IDIOT'S GUIDE TO DOWNLOADING
Obvioulsy,
we do not condone the theft of copywritten material (unless it is by
Greenday) so please download responsibily (for example download stuff
that you can't buy, or try before you buy or that you have already
bought but that your physical media gets screwed up).
Why bother?
Firstly, is it worth the effort? Example: I wanted to
get the old Comic Strip Presents
comedies shown here in the 80s. I managed to download maybe half
of the episodes in varying quality from crap to watchable but no better
and then happened across a new release on
Amazon.co.uk of the full box set, 9 disks in total, for under £26
delivered
to my door. So much easier than downloading I can tell you.
So, how to do it
Anyway, when I have needed something I can't buy, my chosen method has been to use UseNet
(newgroups or whatever you want to call it).
What you need
1. Some software, most of it free, where it isn't free it is useful anyway for other tasks
2. A decent broadband link. A 2meg link will take 2hrs to
download a decent compressed XVid version of a DVD (about 1.5Gb) which
will then need to be converted to DVD format (if you want to watch it
on DVD, or no conversion if you want to watch it on your PC), the same
link will take 6
hours ish for a DVD that has already been compressed to fit on a DVD5
(4.7Gb disk) or double that for one that hasn't. For faster or
slower links just multiply up or down as appropriate.
3. A news server - your ISP may offer this
already (mine does and is pretty good too but
FreeServe/Wannadoo/Orange have just dropped this as it costs quite a lot to
provide the service). If not you can use a 3rd party one. http://usenetserver.com/ seems to get good
reviews and is not badly priced. Interestingly you can test it for 3 days
for 3 usd
Find what you want
A service called www.newzbin.com indexes all of the files
uploaded to public newgroups. Others are available (Newzbin have recently
suspended new members to maintain quality of service). You need to subscribe
(it costs something like £1 a month) and you can look at the index and then
download a NZB file, a sort of parameter file that lists all of the
attachments that make up the post you want.
Download
Load this NZB into another natty bit of software called GrabIT (http://www.shemes.com/)
and it will go and get all the files neccessary (once you have told
GrabIT what your news server is called and what you logon details are).
Use the download
Typically a download will be made up of lots of archive parts in
RAR format so you need WINRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/ or some other tool that extracts RAR files) to extract the content. Also, the
files can get damaged and so postings also include PAR files. Before you extract the archive use QUICKPAR (http://www.quickpar.org.uk/) and it will check the RAR files are ok and, if not, use the PAR files to correct it.
Does it fit?
Normal pre-recorded DVDs are on 9Gb disks, shop bought
blanks are 4.7Gb (although you can buy dual layer that hold 9Gb but
they are expensive). So, if you have downloaded something that is
in DVD9 format you need to compress it. Lots of complexities here
but DVDShrink (http://www.dvdshrink.org/) seems to be pretty good. If you are just copying a
shop bought disk then you will probably hit other problems with
encryption - look elsewhere for the answer to this.
Use what you have downloaded and extracted
A few options here (assuming they will fit on your blank disk)
1. IF when extracted you have a folder called VIDEO_TS with VOBs and
IFOs and other files THEN use Nero/Nero Express to "burn DVD
files". Put these on disk and sorted.
2. You have a ISO file. This is an image of the DVD and again Nero can burn this
3. Some other option (and there are loads). You will have to sort these as you come to them.
In summary
Hardly
a doddle is it? So, if you can buy the orginal then do
that. eBay or Amazon or any number of places can help here.
If you are still stuck earch on Google Groups and you will find the answer.
Good luck.