Downloading With Vuze- Part 2

See Part 1 here.

Hey, what’s up. Before I walk you through how to actually find the torrents you want to download, let me take a second to introduce VLC. This program is by far the best movie player you can find (Mac, PC, or otherwise). Go ahead and click through to the website and download it. To this day I have never found a video that VLC cannot play, which puts it way above Quicktime Player in terms of functionality. Seeing that you will soon come across a wide range of video extensions in your near downloading future (.avi, .mp4, .3gp, .MTS, etc etc), save yourself the time and grab VLC now!

Ok, now back to the show. On we go to our main player, Kickass Torrents. Don’t let the name fool you; this site has the latest and greatest content and is by far the easiest to navigate. The newest, most popular movies appear front and center making it simple to find something you haven’t watched:

Let’s look at an example. Say you want to download the Hangover 2. Up at the top of the screen in the search box type “The Hangover 2″ and press Enter:

Here’s what comes up. Don’t get overwhelmed with all the information on the screen. You’ll quickly get a hang of it all:

For new movies  (and popular old movies) 90% of the time the torrent you want is first on the list. The rest of the time it may be second, third or forth. If you are looking on the second or third page of results, check that you haven’t spelled something wrong. Active, legit files are rarely so far down the list. Note: this does not apply for TV shows (because of course there can be many episodes/seasons which mean that good content can go on for many pages). Take a look at the first result:

The first three headers are not very important:

• Size tells you how big the entire torrent is. Single movies can range anywhere from 400 MB-5 GB depending on the quality of the audio/video.
• Files tells you how many files are included in the torrent. Don’t be alarmed if there is more than one file when all you want is a single movie- there are often pictures or small text files with the name of the person who originally uploaded the file to Kickass Torrents (the digital equivalent to leaving a signature).
• Age is the length of time that the file has been hosted by Kickass Torrents (shortest for brand new movies).

The last two headers are key:

• Seed is the number of people who have finished downloading the file from KAT and are now also streaming it from their own computers. Cardinal Rule #1: The more seeders the faster the torrent will download.
• Leech is the number of people (like yourself) who are also downloading the file. Cardinal Rule #2: The more leechers the slower the torrent will download.

So generally speaking, if there are multiple torrents for what you need, choose the one that has the best seeder:leecher ratio. Go ahead and click on the first file name (taking note of the HUGE number of seeders!); this will bring you to the specific torrent page. One of the most important things to take note of here is the “Comments” tab on the right hand side:

Make a habit of checking the comments to confirm the quality of the torrent before downloading. The comments section gives people the opportunity to remark on the audio/video of the movie as well as any problems they may have had while downloading. You can avoid downloading crappy files almost 100% of the time by simply reading comments first!

Head back to the main page for the torrent by clicking the “Main” tab. You’ll notice that this torrent comes in many different formats (as if often the case for popular movies):

Use this bar as a quick way to jump between different versions of the same movie without having to return the the long list of search results. 1080P and DVDRIP are your best options quality-wise, but can be almost indistinguishable from 720P in most cases. CAM movies are literally recorded by amateurs using video cameras and often appear on KAT the same day as the movie is released to theater. Generally the quality of CAMs is significantly lower that DVDRIPs, but hey, you get to see brand new movies in the comfort of your own home!

And now the moment you have been waiting for:

To download the torrent file, click the small “Download Torrent” Button near the top of the page.

If you are using Google Chrome this will cause the file to be downloaded and appear at the bottom of your browser window like any other download file. If you are using another browser, the file will appear in your “download” window, or otherwise, in your main Downloads folder (which can be accessed using the Finder). Double click the torrent and it will automatically open in Vuze (the little blue frog is Vuze’s logo). Go ahead and click Library on the left hand side of your Vuze window and you should see the movie begin to download.

Good job! Now you go get a drink and wait for it to complete. Depending on the ratio of seeders:leechers downloading a movie may take anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours (Vuze will give you an estimated time of completion).

At the bottom of the screen (above) you can see the files that I have already downloaded. Let’s take American Psycho as an example. Remember that the Vuze Library only lists movie names. Specifically, it points to the actual file which is put automatically into the Documents->Vuze Downloads folder. To go to the real file (American Psycho), Ctrl-click the movie and click “Show In Finder”:

This will bring up the Vuze Downloads folder so you don’t have to go looking for it. Inside will be all of the torrents you have downloaded using Vuze:

Notice that in this case, inside the American Psycho folder there are several images from the DVD box, a sample of the video, a folder containing subtitles, and the author’s signature. The only file that is really important is the .mp4 one at the very top of the list. This is the actual movie. To play the movie you have 2 options:

1. Double click the file and hope to God that Quicktime player (Mac’s default movie player) can open the file type.
2. Ctrl-click the file, chose Open With and select VLC. This will work 100% of the time but requires an extra step. The choice is yours. If 1. does not work you and Quicktime player returns a error message saying “blah blah this file cannot be played”, you can always try 2.

And that’s basically it! You should now be able to download movies from torrents using Kickass and Vuze. 

A Note about Sharing:

You’ll notice that after a file is finished downloading it will move into your Library and start “Seeding”. This means that you are now helping others to download that file by “hosting” a small part of it over your internet connection. It’s a common courtesy to let the files you download seed for a while to pass on the Peer2Peer love. However, if you are on limited bandwidth, it is worthwhile to note that seeding can eat away at your monthly allowance.

To stop a file from seeding, select it in you Library and then click the stop button at the top of Vuze. But don’t forget, give a little, take a little.

Hope you’ve enjoyed. As always, leave me comments and questions below.

Downloading With Vuze- Part 1

Hello. I have been asked to do a short tutorial on how to use Vuze to download movies on a Mac. Part 1 will guide you through downloading and navigating through the torrent client. Part 2 will guide you through finding and downloading torrents. See Part 2 here.

First, download Vuze. It is small piece of software that makes downloading movies, music, and really anything else you can think of very, very easy. The free version is fine for the purpose of the tutorial (it’s what I use!).

After clicking the free version link, (and if you’re using Google Chrome) you’ll need to click “Keep” to confirm the download.

Open up the .dmg file to begin the installer either by clicking the file at the bottom of your browser/download bar or by searching for it in your Downloads folder (open a Finder window, look for Downloads on the left hand side under PLACES then locate the .dmg file).

Double click the Vuze installer that should have opened from the .dmg file.

Click Open to open the application.

Click ‘I Agree’ to begin the setup.

Make sure to uncheck the check boxes on the next screen. The Vuze toolbar is a pain in the ass, I don’t recommend trying to use it.

Get another drink while you wait for the installation to complete.

Decline any recommended offers that pop up. You don’t need that shit.

Ok. So now you should have successfully installed Vuze on your Mac. That’s great. Time to get cozy with Vuze as it is the program you will be using to open and read torrents from now on.

Here’s what you will probably see when you first open Vuze (click image to make bigger):

It looks scary, but it’s not, I promise. Let’s look at what’s important. Your sidebar will not be identical because Vuze automatically looks for devices in your local network and lists them under Device Playback. So whatever is on your Wifi (neighbors, Xbox, other computers, even cell phones) may be shown on the left of your Vuze window. No worries, you won’t be needing anything under Device Playback or Subscriptions for this tutorial. Here is a closer view of my sidebar:

The most important items are ‘Library’ and ‘Downloading…’. Downloading shows you a list of all the items that you are currently in the process of downloading. This includes items that are queued for download. Library shows you both the files your are currently downloading (at the top of the screen) as well as the files that have completed (at the bottom of the screen). I recommend that you always stay in Library. Here’s what my library looks like right now:

It is very important to realize that the files that appear in Vuze’s library are only index files. They point to the location of the actual file in your computer but don’t actually take up any space. So don’t worry about filling up your hard drive because your list gets really long. Vuze just automatically keeps a record of all the files you download- this list remains intact even if you move the original file. For example, say you download a movie. Once it’s done, the movie name appears in your Vuze library. Let’s say you then transfer the movie to an external hard drive and delete it off your Mac. Even the movie is no longer on your computer, the file placeholder stills show up in the Library. If you don’t want it there anymore, it’s as easy as selecting the movie name and pressing the X button to delete it. Key point: Library stores names of files, not the files themselves.

So- hopefully you’re wondering- where do I find the files that Vuze downloads for me? Great question! By default, Vuze creates a folder called ‘Vuze Downloads’ in your main Documents folder. All files that are downloaded through Vuze will automatically be put in this folder. If for some reason this becomes no longer the default, please leave me a comment below so that I can update this tutorial.

This is the end of part 1 of Downloading with Vuze. Hopefully at this point you have successfully installed Vuze and know your way around the program Library. Part 2 will outline how to find a torrent file on the internet, load it with Vuze, and download the actual file. As always, leave questions below and I will answer them.

photos from facebook: album exporter

I really loathe facebook, so it is the ultimate irony that I am now relying on it as my only hope to retrieve lost photos. You see, all my pictures were exterminated during the infamous hard drive episode, and the only way I could think to get them back was by downloading them from my online albums, all 3 billion of them. Now herein lies my problem. There was no way that I was going to go through every photo, right click (or in my case, fake right click- stupid mac), and save picture as. Ha. Far, far too much work. Enter Album Exporter.

Album Exporter is a wonderful app that allows you to download entire albums straight from your photo collection. This is amazing. You fire up the app and a list of your albums with thumbnails appears. Then you can click on one of them, select all the photos, and click “Download this Album.” The next page is slightly misleading, and instead of receiving an inbox message I actually have to navigate to the Recently Downloaded page and manually click the zip file. The album appears on your desktop, albeit with a stunningly useless name, like “90210S31415UCKER,” which you then have to go in an change. But I can’t complain, at least I know have my pictures on my computer instead of solely on the mindless online well of stalkers and stupidity that is facebook. That is, until my mac bites the dust.