The Thornbirds

[Henny]

I was searching for a book to read, and stumbled on "The Thornbirds." I vaguely remember my mother reading it when I was a kid, so what the heck?

Wow. That seriously ended up being one of the best books I've read in a LONG time. I was entirely engrossed, from start to finish. Not only the heart-wrenching love story woven throughout, but the PAIN those poor people suffered.

And not least of all, it was very interesting from the perspective of a person whose knowledge of Australia to date was along the lines of Crocodile Dundee and The Crocodile Hunter.

So now I heard that there was a mini-series back in the day, which I would like to see. I don't think I have much hope of finding it in Jordan, so I think I will have to figure out how to download and play Divx.

[Amianthus]

Here's a link to a torrent of it:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3513390/The_Thornbirds_(mini_series_1983)

AVI format, so you should just have to double click on the files once they're downloaded.

(And if you don't have a torrent processor running, I recommend uTorrent.)

[Henny]

Here's a link to a torrent of it:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3513390/The_Thornbirds_(mini_series_1983)

AVI format, so you should just have to double click on the files once they're downloaded.

(And if you don't have a torrent processor running, I recommend uTorrent.)

Ami, my favorite genius. I downloaded a torrent utility this morning and I'm downloading it now, but it's coming down at literally 25% of the speed I know our internet is capable of. At this point, it's showing "ETA" as 5 days. WTF???

[Amianthus]

Ami, my favorite genius. I downloaded a torrent utility this morning and I'm downloading it now, but it's coming down at literally 25% of the speed I know our internet is capable of. At this point, it's showing "ETA" as 5 days. WTF???

How fast it downloads is dependent on how much bandwidth is being donated by those people who are sending you the pieces. Mark the first episode "high priority" and it will try to get pieces from that episode first. When it's complete, mark the second episode "high priority", etc. You can watch the first episode while the rest downloads.

Torrent is a cooperative processor - you donate upload bandwidth while you're downloading. When you finish downloading, you become a "seed" for the files and continue to upload pieces to others. It's considered good manners to seed to a ratio of at least 2.00 (you upload twice as much as you download). uTorrent defaults to this behavior - it will continue to seed the torrent and shut it off automatically when it reaches a ratio of 2.00.

Here's an animation showing the concept:



More information at the BitTorrent Wikipedia entry.

[Henny]

Ami, my favorite genius. I downloaded a torrent utility this morning and I'm downloading it now, but it's coming down at literally 25% of the speed I know our internet is capable of. At this point, it's showing "ETA" as 5 days. WTF???

How fast it downloads is dependent on how much bandwidth is being donated by those people who are sending you the pieces. Mark the first episode "high priority" and it will try to get pieces from that episode first. When it's complete, mark the second episode "high priority", etc. You can watch the first episode while the rest downloads.

Torrent is a cooperative processor - you donate upload bandwidth while you're downloading. When you finish downloading, you become a "seed" for the files and continue to upload pieces to others. It's considered good manners to seed to a ratio of at least 2.00 (you upload twice as much as you download). uTorrent defaults to this behavior - it will continue to seed the torrent and shut it off automatically when it reaches a ratio of 2.00.

Here's an animation showing the concept:



More information at the BitTorrent Wikipedia entry.

Thanks Ami. I was downloading all 7 episodes at once with no priority at all. Fortunately I wasn't that far into it.

[Amianthus]

Thanks Ami. I was downloading all 7 episodes at once with no priority at all. Fortunately I wasn't that far into it.

It's interesting to switch to the Peers tab and see what parts of the world are supplying your video watching needs. ;-)

[Brassmask]

Hey, Ami!

I downloaded something that is an "iso", how do I change that to a "dmg" on my mac?

[kimba1]

what other torrent programs are out there?
I know about utorrent & azerus
but whatelse?

[Amianthus]

I downloaded something that is an "iso", how do I change that to a "dmg" on my mac?

OS X is supposed to support ISO files natively.

[Amianthus]

what other torrent programs are out there?
I know about utorrent & azerus
but whatelse?

The original: BitTorrent. Here's a whole host of 'em: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_software#Applications

I prefer uTorrent because it performs some hiding of your IP address so that it's harder to track transactions back to you.

[Brassmask]

I downloaded something that is an "iso", how do I change that to a "dmg" on my mac?

OS X is supposed to support ISO files natively.

See, that's what I thought.  When I d-click on the iso, I just get an error saying that it is not a valid ISO file.

Maybe it is just corrupted or something.

I'm trying to get Rosetta Stone for French (all levels).

[Amianthus]

I'm trying to get Rosetta Stone for French (all levels).

I just snatched this torrent for French Rosetta Stone and the ISOs in there seem to mount up on my system without a hitch.

No software included, but I couldn't test Mac software anyway.

[Henny]

Ami!!! Help!!!

I downloaded The Thornbirds, but now that I've got it I only get sound. I can hear everything - music, dialogue - but no video. What am I doing wrong?

[Henny]

Ami!!! Help!!!

I downloaded The Thornbirds, but now that I've got it I only get sound. I can hear everything - music, dialogue - but no video. What am I doing wrong?

So now I've gotten to the point where I understand that I need a codec - in particular the XVID MPEG-4 codec, which is $19.00. *sigh*

[Amianthus]

So now I've gotten to the point where I understand that I need a codec - in particular the XVID MPEG-4 codec, which is $19.00. *sigh*

XVID is open source. Here's a link: http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/