

These are some of the words you will see most often when chatting or reading about BitTorrent, or trying to configure something using BitTorrent.

- torrent

This refers to the small metadata file you receive from the web server (the one that ends in ".torrent"). Metadata here means that the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself. This is what is sent to your computer when you click on a download link on a website. You can also save the torrent file to your local system, and then click on it to open the BitTorrent download. This is useful if you want to be able to re-open the torrent later on without having to dig around to find the link again. In some uses, it can also refer to everything associated with a certain file available with BitTorrent. For example, someone might say "Yeah, I have that torrent" or "That website has a lot of good torrents", meaning there are lots of good files available via BitTorrent on that server.

- peer

A peer is another computer on the internet that you connect to and transfer data. Some people also refer to peers as leeches, to distinguish them from those generous folks who have completed their download and continue to leave the client running and act as a seed.

- seed

A computer that has a complete copy of a certain torrent. Once your client finishes downloading, it will remain open until you click the Finish button (or otherwise close it.) This is known as being a seed, or seeding. You can also start a BitTorrent client with a complete file, and once BitTorrent has checked the file it will connect and seed the file to others. Generally, it's considered good manners to continue seeding a file after you have finished downloading, to help out others. Also, when a new torrent is posted to a tracker, someone must seed it in order for it to be available to others. Remember, the tracker doesn't know anything of the actual contents of a file, so it's important to follow through and seed a file if you upload the torrent to a tracker.

- reseed

When there are zero seeds for a given torrent (and not enough peers to have a distributed copy), then eventually all the peers will get stuck with an incomplete file, since no one in the swarm has the missing pieces. When this happens, someone with a complete file (a seed) must connect to the swarm so that those remaining missing pieces can be transferred. This is called reseeding. Usually a request for a reseed comes with an implicit promise that the requester will leave his or her client open for some time period after finishing (to add longevity to the torrent) in return for the kind soul reseeding the file.

- swarm

The group of machines that are collectively connected for a particular file. For example, if you start a BitTorrent client and it tells you that you're connected to 10 peers and 3 seeds, then the swarm consists of you and those 13 other people.

- tracker

A server on the Internet that acts to coordinate the action of BitTorrent clients. When you open a torrent, your machine contacts the tracker and asks for a list of peers to contact. Periodically throughout the transfer, your machine will check in with the tracker, telling it how much you've downloaded and uploaded, how much you have left before finishing, and the state you're in (starting, finished download, stopped.) If a tracker is down and you try to open a torrent, then you will be unable to connect. If a tracker goes down during a torrent (i.e., you have already connected at some point and are already talking to peers), you will be able to continue transferring with those peers, but no new peers will be able to contact you. Often tracker errors are temporary, so the best thing to do is just wait and leave the client open to continue trying, but sometimes trackers are taken down completely, though this is a rare occurance.

- downloading

Means that you are receiving data FROM another computer.

- uploading

Means that you are sending data TO another computer.

- share rating/share ratio

Featured in Azureus as well as other clients, you will see a share rating/ratio displayed on the GUI panel. This is simply the ratio of your amount uploaded divided by your amount downloaded. The amounts used are for the current session only, not over the history of the file. If you achieve a share ratio of 1.0, that would mean you've uploaded as much as you've downloaded. The higher the number, the more you have contributed. The share rating/ratio is just something that is displayed for your convenience. It does not directly affect any aspect of the client at all. But in general, out of courtesy to others you should strive to keep this ratio as high as possible.

These are just the most common terms, there are many others, but for a basic BitTorrent user, this is really all you'll need to know.

And that's all. I may end up putting this into .PDF format and distributing, but I don't have a program that can write PDFs for me. :'(

[Dick-Dastardly]

Drat, forgot the last part. Forgive me.

Section 12. Some cool Azureus plugins

One of the coolest features of Azureus is that it is able to utilize plugins. Thanks to this, many programmers have came out with some nifty ones, a couple of which I will put here and describe for you.

3D View. This plugin does pretty much what the name implies, displaying a 3-D view of a torrent's swarm. This is probably one of my favorites because it provides a graphic visualization of the data being transferred among you and the connected peers. The cylinder in the center represents you, with the green and pink ones to the outside representing seeders and leechers respectively. The data you are downloading is denoted by the color blue, which you will notice flows inward to fill up your cylinder in the center. The data you are uploading, or actively sharing, is denoted by the pink "bullets" that are flowing from the center to the leechers on the outside of the ring. To rotate the 3-D view, place the mouse arrow on your screen and hold down the "left-click" button. Now simply move the arrow around to rotate the display as you please.

Progress Bar. This plugin is an easy way to see a visual download percentage in lieu of using FireFrog, for instance, and is an easy way to see the progress of your download in it's most basic form.

FireFrog. For those who use Firefox as their internet browser you are familiar with it's download manager. The FireFog plugin offers the same thing, providing a separate window that displays the status of your torrents as the data is either being leeched or seeded. As shown below, the progress bar shows the percentage of completion just as it does in Firefox's download manager. So for those who want a simple progress display to place on the desktop while doing other tasks without having to keep Azureus open, give this plugin a try.

Country Locator. This is a plugin that is a default feature on some other torrent clients, such as uTorrent. It adds a column in the Azureus GUI identifying each peer's country in the details view.

Okay, i'm finished now, for serious this time.

[Guardian]

This is going to be a very useful link in the future. Thank you for the excellent information!

[API]

Very very helpful.

[UnknownFear]

Extremely useful.

Talk about your alts! xD

[Buddhist]

At 8/30/06 10:29 PM, UnknownFear wrote: Extremely useful.

Talk about your alts! xD

I only have one alt. -Dick_Dastardly- is just my friend's lazy account, and most of the time he doesn't use it so i'll ask him to post something for me. ApacheRosePeacock/Themis- is mine, though.

[Franks-BFF-80]

Are you a moron?

This guide sucks balls. Learn to write a guide.

[DaRk]

Wow, talk about helpful.

Thanks : )

[SpeedMetalSandwich]

holy shit dude...that was awesome..i understand it now

[Charged]

So, as I understand it, the people that are getting sued for piracy are the people that are uploading/sharing the copyrighted files. With BitTorrent, you're supposed to share 100% right? Wouldn't this increase your chances of getting sued? What makes BitTorrent different from say, Limewire?

[Buddhist]

At 9/1/06 04:21 AM, RyanY wrote: So, as I understand it, the people that are getting sued for piracy are the people that are uploading/sharing the copyrighted files. With BitTorrent, you're supposed to share 100% right? Wouldn't this increase your chances of getting sued? What makes BitTorrent different from say, Limewire?

Well, yes, if you're not careful and you're downloading illegal content, there's a chance you can get sued, but the RIAA has been focused mainly on the public torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, TorrentSpy, ISOHunt, etc. and focusing on shutting them down rather than go after each user like they do with LimeWire.

Also, a large portion of the stuff found on BitTorrent is legal, unlike LimeWire. Many types of Linux such as Ubuntu, Slackware, Red Hat, Fedora, Kubuntu, MEPIS, etc. are shared via BitTorrent in order to take a load off of the bandwith used on the main site. Also, many companies are starting to share movies legally off BitTorrent.

And on many sites, you only have to share 50% of what you downloaded, though it's common courtesy to share to a 1.0 ratio (100%).

[BananaBreadMuffin]

Do you know any sites that have demos through torrents? As demos get bigger and bigger, sometimes its nice to be able to torrent them.

[BlueHippo]

damn buddhist, this really is a bible of bit torrents. what a holy thread. nice work man, very useful :)

[Edward]

And the Opera web browser comes with it's own Torrent downloader as well.

[Buddhist]

At 9/1/06 04:16 PM, -Blaziken- wrote: And the Opera web browser comes with it's own Torrent downloader as well.

Yeah, only Opera 9 though, and maybe later updated versions of Opera 8. I don't know how configurable it is though.

At 9/1/06 03:35 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote: Do you know any sites that have demos through torrents? As demos get bigger and bigger, sometimes its nice to be able to torrent them.

Demos...like game demos?

I'm sure many public torrent sites have them, though I guess you could use Google to find one for that specific purpose.

I'm sure sites like Demonoid, TorrentSpy, ISOHunt, Meganova, Mininova, ThePirateBay, etc. have some, though I guess it depends on what you're looking for.

At 9/1/06 03:59 PM, Totodile wrote: damn buddhist, this really is a bible of bit torrents. what a holy thread. nice work man, very useful :)

YOU GET BACK TO BLUEHIPPO RIET NEAU

[Buddhist]

Just a note, a light update will be done to this, and will be hosted on two other sites, Minimanjapan.com and revird.org, as NG doesn't allow editing, and making a new thread would be just silly. :3

[Solidone]

I need some help with port forwarding. I follow the instructions on portforward, i just need to know what the difference between a LAN port and a public port are and which type id the port that my bit client uses. I use utorrent btw.

[deckheadtottie]

At 3/5/07 02:23 PM, Solidone wrote: i just need to know what the difference between a LAN port

Basically, a LAN port is a physical connection between you and the Internet. Usually typified by your blue Ethernet cable which you plug into the back of your PC.

and a public port

My understanding of a public port is not a physical connection using hardware, but a channel that allows connections coming into your machine.

For example, uTorrent uses the most common connetical Internet Protocols of UDP and TCP. UDP creates the tunnel for the traffic to pass though, whilst TCP is the traffic.

and which type id the port that my bit client uses. I use utorrent btw.

You'll have to open up a public port in your router. I don't know what your router make is, so I can't help you with that.

To find out what port uTorrent is using to accept connections, click:

Options > Preferences > Connections

It's next to the "Port used for incoming connections"

[Solidone]

At 3/5/07 02:50 PM, deckheadtottie wrote: You'll have to open up a public port in your router. I don't know what your router make is, so I can't help you with that.

Its a belkin.

To find out what port uTorrent is using to accept connections, click:
Options > Preferences > Connections

i did this already. Sorry i probably could have explained what i wanted to know better. I was just on my way out and didnt have time.

It's next to the "Port used for incoming connections"

I found the port that is used for incoming connections. The problem is that when i try to forward the port, the belkin site has a box to enter a Lan port and a public port. I was just trying to find out which of these i put that port number ( which i already know from u torrent) into.

[deckheadtottie]

At 3/5/07 03:37 PM, Solidone wrote: The problem is that when i try to forward the port, the belkin site has a box to enter a Lan port and a public port. I was just trying to find out which of these i put that port number ( which i already know from u torrent) into.

Oh right, I see.

Your LAN port and public port should have exactly the same values. For example, if uTorrent designated the port number 18937, you should insert that into both your LAN port and public port and click "enable".

If you don't know your LAN IP address, just go to

Start > cmd > Type ipconfig > Your IP address is there.

As mentioned before, uTorrent implements both UDP and TCP, so choose "BOTH" when it asks what type of protocol you want to use.