Summary: BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing technology.
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What is a torrent file and can it be broken down to smaller files and recorded to CDs/DVDs? |
Torrents, typically ending in ".torrent", are control files for the peer-to-peer file sharing technology called BitTorrent.
It's actually pretty cool technology that really just boils down to another way to download files. So really, you just use .torrent files to download other files.
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BitTorrent is a distributed file distribution technology. Yes, "distributed distribution". When you download a file using BitTorrent, the file is actually broken up into chunk that your BitTorrent client program then downloads and reassembles into the final file as the pieces arrive. To over-simplify, what makes it interesting are two things:
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The different chunks you download can all be coming from different machines. A BitTorrent client will connect to many other BitTorrent clients and download several chunks at once, in random order. In the long run this makes the protocol fairly efficient, and very nicely scalable - the more BitTorrent clients that are serving up a given file, the faster other clients can download it.
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As you start collecting chunks of the file, your BitTorrent client will start making those chunks available for downloading to other BitTorrent clients, and will become a part of the peer-to-peer file distribution network.
The ".torrent" file is simply the bootstrap for this whole process. You download that normally, for example in your web browser, and then it is read by your BitTorrent client. It has the information that the BitTorrent client then uses to begin to locate other BitTorrent clients that are serving up the file you're interested in.
"Torrent" is sometimes used to refer to the file being shared using BitTorrent, but a ".torrent" file is a specific file with specific information that is used to bootstrap the file download.
Note I haven't talked at all about what kinds of files are actually being downloaded. That's because the answer is "any". Typically the types of files being shared using BitTorrent are large - audio files, video files and programs. But just saying "a torrent" doesn't tell you what it is or what you can do with it.
Let's get concrete. Let's say you've discovered that some "Public Domain Movie" is available via a torrent. You download the ".torrent" file, and open it in your BitTorrent client. It then goes out to the internet, locates other BitTorrent clients that are serving up that file, and begins downloading all the various chunks until it has a complete copy of the file. When it's all done, you'll end up with something like a "PublicDomainMovie.avi" file. Or ".mpg", ".mov" or something else. What you then do with that file is up to you. Yep, you could burn that file to a CD or DVD, but that's all something you would do after it's downloaded, and has nothing to do with the fact that you got it via BitTorrent.
I don't have a tremendous amount of experience with BitTorrent clients, so I can't really recommend one over the other, but I have used Azureus successfully, and it seems to be one of the more popular BitTorrent clients. I will warn you that all of the BitTorrent clients I've seen to date are still in the "geeky" stage, meaning that they sort of assume you know what you're doing to begin with. It's not a steep learning curve, but it will seem pretty obscure at first.
Related:
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Just how long should a download take? How quickly a download takes depends on many things including the size of the file and the speed of your connection, among other things.
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Article C2564 - February 20, 2006
You need to download a program like Winrar to read your files after you download them from your bittorrent (ie. utorrent). Winrar will extract them. Then, you can use them. Enjoy. To put them onto dvd's, you need to download another program to convert the file into a DVD. I tried WinAvi and it didn't work. I am now using ConvertXtoDVD and it works great. Have fun
Posted by: sunny at December 15, 2008 2:34 PMI find checking the downloads before unpacking them with WinRar is useless. The infections are archived into an otherwise legitimate file an go undetected until unpacked.
Posted by: Joyce Mann at February 18, 2009 4:07 AMI'm curious why you would recommend a BitTorrent client that uses Adware, when there are so many other clients that are free, without adware? btw, Azureus is now called Vuse.
Posted by: Mitche at May 25, 2009 2:00 PMa great, simple to use program with FLAC files that are often downloaded with torrents to convert them to usable files is called Traders Little Helper. look for it in Google or similr search.
as to infected files in zip or rar form, Norton Internet Security 2009 which I use can scan those types of files previous to unpacking. I can't speak for other anti viral programs having that ability because I haven't tried all that many.
Posted by: jim hand at June 4, 2009 8:51 PMI ordered a disc from ebay that had daemon lite tools (4.12.2) and a winrar file. I finally figured out how to mount the images that I recieved on disc (Spanish latin america ver 3 lessons 1, 2, and 3) to the daemon and get them to work proper on my Rosetta (and yes I put the patch/hack in the rs folder so that I can use all of the lessons w/o activation. I am a computer idiot. I went to pirates bay and tried to download the torrents to the other languages and even though it said the file was like 16 gig it only took a couple of seconds and I dont know what to do. I really dont know how to get the languages I want to turn into an iso file so that I can mount it. Please help. I am a disabled marine without a lot of money. I dont get out of the house much anymore so I just try to keep my mind occupied with learning new languages. I was never trained in anything like this (damn 5711 (that was my mos)). Please someone help with detailed instructions. Or you could email me at with your phone number and I can call. I need help. If there are any Devil Dogs out there that can help I implore you do. Thank you for your time.
Posted by: Dustin Tyrrell at June 26, 2009 3:18 PMWhat does it mean when a file seems to say its seeding; but when I go into my BitClient it is really slow or is not available? I found a few file like that but found it was still downloading after several hours?? Is it my connection speed or just the availability of the files?? Just curious thanks??
Posted by: Adam Espy at September 22, 2009 9:29 PMI downloaded a 753mb movie from bittorrent & it downloaded it as a RAR file & having problems using a freware program called dvdconvert software to convert it to dvd format.
Posted by: David at October 26, 2009 3:00 AMIts all so confusing & not having mush success.
Wait i don't get this. I've downloaded bitcomet and winrar and my torrent file has finished downloading, but now it doesnt seem to be doing anything. It says uploading at 100%, but other than that it isn't doing anything, help plz. ive been wanting to download this for ages now =(
Posted by: Oscar at October 30, 2009 6:17 AMi downloaded a tv show with .torrent and evrything seemed fine but then a window popped up an said open, save or close an i chose save then it downloadid and know when it try to open it. it just tries to open in webpaige mode and then the same window comes up with save,close.....its like i saved a website not a show what should i do? btw i tried to dowload 3 times all diffrent shows but this always happens :(
Posted by: Katla at November 3, 2009 3:42 AMNote: Download only those torrent files those have many seeders and peers (swarms) associated with it otherwise u will get very slow download speed or either no downloading speed at all.
Posted by: Rock at November 20, 2009 9:46 AM