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Want to watch your favorite TV shows commercial-free, in high definition, and before they’re aired on cable?  Find out how the internet provides all!
After the dot com bubble burst a few years ago, the internet has evolved to Web 2.0 (yes, this is the actual technical and accepted term). Instead of using the internet only as a method of publishing content, the internet is now more of a platform of communication between applications. The companies that did survive the burst are ones that developed software to communicate on top of the internet, and not rely solely on publishing.

Users are no longer people but are now also applications. With this comes new and slick uses of the internet, such as BitTorrent and RSS feeds.

RSS: What is RSS? RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, and is a protocol to syndicate data easily. My blog provides this feature. If you’re using a browser that supports RSS feeds, you can add any feed to your browser for it to aggregate your data. In simple terms, your RSS reader (your browser in this case) will notify you whenever new data is available, such as a new blog post on my site.

This helps avoid the nasty hassle of running around and checking all your favorite sites for new posts, as now you can aggregate all the data into one location.

BitTorrent: Remember KaZaa or Napster back in the day? They were peer to peer applications that let you download and share music/movies/etc… with other users on the network. It was great for its time, and without it I definitely wouldn’t have all the music I have today. The only problem with those networks is that downloading large files was slow because you could only download from one source. If wanted to download a movie from someone I could only get it from one source. And unless that source had a blazing fast connection, it was generally pretty slow since it was also distributing to other users.

BitTorrent is another peer to peer protocol but it works differently. Instead, the shared file is chopped up into tiny parts. The uploader uploads these small parts one at a time to different sources, while other downloaders also share their tiny parts with other downloaders. This way, you share the bandwidth of everyone. If you’re downloading you’re also uploading what you have to others, and vice versa. This also means you can download from multiple sources simultaneously (each person giving you their small piece). And like a torrent of bits, you finally get your complete file in the end when the bits are recombined together. BitTorrent has revolutionized the way data is shared on the internet.

You’re no longer restricted by the speed of one single source, but now have the option of retrieving from multiple sources. The combined bandwidth of the whole “swarm” of machines allows for incredible speeds. Huge files, such as movies and TV Shows that were cumbersome to download, are now easily accessible. The BitTorrent community has grown so much that I can now watch my favorite TV shows BEFORE they even air on my television every week.

RSS + BitTorrent????

So what is this RSS + BitTorrent that I talk of? Well, I used to have to hunt every day for my weekly TV shows on BitTorrent. Why watch my favorite shows on TV when I can watch them in high definition and without commercials on my PC?

But I want to be lazy. There’s no denying that turning on the television to a channel is much easier than hunting down and downloading a torrent. I want my cake and to eat it too! I want to sit on my lazy butt… and just hit play. I want my weekly show to be shown in high def, with no commercials and interruptions, and I want to see them as early as I can (at least before it airs on cable).
Well, RSS comes to the rescue. Using a BitTorrent program that supports RSS feeds, I can now download a torrent automatically from an RSS feed. The program (I use uTorrent) sits there and waits for the feed to tell it that a new torrent is up. All I need to do is to give my program a list of shows I like watching, and after that one time setup it will now auto-grab them for me.
So now all my weekly shows auto-download for me. No more searching for torrents, no more waiting and scanning for when they’re released. They come in as soon as their hot off the press, and all I have to do is watch when they’re done.

Who needs cable TV nowadays?

What You Need:

It’s a lot simpler to set this up than it sounds.  First of all, grab uTorrent from the net and give the readme a quick glance over.  Then, find a good torrent site that supports RSS feeds.  Then you’re off to the races!

Depending on the torrent site you use, I usually find that the speed I get my shows is mostly limited by my internet connection.  Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2006 at 2:43 pm and is filed under G33k. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.