Need help with Torrents (again)

[eveglass]

Okay, I'm still trying to get the hang of this.

If I start downloading a torrent, and I'm not getting anything out of it: "0 seeds in 0 peers" and no download rate, is it worth it to keep it downloading in the hopes that it'll acquire peers in a few minutes or hours, or should I chuck it? What if it seems to be well-rated?

Keep in mind that I discovered tonight that my torrent program (BitTorrent for Mac) apparently will only download one thing at a time. Everything else is queued as "waiting," even if I'm not getting anything at all from the file that's supposed to be downloading but in fact is doing anything but.

Many thanks, oh Great LJ Brain!

Comments

[epa-flip.livejournal.com]

I just leave my client up overnight. That's the 'peak' time for torrents it seems.

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

I dont know your client, at home we use Transmission for Mac which we LOOOOOOVE ( me and Pierre that is lest people think I started using the royal we ).

As with any torrent it takes time for things to *warm up* and get to cruising speed as I say. Sometimes it will stay at 0 for 5 10 minutes and suddenly fire up..it beats me why.

Another thing is, if you leave something for 24hrs ( some torrents come from different parts of the world and with time you figure out which torrents come from where and when they peak up ) and you still got nothing your torrent is not good ( either because there are no seeds at all or because they are blocked. Some torrents are available but you have to be logged into some website to have access to the upload/download....then some trackers will not let you connect unless you have a ratio over 1 and so on. it LOOKS conplicated but it really isnt.
Now take into account that I only use bittorrent to tv shows, the odd movie or two and rarelly games and software. There are different "cultures'for different things.

May I know what kind of "things"you are trying to download? I might be able to give you better hints...

I really recomment Transmission thought you can download more than one file at the time...prioritise them...program one to only start dl when another is done etc...I have been downloading ALL OF DOCTOR WHO ( all of the doctors...250gigs montruousity ) for the last couple of months...prioritising the older ones first...pausing it when I am downloading a curretn tv show...etc.

Anyhow...let me know if I can help with something else!

[eveglass.livejournal.com]

I download the newest episode of Heroes once a week, usually on the Monday night it airs. I used to watch it live with Ian, but now he works until 10 (at least for a few more weeks, maybe even longer). So I (try to) download it and watch it on Tuesday with him.

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

i recommend www.isohunt.com or mininova.com.

isohunt rocks for tv shows. i also recommend, for same week tv shows torrents that have at lest 500 if not 1000 seeds. ( personnally I always get torrents in from the LOL or DIMENSION people ( you got the name in the torrent name ). Isohunt also has comments/grades by users that already finished the download so when something is bad you can see in the results list good/green comments or bad/red comments. When it doubt, go for the one with the most seeders!!!

AS someone else said, avoid just googling for them as you are opening yourself to malware, and other junk....

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

ALSO, its http://isohunt.com/ ,and ALSO isohunt is an search aggregator, it searches other websites for torrents as well.

That'll teach me to try to think before coffee

[dizietsma.livejournal.com]

http://scrapetorrent.com is my preferred torrent search aggregator.

[nilakantha.livejournal.com]

Transmission is definitely the best client for mac - you can find it on versiontracker.com. Where are you downloading the torrent files? Some sites are a waste of time.

[eveglass.livejournal.com]

Cool. I'll check into it.

Usually I just Google what I'm looking for, such as: Heroes S03E06 torrent and see what comes up on the search results page. Can you recommend a site?

[blackpaladin.livejournal.com]

http://www.mininova.org/

[nilakantha.livejournal.com]

http://eztv.it/ - it has all the US shows, (and a lot of Canadian, British and Australian ones) the morning after. I've been using this site for over a year it's very reliable. No joining required, just click on the episode and the torrent will download. Sites for other than TV shows: www.mininova.org, www.thepiratebay.org.
You should be careful of just googling stuff because there are a lot of torrents and programs created by anti-piracy outfits out there - either malware or duds that simply don't work so that you will give up on the whole bit torrent thing.