Hey, David! Is This What Torrents Are All About?

Downloaded BitComet, went to IsoHunt, selected a Stacked episode, four
days later I've only got 9 MB out of 173 MB downloaded. And I'm on
hi-speed cable! If this is what you're spending a lot of time doing,

David...

That's funny. I've noticed that things frequently don't go your way.
Must be a karma thing.

David...

BTW I just tried "Stacked" episode 2x10 (the unaired one, I assume
that's the one you're downloading?) and I'm getting speeds varying
between 8 kbs and 20 kbs. That's on the low side but it should still
finish in 5-6 hours.

David...

Okay speed just went up to 35-40 kb. Just fyi I'll keep it going to see
how fast it'll finish.

Okay I searched "Stacked" on isohunt. Which one are you trying to
download? You have to look at the "age" of the torrent. Torrents don't
stay seeded ("seed" is a person sharing the complete torrent) forever.
If it's, say, 300 days old, it's probably not going to download. You
also have to look under "S" (seed) and "L" (leach, meaning people
downloading and currently not having the complete torrent) categories.
If "S" is zero then it might not download, unless the torrent is only
a few hours old, in which case seeds will likely appear soon.

David...

That one's old though has a seed so it should take a long time to
finish.

David...

It depends on the torrent. Ones that are small burn out quicker. The
big ones have a lifespan of 200-250 days.

David...

What a commendable endeavor.

looks to me like a big waste. Newer is not always better.

GarondoMarondo...

And you haven't even discovered all the spyware and who knows what
else!

Patrick Joseph Mc Namara...

Spyware comes in zip and exe files which run on their own. An AVI file needs
another program to read it. It can't contain a virus or spyware. At best one
might put the wrong title on something and pretend it's something it's not,
such as a video ad passing as an episode of Lost, but that won't actually
affect your computer. And considering that popularity relates to
propagation, a file like that likely wouldn't last long.

..
Garondo Marondo!

Patrick Joseph Mc Namara...

It depends upon how new the show is and how popular it is. I've seen speeds
about 200MB for some things. It also depends upon which version of the show
you're trying to download. Sometimes more than one person has encoded it,
and it usually varies by resolution and compression (DivX,Xvid). You need to
find the most popular one.

But the downside of Torrents are that only the popular ones are worth trying
for. Your speed is more dependant upon the number of Seeds (or people with
the show) and their speed rather than on your download speed. And it also
depends upon who is on at the time, which means time of day can affect it.
At best, a half-hour episode of something can download in less than an hour.
At worst it won't download at all.

cloud dreamer...

I use Utorrent. Got an 8 Gig file from tvtorrents.com overnight on high
speed cable.

bklyntv...

Well, YMMV. I can download an hour long episode in about 8 hours,
usually with my cable modem. Some torrents do move more slowly than

David...

That seems below average, unless you're downloading as soon as the
torrent appears so there aren't many seeds. Usually I wait until the
next day (if there's something I want to watch immediately I'll watch
it live so I don't mind waiting) and get an hour-long show in
somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes. And since speeds aren't
usually effected if I download 3 or 4 torrents at once I can get a
whole primetime lineup in under two hours.

bklyntv...

I only download when for some reason I forget to set my DVR or
something. So generally I discover it at 11 pm-ish the night it played,
find a torrent before I go to bed and it's done when I wake up. I'm
guessing 8-ish hours.

others I've noticed. But your experience is far from the norm in my
experience.