Bandwidth disparity and maintaining ratios.

[whiteboy]

My 2 cents is that a scene released xvid is the same quality as the dvd-r. Waste of time to dload the 4 giger. Like stated before, 30 bucks on a divx player at walmart. Stoked

[haydeno]

I disagree 700mb looks like shit on a tv bigger than 30 or so inches.(even my 22" widescreen) however 1.4gb(2x 700mb) look great(personally i play off htpc via dvi to hdmi cable to 50" and its = to dvd)

[s0nuvab|tch]

Hey guys, I'm not trying to beat you guys up on your choice of format you like to download. and I appreciate all the advice given. I does seem like I'm getting a lot of flack for choosing DVDR5/9. And to answer your question about blueray/HDDVD, YES that's what I'm looking for too. So if the file sizes are 35 GB?, then so be it. What am I paying all this money for premium bandwidth for anyway?

I think this really boils down to what your final display size is and what kind of resolution it's at. Heydeno hit the nail on the head.
Think about it, it's one thing to view something on your laptop/20" desktop monitor and it's another matter all together if you're trying to fill up a 50" plasma. Every pixel counts.

After studying the vast sea of private trackers, with their corresponding 'status level', I fear that I will be sorely disappointed once I get in the door to some 'low' level tracker. It really seems to me that all the good stuff is up in the elite levels. Lossless FLAC is my music format of choice and after a recent giveaway I was unaware that that stuff seems as rare as hens teeth. Maybe I'm wrong?... I hope so.

Torrent Leech has been suggested as a starting point.
Any other suggestions for trackers?

Thanks

[Brenya]

And to answer your question about blueray/HDDVD, YES that's what I'm looking for too.

All the more power to you, then.

After studying the vast sea of private trackers, with their corresponding 'status level', I fear that I will be sorely disappointed once I get in the door to some 'low' level tracker. It really seems to me that all the good stuff is up in the elite levels.

You're right that you will be disappointed. The speed on public/semi-private trackers really sucks compared to private trackers like TL and O*nk. However, there are some quality uploads on sites like demonoid and thepiratebay. I for one have seen some bluerays on thepiratebay and some flacs on demonoid, so it's not like the public trackers are barren of quality - just speed (although that is relative depending on your connection).

Any other suggestions for trackers?

You definitely want to get into O*nk if you want lossless copies of albums. Uploaders there rip with EAC and provide cuesheets and logs - it's great. I find everything I need there.

[AugustoP]

@s0nuvab|tch
Oink (kinda hard to get invite if you're new to private trackers, though you can try) and BTMusic (that should be easier) for lossless music, HDBits (full at the moment) and BitHDTV (easy to get) for HD-video. For 30 Gb you can get 3 or 4 1080p movies, difference between Blu-ray and x264 rips is minimal. And its waaaay better than DVD.
TorrentLeech is good but everyone (myself included) seem to forget that new users can't download new torrents right away until they have uploaded 10 Gb on older ones.

[s0nuvab|tch]

Thanks guys, I definitely want to get an O*nk membership!

*an update* Got my first membership! Torrent Leech.

OMG the download speeds are insane! Totally saturated my bandwidth. Never had that happen before. My initial concern about uploading appears to be what I suspected. The problem is there's too damn many seeders! and I picked a movie that had the highest seed/peer ratio so maybe it'll be OK. I'll keep it seeding but I doubt there's anyway I will be able to get it 100%, dammit! A rookie n00b mistake picking that movie torrent for my first download. What really sucks is that damn 48hr n00b waiting period AND the 10GB upload to earn non-n00b status. ughhhh a double whammy for a new member. I'll be damn careful from now on.

I have much to learn...(go ahead and laugh lol )

[kaoblanco]

Do what's been suggested and grap just a *few* RAR parts of a high-leecher torrent regardless of whether you care about the content. Seed that up until it goes dead, then repeat with another high-leecher torrent. There will always be a few that are hot even after 24-48 hours to work with (like Manhunt 2 PAL)

Absolute no. 1 rookie mistake is to grab what you want first, or an entire torrent if more than 700-1000mb. You'll get the hang of it.

Better yet, get a full release from thepiratebay or isohunt (or any other public tracker) and then seed that on TL. Just make sure you use PeerGuardian or the like on public trackers unless you want to get served (or better yet, stay off public sites and just get releases off of usenet to seed on BT, just go to a.b.movies.divx or a.b.movies.DVDR).

[s0nuvab|tch]

*still seeding* and will continue ad infinitum...(sloooowly crawling it's way up )

I've been reading through the suggestions and have a new appreciation for all the info given.

Have been really searching & reading the forums hard!
Still kicking myself for jumping on that movie so quick, but I'll be fixing things very shortly.

Got some new questions...

@kaoblanco, or anybody that knows,
How do I grab 'just a few pieces/parts' of a torrent?
How do I find the ~.torrent file (the one that has the tracking info) when I only partially download the torrent?
What I'm trying to do is get a file from another tracker and start uploading it to my new TL account to help with my ratio.
I know they have to be identical, but I'm not sure how to add the information to the folder to make TL recognize it and start uploading it?


How the f*ck do these people get these huge 'buffers' and have such large ratios?
Sometimes even relatively new members have upped some insane GBs! in a short time.
Is that why there's so much talk about the cheating?
I mean obviously if you've got some killer upload bandwidth that helps, but how the f*ck can you get the LEECHERS to all grab your uploads? hmmm....



I'll be googlin' the 'cheating' issue, but for the sake of others searching and reading FST, could someone explain the methodology used and what cheating actually entails?

Thanks again...

[kaoblanco]

When you open a torrent file in utorrent, you're presented with a list of all the files in that torrent. Uncheck all but a few and only those will be downloaded.

To seed a torrent's content on another tracker, just DL the new .torrent file from tracker no. 2, open it, and point its download location to the same folder as the files DL'd from tracker no. 1. Provided they're identical, utorrent will verify the pieces and start to upload on the new tracker.

As for buffers, with a seedbox it's really, really easy to upload 40 or 50 gigs in a single day. These seedboxes also have very good, high level connections to the "backbone" of the net, so they appear highly desirable to leecher clients (re: a seedbox seeder client is going to get chosen over your 150 kBps line almost every single time).

That's one reason why you cannnot connect to all leechers (the two main reasons being that they either have the pieces you're offering already, or need them but can get them from a faster peer).

The other way to get leechers is to be on the torrent as soon as it goes up. If you're second or third in line on the torrent, with a wicked fast box (re: 5-6 mBps avg), then everyone joining up after you is going to need the pieces you have. Sometimes with a seedbox one can get several gigs on a tiny (re: 200 MB) torrent even before the uploader has completed 100% (this happens on Oink alot, and is sometimes considered rude when abused).

You needn't be the uploader of anything provided you're fast and quick. Just dishing around the pieces is sufficient.

Cheating is a problem, true. It's done by using hacked torrent clients that fake their UL stats (like to a factor of 10 or something). I've never used, but that's what I understand.

[Brenya]

*edit*