01.01.08
Free TV Shows with BitTorrent - a How-To
Miss an episode of your favorite show? Unable to see Flight of the Conchords without HBO? The TV thing is pretty cool, but it’s a little more “underground”. You’ll need a little software to get started.
1. A BitTorrent client. This is the program that will do the downloading. Torrents work by downloading little pieces of large files from lots of different computers on the net.
http://download.utorrent.com/1
2. The proper CODECs to be able to view the videos. CODECs are like magic decoder rings that tell your computer how to interpret the various way in which video is encoded. The best thing to use for this is the CCCP, available at the following address:
http://cccp-project.net
Next, you need to find the Torrent files that will tell your client how to download things… The best site for this is The Pirate Bay (TPB):
http://thepiratebay.org/tv
There are also movies, programs & now music on TPB… Basically you just look for what you want & then download it. Speeds will vary based on how many other people have the file that you want available for download; some are really fast, others will take a while.
There are even ways to subscribe to RSS feeds of the shows you like, so that they’ll automatically be downloaded whenever there is a new episode. Pretty crazy.
There is a way that you can burn these to a CD or DVD for playback in your standard player (so that you can watch it on your TV instead of your PC)… I haven’t really done that though since I’ve got a pretty big monitor. Search the net or check out the software that came with your DVD ROM.
One final note is that since this is kind of the underground of the internet, you should have an up-to-date virus scanner running on your computer. 
If you don’t have one you can get one for free here:
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/
have fun!