BitTorrent 101 - Sharing Live MusicAlso see BitTorrent 101 - Seeding ShowsHere's how Wired magazine explained BitTorrent (or Bit Torrent, or just BT):
The general idea of BitTorrent is this:
BitTorrent FAQsWhen you want more information than is discussed below, here are some FAQs which describe BitTorrent in more detail:BT HQ FAQ Brian's BitTorrent FAQ etree BitTorrent wiki page mooter's Guide to BitTorrent BitTorrent = downloading + uploadingBitTorrent software. You'll need specialized software - often called a BitTorrent "client" - to use the .torrent files to download the music files. The FAQ links above have lots of options. It's your choice, but a few popular options are:
Also, a BitTorrent "swarm" is just a group of users running a single torrent - using their own ISP upload and download bandwidth - so you can't expect crazy fast speeds. If you're downloading as fast as you are uploading, on average, that's enough. Speeds vary a lot depending on how many users are in a swarm, how many of them have the complete show, and how fast everybody's connections are. In fact, since BitTorrent runs on everyone's slower upload bandwidth, your real concern should be making the most of your upload bandwidth. Restarting a torrent. In general, it's fairly simple to restart a torrent. This can be useful to finish downloading a show, or to help share a complete show you have. Just double click on the torrent again. When the BT program starts and asks you where to save the files, point it to the folder that has the folder for the show in. (So if it's in D:\Torrents\Beck 2005-01-17\, point it to the D:\Torrents folder.) The BT program should recognize what you've already downloaded, and resume downloading and uploading. Some programs will re-check (or test) the files again, depending on the settings you have chosen. Finishing a download. As noted, BitTorrent breaks the files up into pieces and reassembles them to make complete files. Often bits of each file are still needed until very close to the end of your download, so you won't have any usable files until BT tells you that you have completed 100% of the download. So you won't be able to listen to or decode the files until then. Some programs, like Azureus, do have a way to prioritize the downloads of single files, so you can get a complete track and listen to it before the whole show is complete. Erratic speeds. Each torrent and swarm is different, and varies over time. So you won't get consistent speeds using BitTorrent. But if you find your downloads and uploads are very erratic, or your ability to use the computer for web surfing or other uses slows to a crawl, it might be that your upload bandwidth is getting overloaded or "saturated." You need to reserve some room for communications overhead. Try capping your upload bandwidth at 90% or 95% of the maximum for your connection - sometimes performance will improve dramatically. (Just remember to get your bits and bytes right. 8 bits = 1 byte, so a 1500 down / 350 up kilo bit per second DSL connection = 187 up / 43 down kilo Bytes per second.) Different percentages work better on various systems and connections, so - as with all this stuff - experiment some to find what works for your setup. Finally, you don't want to be one of those people downloading or uploading 20 shows at a time. Allow enough bandwidth to finish the shows in a reasonable amount of time. Compressed audio files (flac, shn)Audio files are usually shared in lossless compressed formats. Compression reduces the size of the files to cut the download and upload time. "Lossless" formats like flac or shn let you re-create an exact copy of the original files - no data has been removed to compress the files. (This is different from "lossy" formats like mp3 and mp4/iTunes.)Decompressing flac and shn to wav files. You need to convert flac or shn to wav in order to burn to CD audio discs (or use the Nero or Plextools plugins to decode and burn in one step):
If you get errors in trying to convert a file, run the torrent again and have it test whether you really got to 100%. (You may need to force a re-check if you've set it to resume automatically.) If you're the only one having trouble converting the files, you probably need to run the torrent longer and get to 100%. Playing compressed files from your hard drive. You can also play flac and shn files from your hard drive on your computer using WinAmp - that's handy for listening to stuff right away, sampling single tracks downloaded with Azureus, or seeing if you want to burn a show to disc. But you need the right "plugins" for WinAmp to decode the files: - Flac frontend will install the plugin if you have WinAmp installed on your computer. Or, if you want just the plugin, download this zip file from the Rarewares lossless page - you want the little "in_flac.dll" file, currently version 1.1.2.. Unzip and copy the file into your WinAmp\plugins folder, then restart WinAmp. - For shn, get the shnAmp plugin The free lite version of WinAmp 5 works fine for this. Mac users who want to play files from their hard drive might try MacAmp Lite or videolan media player (for flac, and a lot of other audio and video formats). Burning programs. If you use Nero, there are plugins for flac, shn and other formats that will burn without the decoding step - only recommended for faster computers. If you have a Plextor drive, PlexTools also just added the ability to burn flac as audio without separately decoding files to wav. As always with CD burns ... be sure that you're burning at a speed your rig can handle - a speed that keeps the buffer pretty close to full during the whole burn. Lossy compression. Keep in mind that iTunes (mp4 or aac format) uses a lossy form of compression - much like mp3. It's useful for keeping a much smaller version of a file on an iPod or a hard drive - but some of the audio data is discarded to get smaller file sizes. Don't burn those to CD audio disc and then share them - share lossy compressed files only in the compressed format (mp3, mp4, etc). And note that - iTunes will use lossy compression on all CDs you burn unless you change the default settings. - If you decompress then recompress using lossy compression, the quality is reduced again, often significantly. Another reason to keep lossy files in their compressed format, and not decompress them. Firewall and router setupSoftware firewalls. You should use a software firewall if you're using BitTorrent. But you need to set it to allow incoming connections - it's essential to getting decent upload and download speeds. It's usually not hard to get a software firewall set right - it can be as simple as telling the firewall to allow your BT software to make both outbound and inbound connections. In some programs, like ZoneAlarm, allowing an outbound connection requires the BT program to have permission to "access the internet"; and allowing an inbound connection requires the BT program to have permission to "act as a server."See this link for a discussion of why you need to get your firewall and router set properly. Note that when BT talks about you being "firewalled", it means your setup is not allowing inbound connections from other computers to your computer. BT can work using only outbound connections, but not nearly as well as with both outbound (or "local") and inbound (or "remote") connections. If you use XP, the firewall is on by default - so you may have a firewall on blocking inbound connections without knowing it. Hardware firewalls and routers. Things get complicated if you have a router, especially if you have more than one computer attached to it. Most routers have a firewall built in, which blocks most attempts to make an inbound connection to your computer. You'll need to tell the router to use "port forwarding" to forward inbound connections on the port(s) that BT is using to the right computer. If you have more than one computer, you'll probably need to use static local IP addresses on the computers that are running BitTorrent. (If you let your router automatically assign IP addresses to the computers, as most do by default, those local IP addresses may change after restart your systems.) Also, note that if you are running BT on more than one computer on a local network, you'll want to forward a different range of ports for each computer, to keep their BT traffic separate. The definitive way to tell if your router and firewall are configured properly to allow inbound connections (aka "get the green light") is to use natchek If you need info on a specific router or firewall, you can sometimes find the information on how set your specific router for use with BitTorrent at the manufacturer's technical support site. There are also details on how to set up a variety of routers and firewalls at portforward.com, which should address most of your questions; and at this Broadband Reports FAQ on Direct Connect, which is a program that's similar to BT in that you want to allow inbound as well as outbound connections. Try following the instructions for your router or firewall, but instead of using the DC port numbers, use the BT ports (usually 6881-6889 - though for many people, all you really need is 6881, at least for starters). What that means is also discussed at this router settings page and at the BT FAQs above. ISP issues. You can always find someone using your internet service provider (ISP) who is successfully using BitTorrent. So ISP issues are normally not the cause of you being firewalled, especially if you haven't been an active uploader before. Some ISPs will cap your uploads and downloads if you use it more than they like. Optimum Online is known to do this. However, ISP port blocking is a myth, and it's easy enough to change the default ports for BitTorrent if you like. The major exceptions might be business or university networks - some of those do block various connection types and/or ports known to be used by file sharing programs. Some only allow traffic on certain commonly used ports, so that only the type of traffic they want to permit can get through. None of this is an excuse for not doing your share of sharing, though. Where to find torrents for live music - audio and videoYou can find torrents and other users looking to share live shows, and in some cases more info on BitTorrent, at these sites: You can also often find trackers that focus on a specific music group at the message boards for that band - for example:
Other BitTorrent links"official" siteSmiler's links Other info and file formatsvideolan media player is freeware, available for almost every OS and plays flac as well as an amazing range of audio (except shn) and video formats, including discs; files on your hard drive; and (often) disc images.Two good sources of info on video-related topics: videohelp.com and doom9.org BroadbandReports aka DSLReports is a great source of info on broadband connections (DSL, cable, etc.) If you see a DVD with files with MDS, IO1, IO2 ... extensions - Windows users can burn that with ImgBurn; choose Mode, ISO, then open the MDS file and choose Burn. Mac users can use Split & Concat to turn those files into an ISO disc image file (read the fine print about getting an ISO extension!). That can be burned with Toast (Copy, Image as source). You might see rar files - a general compression format, like zip. See rarlab.com for a free trial of WinRar, for Windows. For Mac, MacPar Deluxe handles rar and par files. Windows file extensionsOne of the unfortunate default settings for Windows is that it hides file extensions (like .flac, .shn, .zip, .bat). It's easier to work with and rename files if you can see the full name.In XP (similar for other versions): - Open My Computer or any other folder - Click on Tools then choose Folder Options - On the tabs at the top, click on View then look in the list for "Hide file extensions for known types" and UNcheck this box. - Click OK. Obviously this isn't meant to cover every topic in depth; that would defeat the purpose of an introduction. So check the sites linked above, and use a Google search, for more in-depth information. It may also be useful to have a look at dimeadozen's Yahoo group links page (easy signup needed to see the page, but say no to getting the emails!). For an introduction to starting a new torrent, or "seeding" a show using BitTorrent, see BitTorrent 101 - Seeding Shows If you have constructive suggestions, please send them to contact at audiohub dot org. This page was last updated May 8th, 2006. |