Bit torrent how to

[tomEisenbraun]

OK, I have never downloaded any of these, but i would love to and have no clue where to start. What do I need to download and where would i get it? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[corey]

go to www.bittorrent.com and download the software (client).

Depending on where you get  your show from, there should be a FAQ somewhere on the page... on most of them at least.

Once you install the BT software, go to the site that has the torrent on it. Click on the torrent link. Once you have downloaded the file, open it. Your BT client should open and ask where you want to save the files.
Once your download is finished, you should get a program called Flac Frontend http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html. I'm pretty sure that it comes with Winamp that will play the files on your computer...
You can use Flac Frontend to decode the files to wavs for burning...or you can get a Flac plugin for Nero if you use it.
Please keep these things in mind:
If you are starting to download a torrent that hasn't been running very long and doesn't have many seeders, it will take quite a while. You have to be patient. The more people that are seeding, the faster your download will be...
which leads me to this. Once your download is done, please leave your client running instead of closing it. This will help other people out. At least keep it open for a day or so if possible.

[EC]

Or you can just get your friends who know how to make sense of ANY of that to upload it to your ftp!  :)  (eh?)

[Specialist]

thanks for explaining olwiggum, i just got my first show (M. Ward's Bonnaroo set)

[tomEisenbraun]

which FLAC front-end should i download if I'm runnin a mac OS X system?

also, how long do these normally take to convert?

[tomEisenbraun]

ah ok, a good tip for anyone using a Mac with tiger. the xACT front-end is pretty much the only one tat will work with Tiger.

[corey]

Riny, can we tack this? There are a bunch of folks that have asked about what to do with torrents since the new shows have gone up.
Thanks!

[Man_of_few_words]

MacFlac should work as well.

[tomEisenbraun]

I could never get MacFlac to work. I would click on the decode button and it would pop up the decoding box, but it would just sit there and the bar wouldnt move and it wouldnt respond, so I'd have to force quit.

[tomEisenbraun]

Also, which is better to decode to? AIF or WAV?

[Man_of_few_words]

For a Mac, AIFF is the way to go.

By the way, did you drag the files into MacFlac and then try to decode?

You should also set up a folder on your desktop for the files before you decode(with MacFlac that is)>

[tomEisenbraun]

yeah i did. I dragged each one individually. And there was no pronounced error, it just stalled out for an unnecessarily long amount of time. So i just went with xACT, which has been hassle free and has decoded thre shows for me super quick

[fitzcarraldo]

Thanks for the tips!

[jonjon]

How does keeping the client assist with a quicker download? Logic (or my lack of) tells me that the more people in a file, the longer it takes to share and download. Just curious how that works?

[tomEisenbraun]

the way it works is, you download a file, then you leave the window open and people will then be able to leech off of the file because you have the entire thing and are letting people download it from you. The more people that download, the more people to host the file, so eventually you have a lot of people hosting and the download goes really quick.

[jonjon]

I'm signing up for the School Of Eisey.

Thanks for that explanation. That does make sense now.