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Download via torrent??

By candtalan, 7 months ago

Hi I have just discovered Stray cinema and I think it is a really great idea. I am into open source and commons, and I notice that a lot of what I download/upload is torrented, so I was a bit surprised that the download facility was a direct download from an individual machine, and I could not see an option to use a torrent - have I missed something?
alan c

Replies

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Hi Alan, thanks for your feedback!
Agree that torrent would be a great option to download the files. To be honest it's not something I have ever done before, so any advice as to how would be helpful.
I will also look into it.

By michelle, 7 months ago

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Hi Michelle, Torrenting is a method of crowd sourcing information (for example FOSS film) for download. A file (film) or package is first 'indexed' in a certain way and the 'index' file (sort of control file) is placed in a public place for others to get and use. This control file, usually called 'the torrent' file, is then downloaded by an end user, and is used as guidance information in a program on the end user's PC called a torrent 'client' program. There are many torrent client programs to choose from, the original was Bit Torrent. When the end user's torrent client runs, it can connect over the internet with many other end users who have already completed downloading the target (film), and the torrent process controls the dividing up of the target (film) on the various PCs and the sending, and checking, of each small block of the (film)sent from someone who has the film to someone who is asking for a copy. The people who already have a copy of the (film) are called seeders and the people who are getting the download are called leechers (in the nicest possible way! )

I use torrents a lot because I am into Ubuntu (FOSS software). Torrenting itself is perfectly legal, however, like kitchen knives it is possible to use stuff for bad purposes, and the (film) industry hate torrents (because - well you might guess), but it is a good idea to use torrents for good and appropriate purposes.
To work normally, the source files(film) needs to stay available on the web - in torrenting this means that people who are 'seeding' the file need to keep their machines on enough time and over a period. Without a reliable seed then torrenting cannot work. So after an end user has downloaded, the strategy is for them to try to continue seeding, after downloading, for the benefit of the crowd. The current Stray Cinema film when zipped is approximately 4.6GB. Downloads via torrent can be stopped and started, continued, any time without problems, it is all automatic.

An obvious example of the technique would be to use one of the existing (non film) torrents of a not-too-big file. If you would like to do this - whenever - please let me know, I will help. I think I can also set up a torrent of the current film if you want, however, it is big and big files are not the easiest to start off with for novice end users.

By candtalan, 6 months, 4 weeks ago

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Thanks so much for the detailed reply. I looked into it, and uTorrent sounds like a good option, do you agree? It seems pretty straight forward to create the torrent from there. I can certainly seed the file, and make sure it's always available, but was a little worried about how big it was, as you said 4.6GB all up. I suppose it will be ok once people start seeding though.

By michelle, 6 months, 3 weeks ago

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