in which I reveal my ignorance...

[cicer]

Okay, so what exactly are "bit torrents", and how do you play them? I gather it's some kind of video file, and I found a site with a lot of anime things that I'd like to download, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing that. Seriously, no idea. I don't even know what these "torrents" are. Um, smart people? A little help for the ignorant folk?

Comments

[calendae.livejournal.com]

A torrent is nothing more than a file type that allows you to download a file (which if a video file will probably be either .avi or .mpg) using a bittorrent client. Bit torrent is a way of downloading files that depends on the number of people downloading the file at the same time. As you download, you'll also be uploading small sections to other people who are downloading the file.

So basically, you download a bittorrent client, open the bittorrent file, and connect with a group of peers that are downloading the same file as you. As you download snippets of file from that group of peers, you upload snippets for other members in the peer group. But you don't have to worry about any of that because the bittorrent client takes care of that for you.

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I see.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's not a video format - it's a way to download via peer-to-peer sharing. The torrent file is a very small file with info coded into it. You donwload that and point your BitTorrent client at it, and it reads it, then goes online and finds other people who have that file and their BT clients running, and downloads it, getting packets here and there. And while you're downloading, you're uploading at the same time - hence the "peer to peer" stuff - so the network sort of sustains itself. It's considered polite to leave your BT client open for a while after downloading the file, to allow others to download.

[cicer.livejournal.com]

Huh! Interesting. Any recommendations of sites to use/look at?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

They go up and down more times than a thing that frequently goes up and down. Here's the ones I have left in my bookmarks:

http://www.torrentreactor.net/index.php
http://www.animeforever.org/index.php?goto=archive
http://www.boxtorrents.com/index.php
http://www.anime-kraze.org/
http://www.mvgroup.org/forums/index.php? (BBC dosumentaries, mostly, tend to be really slow downloads, you need to register and log in to see anything)
http://www.bi-torrent.com/
http://animesuki.com/
http://isohunt.com/
http://www.anime-source.com/banzai/modules.php?name=Releases

As far as clients go - the original BitTorrent one is simple and to-the-point. I used to use Azureus until my ISP blocked P2P filesharing. :( Anyway, look at the torrents on the apges before donwloading - if it doesn't have any seeds, you won't get the full files - seeds are people connected who have the full file and are sharing it, leeches are those who only have part of the file. If you really want soemthing and there's no seeds, sometimes all you can do is connect to it and leave your client running every time you're online just in case anyone with it connects.