Openbracket

The best way to download movies is using Bittorrent. Its basically a peer to peer (P2P) file format. You can find out more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent

Here is what you need to get started:

1. Download a torrent program. I personally use Azereus ( http://azureus.sourceforge.net/). It is the most popular. There are many others but I have not used anything else.

2. Install and setup the program. Its easy to install but can be problematic if you have a firewall/router. You will need to open some ports or re-route some ports. If you decide to go with Azureus you can find some good info here ( http://www.paulstamatiou.com/2005/10/02/how-to-configure-azureus/) and here ( http://www.portforward.com/cportsnotes/azureus/azureus22.htm). These will only need to be setup once!

3. Find the ‘.torrent’ files to download. A ‘.torrent’ file is basically just a link that will in-turn download the movie/game/album. You can find them in lots of places that mainly fit into 2 catagories, public trackers and private trackers. The public trackers are open to everyone and a little more “risky” although I use them all the time without a problem.

Public Trackers - Ratio of upload to download is not an issue here. Download (Leech) as much as you like without having to upload.

http://www.mininova.org/ (Largest online)
http://thepiratebay.org/

Private Trackers - These require registration. Just username and password, no personal information. These are closed communities and are considered safer. The ratio of upload to download is important here. You must maintain a ratio of more than 1.0 (i.e upload as much as you download). If you do not keep a good ratio you are forced to wait until you can download the latest releases. If the ratio is REALLY low you could be banned. Many times registration is capped at a certain number of users and registration is not allowed. You just have to keep checking back. It is worth it though as the download speeds and reliability are much better.

http://www.torrentleech.org/
http://www.filemp3.org/
http://www.filelist.org/
http://www.torrentbytes.net/

4. The quality of the move is important. You will notice that you can download a movie the day after it hits the theatres (usually - King Kong is already listed today) but they will be albeled as CAM. this means they will be filmed using a handheld camera and be of poor quality. There are many different formats (VCD, SVCD, CAM, SCR, TS, TC, DVDRIP) you can find out what they all mean here ( http://www.torrentleech.org/videoformats.php). For great quality go for a DVDRIP in Xvid format. Its taken from a DVD so the quality is good but its usually less that 1GB (instead of the 4GB for a usual DVD). I personally just play mine straight from the computer to the TV and do not burn them, its just easier.

Also if you want to see some screen shots of what the movie will look like before you download it, you can usually find them here (http://www.vcdquality.com/). Just make sure the title and release group matches.