Author Topic: Has PGC considered Bittorrent for media downloads? (Read 8138 times)

ruby_onix · « **on:** May 15, 2004, 05:57:43 PM »

Just a random thought.

PGC seemed to take a pretty good pounding around E3 (not that I'm complaining). Peer-to-peer systems like Bittorrent might be able to help out. I know there will always be some people who will try to beat the system and sneak out after they download all that they want, without uploading their fair share in return, but hey, some people helping out with the uploading should be better than everybody just leaving the effort all up to PGC all the time, right?

Of course, PGC seemed to be getting hit the hardest at the start of E3, when there was just "news" not "downloads" available yet, but making the media a little easier to upload can't hurt, can it?

I dunno. I'm not an expert on P2P systems or anything, but I just figured it can't hurt to ask (unless I just keep writing and writing), and there's a chance that using some kind of P2P system hasn't ocurred to you yet.

Pale · « **Reply #1 on:** May 15, 2004, 06:23:07 PM »

I think next e3, all of us forum dorks with servers should donate a bit of space...

Any large files could be dispersed among us so each of our servers just took hits from one file.... I dunno...just a thought..

RickPowers · « **Reply #2 on:** May 15, 2004, 08:27:50 PM »

We did this once. It was a miserable failure for the most part.

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #3 on:** May 15, 2004, 10:02:24 PM »

Bit torrent downloads are generally very slow- great at reducing bandwidth strain, but way too slow for people who don't have the trained patience one must generally have when downloading things with it. Besides, as slow as PGC did get, the site never went down for me, which impressed me (and they didn't even go to a "skinny" site for E3). Overall I'd say PGC did quite well, and the sacrifices that would have to be made switching to bit torrent wouldn't be worth the benefit.

Bloodworth · « **Reply #4 on:** May 16, 2004, 12:09:24 AM »

Actually, the media is hosted on a different server, and as far as I can tell, it kept running just fine.

Infernal Monkey · « **Reply #5 on:** May 16, 2004, 01:29:12 AM »

Trying to get a file using Bittorrent is a VERY slow, horrible experience on 56k. ;__;

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #6 on:** May 16, 2004, 06:33:08 AM »

I actually get very fast speeds with Bittorrent, but you'll alienate those 56k like Infernal... ;___;

Pale · « **Reply #7 on:** May 16, 2004, 07:32:27 AM »

Yeah the site stayed up fine for me over e3, it was just quite slow. My only gripe was that it was too slow for impatient me to participate in the forums because that takes so many page loads. As far as just news is concerned, PGC did an awesome job.

Ian Sane · « **Reply #8 on:** May 17, 2004, 02:54:02 PM »

I was pretty pleased with the speed of PGC this E3. It was much faster than previous years. The forum was pretty much wanged on Tuesday but after that it was slow but still pretty usable. One possible idea in the future is during E3 to make it so no new users can sign up for the forums and the forum is only visible to existing users. That way lurkers won't be sucking up the bandwidth and the regulars can still talk about E3 stuff. I think that would be a good midway point between leaving everything running and turning off the forums outright.

RickPowers · « **Reply #9 on:** May 17, 2004, 06:26:03 PM »

Not going to happen. Lurkers read see ads too.

S-U-P-E-R · « **Reply #10 on:** May 17, 2004, 08:18:59 PM »

I think Rick is referring to the time we tried circulating media on Kazaa. BT by contrast is awesome, and has done a fantastic job of eating all of my hd space for animu^_^ and oc remixes and stuff porn. But yeah, our media server holds up just fine, but if it ever gets crunched, I'd be all for it.

Quote
Bit torrent downloads are generally very slow

lies

Pale · « **Reply #11 on:** May 18, 2004, 03:57:19 AM »

Uhmm did you guys do something to the media server? The ToS screens this mornign absolutely FLEW down the pipe.... Fastest I've ever seen on the site... Literally NO wait times...

Caliban · « **Reply #12 on:** May 18, 2004, 04:00:37 PM »

I can understand the complaining, about Bittorrent, from the 56k users but when the complaining comes from DSL or Cable users then in all honesty you really have no patience. Also, some of you should be aware that some BT sites, and some BT clients keep track of each users transfer ratios and so if you do not share properly they will cut you on speed also. One more thing, if you have your firewall up then you will certainly have low download speeds which has happened to me before so I had to shut it off.

I myself have never had any problems with BT what-so-ever, which explains why I had to get a 2nd hard-drive. In fact, I've had such good experiences with BT that I made myself learn how to create a BT file, how to set up a tracker for it and any other BT file. It's quite easy and I've put some BT files up to share, unfortunately my maximum upload speed is 40Kb/sec.

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #13 on:** May 18, 2004, 04:08:56 PM »

Quote
I can understand the complaining, about Bittorrent, from the 56k users but when the complaining comes from DSL or Cable users then in all honesty you really have no patience.

Caliban, I get excited if I get over 3 Kb/s on a bit torrent download (generally it's somewhere between 0 and 1 Kb/s)- I routinely get download rates in upwards of 125 Kb/s on normal downloads with my DSL connection. Am I really being THAT impatient?

KnowsNothing · « **Reply #14 on:** May 18, 2004, 04:15:57 PM »

Well, MC, do you have a firewall or a router or any other internet protection device? That could be the problem...that was MY problem.

I generally don't get the best DL speeds......perhaps I should seed more and see what happens....

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #15 on:** May 18, 2004, 04:47:10 PM »

I'm on a router now, yes, but even when I wasn't I got similar download rates with bit torrent. And it;s not because I don't share, either- I leave my transfers open for hours upon hours after they're finished (usually because I don't realize they're done).

Caliban · « **Reply #16 on:** May 18, 2004, 05:37:21 PM »

Ok, perhaps I should have put it in other words other than impatience. I apologize for that as I didn't know you had such a problem in having some really small download speeds, but I know that there are people that complain even if they are doing downloads at speeds higher then 50Kb/sec.

Mouse_clicker, what BT client are you using? I used to use the official client(Bitconjurer) and I had low download speeds so I decided to use another client(BitTornado) which has been very useful because I can at least control the upload speed.

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #17 on:** May 18, 2004, 05:41:58 PM »

On my old computer (hooked directly up to the modem), I used the official client. On my new computer (connected to the modem via a wireless network) I use BitTornado. That might be why downloads go so slow for me- I was using the official, slower, client when I wasn't hooked up to a router and I'm hooked up to a router now that I use the faster client.

It's still slow, though.

Caliban · « **Reply #18 on:** May 18, 2004, 05:52:16 PM »

LOL. That is really one big headache you have there, eh? I might be able to help you but not today. Tomorrow I will gather all possible info on what effects can a router do when using BT and of course how to eliminate those problems.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #19 on:** May 18, 2004, 06:29:04 PM »

Ah, your problem mousie is one KN and I always used to complain about...You need to open ports 6881-6889 through your router's config to fix your speed problem... ^_^

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #20 on:** May 18, 2004, 06:32:45 PM »

Heh- seeing your guys' avatars next to eachother is freaky.

Anyway, thanks for the help, guys.

ruby_onix · « **Reply #21 on:** May 18, 2004, 06:44:06 PM »

I'm not a big user of any of the P2P programs (I'm not that big on mp3s, and have more legit games than I can play right now, so I don't really need to pirate them), but by my experience, Bittorrent is a lot more effective than something like Kazaa.

With the Kazaa-type system, your entire HD (or whatever portion of it) is shared, and no one file seems to take priority over another. Now that'd be fine for most of us PGCers, as we'd have mostly PGC stuff in our shared folders, but when a common-type person comes along, they'd ask for a PGC video, we'd give it to them, and then their system would "pay it back" by giving some of their bootleg Metallica and porn to the great and flowing sea of people asking for bootleg Metallica and porn. PGC gets nothing out of the contribution (aside from maybe the incrementally easier access to you-know-what)

Bittorrent is very specific and focused. One file. That's it. The one you're asking for is the same one you're giving out in payment. It means that when you have something really popular, there's an availability explosion of it on BT, but once that's died off, it's dead. Getting older "niche" stuff on BT is half impossible, because nobody else is downloading it.

Personally, every time I've used BT for something popular (coughPGSMcough), I've seen download speeds that completely blow away anything I've seen anywhere else. Actually, the biggest complaint I've heard about Bittorrent is that it causes some people's computers to restart. Do you know why? Supposedly, if the download speed gets extreme enough, your computer (depending on a lot of factors) might "crap itself" and force a restart. People just never saw that happen before Bittorrent.

Anyways, I've got an obvious suggestion. How about the next time a video someone likes gets updated (PGC just keeps doing business as usual), one of the first people to download it (who knows how) gets to make a torrent, upload it to something like SuprNova, and post it here. As long as nobody changes the filename, anyone who downloads the video from PGC can automatically become a "seeder", so you don't have to worry about "racing anyone" to make a torrent. We'll see how it works out. If PGC's still doing what they're doing, then 56kers have nothing to worry about, and PGC's servers might get some relief.

The only real catch is that I'm not sure if we're allowed to do that. SuprNova is chock-full of all sorts of illegal stuff. So I don't know if we're actually allowed to even speak of them.

S-U-P-E-R · « **Reply #22 on:** May 18, 2004, 07:30:41 PM »

Dude, we wouldn't need a middleman or site like suprnova, we could just seed it from our own machines and throw the torrent file up on the site.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #23 on:** May 18, 2004, 11:28:55 PM »

Mouse: You're loading the wrong files. Depending on the file I can get 50kb/s constant, which is more than I get off most http/ftp servers.

S-U-P-E-R · « **Reply #24 on:** May 18, 2004, 11:52:12 PM »

50, more like 150 kb/s

News:

Author Topic: Has PGC considered Bittorrent for media downloads? (Read 8138 times)