Free Pony Theory ~ BroadCatching

Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1088

How-To: BroadCatching using RSS + BitTorrent to automatically download TV shows

Over the last couple week's TiVo let slip that they're going to start adding banner ads when we try to fast-forward commercials (and to make things even more annoying, Congress is considering a bill that might make fast-forwarding through the commercials on DVDs illegal). So we've pretty much decided we're not going to use a TiVo anymore and that instead we'll go with other solutions (for now) like a Media Center PC, as well as rolling some of our own ways to download TV shows. For this week's How-To we're going to show you how you can use RSS and BitTorrent to find and download your favorite shows, automatically, using free software. There are a lot of ways to do this, we cover one example that worked well for us, and there are a couple great tutorials we spotted that are basically the same but offer other ways of downloading, other plugins and more information. You can check them out here and here. If you're already a pro, be sure to post up your set up and experiences in the comments area.

http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/2...-rss-bittorrent-to-automatically/

Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1088

Bit Torrent RSS-a-riffic!

I stumbled across this post one day, about using Gmail to browse Torrent RSS feeds. This idea just blew my mind! imagine only seeing the torrents you're interested in, never again having to wade through pages and pages of irrelevant torrent files. This idea really got me going, so I kind of adapted it, making it more suitable to my own personal needs. if you've got a minute, read on, and I'll show you how to download smarter

http://iamzachforrester.blogspot....05/07/bit-torrent-rss-riffic.html

Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1088

http://importance.corante.com/archives/002378.html

First Broadcatching App Available! (And Related News)

Andrew Grumet, who has been the leader in developing BitTorrent + RSS technology, has announced the arrival of the "an initial version of a RSS+BitTorrent integration tool for Radio Userland's news aggregator" (Announcement: RSS+BitTorrent Integrator for Radio Userland). Visit the project website here: Getting started with BitTorrent + RSS in Radio [BETA]. Grumet promises to write more about the idea in the coming days and asks for bug reports, comments and etc., here.

Damn the luck! I'm not a Radio Userland user - just might have to become one.

In related news, David Shipp writes about Chris Pirillo's IT Conversations interview (Chris Pirillo: March 1, 2004) in which Chris discusses the concept of BitTorrent + RSS (Future Web). Shipp summarizes thus:

Chris goes on to talk about the fusion of RSS and BitTorrent. This is where things get interesting and controversial. BitTorrent is an excellent technology for P2P downloads, and one of it’s emergent properties is that newly available files become widely available through BitTorrent far quicker than on traditional P2P networks. The disadvantage is that users have to trawl the web for BitTorrent pointer files that direct them to the downloads. He suggests that RSS can provide the delivery mechanism for these BitTorrent links, so for example, users can be presented with links to all the new episodes of their favourite TV series. Chris steps away from the legalities of the issue, and rightly so, but highlights the concept that RSS + BitTorrent is essentially a TiVo (or Sky+ for my fellow British).

Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1088

http://guides.radified.com/magoo/guides/bittorrent/bittorrent_06.html

Blog Torrent

If you are interested in sharing your own files or in broadcatching, you should look into Blog Torrent. Blog Torrent is an open source php script you can run on your web page which is designed to help you share your files through BitTorrent. It does several things, the most impressive of which is acting as a tracker. You can run a tracker from your web site, and it's really easy to set up.

Also with Blog Torrent, visitors to your web site don't have to know anything about BitTorrent to download your files. If they don't have BitTorrent on their computer already, Blog Torrent will automatically install a BitTorrent client on their computer when they click on your download.

Blog Torrent also can supply an RSS feed. Visitors to your web site can subscribe to that RSS feed and automatically download any files that you post, creating your own broadcatching feed. Blog Torrent was designed with video weblogs in mind, but you could use it to help your readers stay current with the software you are developing or even to run a podcast.

Get Blog Torrent here.

Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 1088

http://www.hackaday.com/2005/10/1...ad-and-convert-tv-for-your-ipod/2

How-To: Automatically download and convert TV for your iPod

The good folks at Videora have recently released the Videora iPod Converter. Using this tool you can make almost any video iPod ready. They have a handy how-to for ripping and transcoding your own DVDs. Our goal is to automatically download TV using Bittorrent and convert it to an iPod friendly format saving ourselves $2.

First thing you'll need is a functional BroadCatching system using Azureus. Follow our BroadCatching How-To to set one up. The BroadCatching system will automatically download the TV programs you set.

There are two important things you need to configure in Azureus. Goto "Tools -> Options". Check the box next to "Save to default data directory". Choose a directory where you want the files to be kept while they are being downloaded. Check the box next to "Move completed files". Choose a directory where you would like your TV shows to be placed after they have been downloaded. Click "Save". Configuration of Azureus is complete.