speeding up torrent downloads?

[Racer X]

Any tips or tricks? better torrent app? I have the latest TomatoTorrent version 1.5B1v18 i believe. Most of the torrents show days to completion. (one says 11 days right now)

I am trying to download a few episodes of a TV show (I have them on tape already, I would rather get a torrent.avi file than digitize myself, far less effort) and compile a DVD for work. A bunch of our products have been featured in the show, (At least every other episode in fact...) and the people at work would like copies.

[mikebw]

In my experience, torrent downloads will speed up the longer you wait, so at day 1 it might say 4 days remaining, but it might be done in 2-3 days. Of course this will vary widely, the less popular torrents may actually take forever to finish if the hosts go offline.

[ztirffritz]

I've found that if I quit the application and restart it, it will find more seeds and peers. The more seeds and peers you can find the faster the download. I've downloaded files that took days, to download. I also downloaded a torrent of Ubuntu 6.06 on the day it was released. I reached a sustained download speed of over 200 kbps, and it took less than 1.5 hours to download around 750 MB. I don't know what the exact download time was because it finished before I expected it to.

[chas_m]

[quote Racer X]Any tips or tricks? better torrent app? I have the latest TomatoTorrent version 1.5B1v18 i believe. Most of the torrents show days to completion. (one says 11 days right now)

I am trying to download a few episodes of a TV show (I have them on tape already, I would rather get a torrent.avi file than digitize myself, far less effort)
Really? Waiting as much as 11 days is "far less effort" than pulling out a TiVO like device or video cam and digitising/editing/DVDing the tapes yourself?

I mean, will anyone care about this in 11 days? If you have the shows on tape as you say, here's how to get them on DVD in a single afternoon -- multiple copies even! -- with very little effort:

1. Go to costco and buy the least expensive DVD recorder they have.
2. Make a DVD of the shows from your VCR.
3. Use Disk Utility and/or Toast to make as many copies of said DVD as you like.

I really and truly fail to see how -- even imagining that the torrent takes HALF as much time as it's saying it will now -- that my method described above isn't a) less effort, b) faster and c) more useful for future use/occasions.

[mikebw]

Good idea, downloads could be better quality than VHS, but that's a crap shoot and having a DVD recorder is a good thing anyway

[Racer X]

Thank you for your concern about my time and my clients chas, but how I run my business, and what and how I make my freebie gifts for the people I work with is my business.

hands-on time takes me away from paying gigs. hands-off processor/downloading time (especially as I have 3 Macs to work with at home) is what I prefer to concentrate on. "I really and truly fail to see how -- even imagining that the torrent takes HALF as much time as it's saying it will now -- that my method described above isn't a) less effort, b) faster and c) more useful for future use/occasions."

BitTorrent and dropping into Toast 7 is about the absolute least effort I can imagine, except maybe rubbing a magic lamp. You have a magic lamp I can borrow? Taking time out of my work day for a trip to Costco and dropping a hundred bucks (more like $200 probably, on something I don't need) isn't a decent solution under the circumstances. And 2 of the 6 torrents may be done by morning it looks like, they have sped up.


And considering that the products have been made for well over the span of a decade, a week or two won't really matter on when I make them, especially as they aren't expected any time in particular.

Thanks for taking the time to point out an alternative, but it didn't actually answer the question.

[chas_m]

Thanks MikeBW!

Seriously, who hasn't long since replaced their VHS machine with one of those S/VHS things that get better-than-beta video quality (at last)? I bought one in 2001 and they weren't new then ...

Better yet, if you're going to be "taping" TV shows on a regular basis, get a DVR/PVR (ie a TiVo like device) and a DVD recorder. GREAT way to capture TV shows with broadcast quality.

[Racer X]

no where did I say it was a VHS tape. I have 2 S-VHS VCRS. One is dedicated to ONLY record off of cable, and the second is ONLY for playback in my office into a Sony DVMC-DA1 FW DV box. The tapes are S-VHS in this case.

If I gave a sh*t I would hook up a miniDV camera or one of my Beta decks to a tuner. It just isn't justified most of the time.

[Jp!]

Good torrents are super speedy. The Mac torrent community I can get a download in seconds or a handful of minutes tops.

It usually takes me an hour or two to get about 500 MB download on normal torrents sites, though.

You have to tweak your settings.

Now, transcoding to dvd takes considerably longer. The fastest thing to do is take video OUT to a stand-alone DVD recorder.

[MacMagus]

Dropping your max upload rate by a couple of k may kick up your download rate a bit.