Bit Torrent, etc

[seldear]

I'm reminded of why I opted out of Bit Torrent the first time. It's like being back on dial-up again...

Could someone technical explain to me exactly what the advantage of Bit Torrent is? Is it supposed to go faster than regular download? Or is it just the general feeling of well-being produced by being a Nice Citizen and Sharing Your Bandwidth?

Comments

[darkjudicator.livejournal.com]

The theory goes, if you're leeching from 20 people who all have limited bandwidth their bandwidth doesn't matter, yours is the only limiting factor.

This theory only works, however, if you have a really fast really stable connection and you're trying to download something REALLY popular (the number of seeds has a HUGE influence on the effective transfer rate). For something obscure or not well distributed you're better off with an old-style P2P network like WinMX.

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, as an Aussie, what's the best download rate you've ever had?

Using BT on what is claimed to be an 18Mbps connection (so says the little icon thingy in my icon tray), I'm getting 6Kbps. I don't think I've ever gotten over 25Kbp using an interruptible program like Get Right. Although earlier tonight, I did a download of caps and it managed about 100Kbps - that was using the 'download manager' of Firefox though.

I thought this was normal, until I realised that my friends in the US have been downloading items that take me 5 hours in 20 mins. It can't just be the physical distance of the line...can it?

The advantage of downloading what I'm downloading (eps that won't show in Oz for another six months and even then it's iffy) is that in the days after the eps screen, there's a lot of seeds.

[darkjudicator.livejournal.com]

I'm stuck with dialup, so no point asking me for download rates. :P

Obviously your connection is decently fast at times, if you're getting peaks of 100kBps. Given that BT seems to be the problem I'd try a new BitTorrent client first - Azureus or ABC are good. If that doesn't help then I'd be giving serious thought to changing your ISP. Even at the lowest broadband rates you should be clocking a damn sight faster than 6k, and a fast connection is no good if it's ridiculously unreliable.

I'm at home because I'm saving money. Which will no doubt end up being spent at the next Sydneysiders night anyway. You gonna be there? :)

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

I really do have to look at more ISP options. My last one wasn't bad but wasn't great either.

Currently my ADSL router is bung. I'm actually skiving off the neighbour's wireless. (Living in close quarters can be a bitch or a bargain, depending on your perspective.)

Hm. Saving money. Well, that's better than having no social life. (Like me!) Or maybe it's just that not too many of the peeps on my f-list and in my city care to hang around with me. Or they have better things to do. Quite possibly.

Anyway, enough rambling. You will be cursed graced with my presence at the next Sydneysiders meetup. virtualwolf has threatened to spam me in reminder.

My only concern is that 'Serenity' opens that weekend. And I intend to see it at least once. Quite possibly twice.

Ooh, must contact friend with whom to see it! *makes note*

[chiroho.livejournal.com]

Firstly, the speed indicated in the icon tray is not necessarily your ISP connection speed. That's usually much less. For example, I see 100.0 Mbs on my icon tray, but know my broadband connection is only 6 Mbits (note that the Mbits is not the same as Mbs in the icon tray).

Secondly, it's all about connection sharing. You download the file in pieces from all the other users you can connect to, and then assemble it on your machine. Unless there was a dedicated server out there hosting this file, it's much faster than any other download method.

Thirdly, my fastest BT download speed on my 6 Mbit broadband connection was 650+ Kbit/second. I downloaded a 350 Mb file in about 20 minutes. That was unusual though. It's much more common to get speeds in the 30s and 40s. And my Atlantis download from last night is languishing at the 1 to 2 Kbit mark.

The speed you get really depends on how fast your connection is to the other people who are downloading. So for example, if BSG airs in the US, and 60% of the people downloading it are in the UK, if you're in the UK the chances are you'll get a faster download as you'll be able to grab pieces more quickly. It's not always true, but it's fairly accurate as a general rule.

I usually find I can download BSG much faster than SG1 or SGA. And SGA usually downloads faster than SG1 - likely because more people are downloading it. The fastest show I've downloaded on average though is 24. It obviously has a much larger audience base than the SciFi shows, so that makes sense.

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

The download goes much faster on the parental network, so I'll probably be going over there later this morning to use it.

And I always find the direct-server downloads to go much faster for me.

In the meantime 98% of Atlantis downloaded...

[chiroho.livejournal.com]

I guess the problem is in finding those direct-server downloads. They just don't exist for illegal TV show downloads. For the most part anyway.

[ship-recs.livejournal.com]

I'm on a 1.5MB ADSL plan, and the highest speed I've ever gotten on Bit Torrent was 120kb/s. Normally, it's only about 30kb/s.

It all depends on how popular the file is. You might also have to open ports 6881 to 6889 on your router to get maximum download speeds.

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

You might also have to open ports 6881 to 6889 on your router to get maximum download speeds.

Any idea how to go about doing that?

[ship-recs.livejournal.com]

I used this: http://www.torrentsontpg.cjb.net/

[seldearslj.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thanks! Will check it out tomorrow. Am feeling an attack of the sleepies coming upon.

[ship-recs.livejournal.com]

PortForward.com (http://www.portforward.com/routers.htm) has instructions on how to open ports for your particular brand of router.

You can also try the Whirlpool Broadband Forum (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/).