This would help a pretty good bit just in case if BitTorrent users can't connect well within bisqwit.iki.fi's tracker. The only thing that can be done is RAR'ing the video at 100MB a piece and uploading it to megaupload/rapidshare.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of hosting TAS videos with these two sites? I know inactivity and "download-limits" are definitely two known disadvantages and what not.
They're nuisance sites that don't work without a glorified GUI Javascript supporting web browser -- I'm a big fan of turning Javascript off and I often browse from a console. Personally BitTorrent has been nothing but reliable, so I give rapidshare et al a thumbs down.
How many people really have trouble with bittorrent?
On a related note, we use archive.org for the monumental and popular videos.
Joined: 11/18/2006
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Those sites are only good for something when there's a file you cannot get any other way. With two valid and usable methods of distribution (three if you count actually watching the run on an emulator), these would add nothing but hassle, especially when the download links expire in a f***ing month.
I have major trouble with torrents. I can download a file from Megaupload or Rapidshare at about 1.3 Mbs a second. I would think Megaupload is a better choice. I can live with the download limits. Also, the download limits are only for 24 hours after downloading the last file.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
fractalwizz wrote:
I have major trouble with torrents. I can download a file from Megaupload or Rapidshare at about 1.3 Mbs a second. I would think Megaupload is a better choice. I can live with the download limits. Also, the download limits are only for 24 hours after downloading the last file.
We'd have to re-upload every movie on the site every month. I don't think that's practical.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
I have problems with torrents, and I get very slow speeds on some not-so-popular movies.
I'm totally up to upload movies on rapidshare and "refresh" them every 90 days to prevent their deletions. Maybe not all of them, but every little bit can help. The question is: once I uploaded those movies there, would someone (bisqwit?) add a link to them on the movie pages? As "rapidshare mirror" or something...
I do not want to support those annoying download sites (from now on called Download Sites) that are full of obnoxious advertisements and make you jump through tons of hoops (type captchas, wait million seconds, etc., unless you paid them to enter their elite club) before you can download what you wanted to download, in any form.
The cost sharing model of using something like Download Sites just isn't fair. We want to provide great service, and yes, although it sounds reasonable that to provide good download speeds, some money would need to be spent*, what you're not realizing is that when you use Download Sites, each downloader must pay them separately to get "premium access". With tens of thousands of visitors, that amounts to a huge amount of money (of course, not everyone pays, but then it's back to the service being annoying in the extreme, for those users). That cost model simply isn't fair. A lot of money is wasted, when that could be done more efficiently by centralizing it.
*) Even though, in theory, BitTorrent should be able to provide just as good speeds if people weren't just so eager to shut down their clients and/or ISPs so eager to collect money on running services :I
I do not want to support those annoying download sites (from now on called Download Sites) that are full of obnoxious advertisements and make you jump through tons of hoops (type captchas, wait million seconds, etc., unless you paid them to enter their elite club) before you can download what you wanted to download, in any form.
I actually like Rapidshare, and I'm sad to read this. I know it's not the best option out there, but it's really handy, especially for people who can't use Bit Torrents for various reasons (because they have a strict ISP for example), as opposed to people who don't want to use them. Also, Rapidshare changed a lot since a few months ago, there is no longer a per-IP download cap, and you don't need to enter a captcha anymore. So this leaves us with advertisement (which can easily be adblocked anyway), and some time to wait (usually below a minute anyway), but still waiting time + download time is still a lot faster than most of the torrents. Sure, the popular ones work fine, I got more than 800 kilobytes per second on the Sonic CD speedrun when I downloaded it the same day it went out. But when I try to download the Knuckles' Chaotix speedrun (for example) it finds either no peers or it goes at less than 2 kilobytes per second. I know I am the lastcomer here, and I hope you don't think I'm attacking you, but I think it's at least funny that a website focused on doing things as fast as possible doesn't consider the option to add a Rapidshare link, that would speed up things a lot. I get nothing in return by uploading the movies I have on Rapidshare, because, well, I already have them, but I'm sure that many other people would find it useful, even with the waiting time and all. And let's speak frankly, I think no one is dumb enough to click on their ads and subscribe a premium account on rapidshare, especially now that they uncapped the free accounts. 3 minutes of my time are still nothing compared to the 10 hours I needed to download some of the torrents.
For this reason, I began to upload on Rapidshare all the movies I have. Even if they're not going to get an official status on the movie pages, I will set up an unofficial mirror, and I already know that people will thank me for that.
Joined: 2/28/2006
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...
DeHackEd wrote:
On a related note, we use archive.org for the monumental and popular videos.
The emulator movie files are available here. The avis are just a silly feature... all this fuss for nothing.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
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Bisqwit wrote:
reply for pirate_sephiroth
the emulator files sometimes work.
If a video had luck manipulation, those parts may not work out like the avis show.
So the run would fail and you would be disappointed.
By the way, yesterday, I used Bitlet.org to try and download an avi file. It worked.
I repeat BITLET.ORG
Joined: 11/18/2006
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moozooh wrote:
Archive.org for direct downloads. No disadvantages compared to download sites. Problem solved.
Quoted for reinforcement. Many of the older runs on the site have linked .avi files on archive.org, and it works perfectly, without having to go through the crap that Rapidshare presents with.
I'm looking at the download stats for the movies I uploaded on Rapidshare and I can tell you that some people already downloaded them, meaning that even if some of you don't like this solution for weird reasons I fail to see, some other people can find it useful as I thought.
Besides, even if you don't like it, I don't see the reason of this strong opposition. If you say "I don't think it's a good idea, I won't upload them because I don't want to waste time" I can see your point, but I took the time and the effort to do that, you had to do nothing, and now there is one more option, which is always a good thing. Seriously, it's not like these link can hurt someone! Please step down and realise that some people can't use torrents! I'm helping them.
Joined: 11/18/2006
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I didn't say it was a bad idea. I'm saying there is a better alternative available than Rapidshare. I'm glad you uploaded them for others to be able to see.
Oh ok then, and sorry if I was rude in my previous post.
I know as a fact that there are better alternatives than rapidshare, but most of them cost money. This is better than nothing at least, every little bit can help!
Can't download those with javascripts disabled (I use NoScript for a reason). I can't think of *any* legitimate reason for a website to require javascripts so that you can simply download a file. They have a file, I want to download it from them. HTML has a perfectly good <a> tag for this exact purpose. What the h*** do they require javascript for?
That's just one of the stupid annoyances of those downloading sites.
On a different note: I find the "urgent seed requests" list a bit problematic: It only lists torrents based on the amount of seeders vs. the amount of downloaders. It doesn't take into account the actual speed at which data is being transferred to the downloaders. Even if there were 20 seeders and 2 downloader, that's not of much help if those downloaders are nevertheless getting 1 kB/s. This torrent will not get listed at all, even though it would urgently need seeders with better/faster upload rates.
And on the other extreme, there might be 1 seeder and 20 downloaders, and that torrent will be listed as extremely urgently needing seeders, even though the upload rate of that 1 single seeder might be 1 MB/s, so there's nothing urgent about it.
With this I don't mean to say that this should be changed, as I don't know if it's technically even possible (is it possible for a bittorrent server to know at which rate data is being uploaded to the downloaders?) What I mean is that this causes sometimes problems when trying to help:
It often happens that I check the list and see some torrent being requested with no seeders at all, or maybe just one. I start seeding it, but for whatever reason, no matter how long I seed it, none of the downloaders get a single byte from me. This happens quite often (I don't know the exact reason; sometimes this uploads at full speed to some people, sometimes it doesn't upload at all). The problem is that I'm being seen by the server as a seeder, but I might not be uploading even a single byte, so the urgency of the seeding has not changed at all, but the torrent will drop in the list (might even drop out of the list if I'm not the only seeder). It may also deter people who have automatic seeding scripts from starting to seed, as they see the torrent having seeds.
If I'm not constantly watching what happens to the torrents I'm seeding, I might be actually doing more harm than good: I'm being seen as a seeder, but I'm not uploading anything (for whatever reason). If I see that my bittorrent client is not uploading anything for a dozen of minutes, it's usually better to just stop seeding. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.
Joined: 2/15/2005
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I'm saying there is a better alternative available than Rapidshare.
Yes, it's called MegaUpload.
I too have trouble with torrents. I /can/ download them, but they take a ridiculously long time unless they're very new. Plus this rapes my internet and lags the computer that's downloading them so much that it's basically unusable for anything else at the same time other than the essentials.
Most downloading sites (including MegaUpload and RapidShare) do not delete your files for a certain time after they were last downloaded. So even if just ONE person downloads a movie every couple of months, it stays up. I've personally uploaded several files to MU over a reasonable period and nothing got deleted apart from what I deleted myself.
MU allows you to check the number of downloads for each uploaded file if you sign up for a free account. You can simply record the download counts, check a month or so later to see if there are any that weren't downloaded, and if so, download them yourself to reset the timebomb.
Edit: Also, I don't see why people are so stuck up about using Javascript. I assigned Ctrl+J to enable/disable JS, so it's hardly a problem to do that. I have to turn JS off for a certain site which lags from silly animations with it on, but everywhere else, I just leave it on and no harm is done (especially as Galeon is probably the best popup blocker ever, since all popups are opened in unfocused tabs).
they take a ridiculously long time unless they're very new. Plus this rapes my internet
I fail to see how those two things are not mutually exclusive. You complain that bittorrent downloads extremely slowly, and immediately in the next sentence you say that it "rapes your internet". Exactly how does this happen with an extremely slow download? (Wouldn't a superfast download be more of a rape of the net connection?)
lags the computer that's downloading them
Use a better bittorrent client, then. Most clients are very lightweight and don't consume almost any resources at all.
Edit: Also, I don't see why people are so stuck up about using Javascript.
Javascript in a heavily advertisement-ridden website usually means bad things. I'm not comfortable browsing such a website with javascripts freely enabled. (Even though I do so with firefox in linux, I'm still not comfortable. With IE in Windows I wouldn't even dare to go to such a website.)
Also, javascript in such a heavily advertisiment-ridden website is very rarely the *only* thing you will have to enable in order to get the file. Often you'll have to enable cookies (which you will then have to clean up afterwards) and referrers as well.
And all this for what? To get a file which you could very easily get if the website had simply an <a> tag pointing to the file, as it should. But no, that would be too easy.
I assigned Ctrl+J to enable/disable JS, so it's hardly a problem to do that.
It's not a question of how easy or hard it is to enable javascripts (it's very easy with NoScript). It's a question of why such a site would demand javascripts enabled, given that the only thing you want to do is to download a single file. That's always suspicious.
Ladies and gentlemen, bobxp presents you the worst piece of shit ever conceived. Let me tell you a story about my experience with this fabulous service.
Naturally, when following any MU download link, the site tells me the download slots for my country are already full. Like they always are. I have to remind you, I live in a damn huge country. Previously, I managed to "circumvent" this by installing Alexa toolbar for the Internet Explorer and accessing the site using this chimera. I accidentally got rid of Alexa a few weeks later during a system cleanup, and didn't grieve about it, but the story didn't end there. The last time I needed to download something from MegaUpload, I really needed the stuff that was uploaded there, so I had to switch my proxy at least six times, because — yes, that's right — the download slots for my country were fucking full. After that, the speed I got the file with was around 20 KB/s, while it's not even 1/15 of my general download speed. That was the last time I ever dealt with this crap.
I mean, Rapidshare is grossly inconvenient, but this is something not even worth mentioning at all.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 3/14/2008
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No, the best "download" site is Filedropper ( http://www.filedropper.com ), which i think doesn't require javascript, there are no wait times, or codes to enter, hardly any ads, just click on the button to download.
My last two cents on this topic that was somehow dug up after sitting in dust... It is no big deal to re-host full-length 60 fps speedruns on most storage-based sites outside the BitTorrent protocol and outside this site. And I am deeply sure that ISP's are doing everything they can to put limits on any high-speed connections that they know we work real hard for and actually pay quite a bit for.
Some of us pay a lot of money for bandwidth and data traffic and we still get hosed with such problems ranging from firewalls, to proxies, to port-forwarding, to infamous NAT error messages - WTF?! Does that look simple to any of you?
To me, a DSL connection (at the least) and the highest down and up rates I can get, is all it should take! Not everyone wants to get too geeky with a bunch of bittorrent crap that I am deeply sure NOBODY[/color] wants to know or even hear about!
The Internet should be known for straight-up simplicity, and so are the most common protocols that stand behind it. But it's only the dumbest people in this world that would defame such simplicity and make us feel bad. Personally, I think that is unfair. "We work hard for the best, we deserve the best." And trust me when I say that.
