Tired of the measly amount of high definition content from your cable TV company? Do you not see the point of watching American Idol in 1080p? Well, if you have a broadband internet connection and a fairly recent-model computer, there’s a huge amount of content available to you, and it covers every conceivable subject.
If you’ve heard of torrents already, it was probably in the context of internet piracy. A torrent is simply a method of transferring a very large digital file (like, the size of a full-length DVD movie) in a short time. This makes it easy for anyone who can copy some digital media (copyrighted, or not) to upload it to the world wide web, where anyone in the world is then free to download it. The good news is, there is an ever-growing number of legal torrents on the web, and many of them are HD.
The two things you need to make this work are the web address of the torrent itself, and a media player that can handle torrents. The best tool going right now is a program called the Miro Player, which combines an index of popular torrent “channels” with a very user-friendly player. Most of these channels are made up of podcasts, which are videos ranging from a few minutes to a few hours in length. With an average broadband connection, a podcast generally takes about half as long to download as it does to watch. A good plan is to download while you are doing work on the computer, or while you’re out doing something else. You can download the player here for free in about five minutes: Miro Player
Miro’s website and the player itself will walk you through the installation process. Once it’s installed on your computer, if you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to connect the computer to your HDTV. You can find some tips on doing this here: connecting your computer to your HDTV
The content on Miro’s guide ranges from professional broadcasts like NBC News and National Geographic to low-budget, homemade shows covering niches with a very limited audience, and everything in between. Most is standard-def, but a steadily growing amount is in a 720p format. If you are interested in going beyond this content, however, and into the high seas of the internet where exotic digital booty and pirates abound, you’ll have to learn a little about the way torrents work.
Basically, a torrent exists when there is someone, somewhere in the world, who has a file on their computer that you want, and they make it available to the world. These people are called seeders, because they are “seeding” the internet with bits of these files. People who download files from seeders are called “leechers” because, well, they are getting something for free from the seeders. Leechers are also seeders while they are downloading, because the torrent player can use a partially downloaded file to seed for other leechers. That’s part of the magic of torrents.
So, if you’re ready to try it, go to a torrent tracker site like Mininova, and search for something you are interested in. There will probably be several versions of it, all with different numbers of seeders and leechers. The trick is to find the torrent with the best ratio of seeders to leechers, since that one will probably download the fastest. But take note: since some of the torrents on Mininova are copyrighted material (OK, most of them), you might be breaking the law by doing this. Keep that in mind.
Once you are on the page for the torrent you want, the simple way to get it into the Miro player is to right-click where it says “download this torrent”, and choose “Copy link location”. Then open up the Miro player, select “download video” from the file folder, and click OK to start downloading. The torrent world is a tricky place, though, so it might not work- try another one. Sometimes you just get what you get. And sometimes the torrent is more like a trickle.
If you are using a Mac, there’s probably a simpler way to do it, but this method works: on the page where it says “download this torrent”, copy the web address in your browser, go to Miro and select “download video”, and you should see the address in the dialog box that pops up. Change the letters “tor” in the address to “get”, hit OK, and you should be in business.
So again, be careful out there on the wild world web and be aware that just because a torrent tracker site is popular and professional looking, doesn’t mean that everything on it is kosher. The decision to use it is up to you. To be safe, stick to the Miro Guide and other legitimate torrent sources.
