torrent how-to....

[realdeal]

Can anyone explain how to download these audio torrents that have been floating around here. When I click "download" on etree.org, a ready only icon pops on the desktop. Then what. So confused....any help would be appreciated.

[corey]

You need to get a BT client (either BitTorrent* or Azureus are most popular).
Once you download the file with the .torrent extension, you'll need to open your client, then open the torrent file.
If you use BitTorrent's client, you will be prompted about where you would like to save the files after they download.

There's not much to it, but it can be confusing if you are just getting started.
Once your download is complete, try to be courteous and leave your client running so that you are sharing with others. The more people that are sharing a torrent, the faster the download speeds will be. So if you jump on a torrent with 3 seeders, it's gonna take a lot longer than a torrent with 100 seeders.

*You can go to bittorrent.com and get the client from there.

[Angry Ewok]

Why is FLAC and Torrenting more popular than serving up, say, a zip file of MP3's? The 16-bit Bonnaroo 06 download, for example, has a 35 second clip that's a full 6 MB large... It just seems a little overkill, when you compare the quality and all...

Eager to learn.

[corey]

For the tapers, it's all about preserving the quality of their recordings. They spend LOTS of money on equipment and going to shows. Mp3s are a lossy format to begin with. If someone downloads mp3s, burns them and gives them to a friend, they are spreading a lossy copy of the show. It gets worse if someone then rips mp3s from that disc (degrading the quality even more). So it would be worse still if those mp3s were burned and traded. Make sense?
(I probably didn't word any of that correctly, but I'm trying to do it in a hurry).

Flacs are (mostly) lossles files that can be burned to disc without any loss of quality, thus keeping the trading waters clear.

Hope that makes some sense.

[Angry Ewok]

So you can actually listen to a FLAC on a CD just as easily as your standard MP3 CD? Woah.

[corey]

Nero has a Flac plugin so you don't even have to convert it to wav before burning.

[Angry Ewok]

This is completely new to me, I now feel like I have in my possession a slew of  "damaged goods" copies of several fantastic shows.

The positive of having MP3's avaliable, though, is that I'm on dialup... 80 mb per song vs. 10 mb per song...

[corey]

Mp3s are cool as long as you don't burn them and give them to a friend.  :)

...and they're obviously better for personal use as far as storage goes.

[realdeal]

Thanks corey dude, dowloading right now.

[corey]

Glad I can help...

[Jellyfish]

Fuck MP3's....... ;D

Just my opinion. ;)

[Dee.]

Hey, what else I am supposed to put on my iPod??  It's already always way too full!!!  I need more space.  An 80 GB model is coming soon, I think.  I will buy it!  :)

[Coltrane]

okay....so, since i finally have a good computer (iMac) and high speed internet, how long will the flac of Bonnaroo take, and how much room on the computer will it take up???



(don't worry....i'll be an expert soon enough!)

[corey]

It all depends on how many people are seeding it at the time. Right now, there are 42 seeders on Mark's recording, which is 970.12 MB. So it's close a 1 gig. If you you have a good connection, you should have it in less than an hour or so if I cam calculating correctly.