The Best Private Torrent Trackers

A few people have asked me about torrenting.  They tell me about the different sites they use and generally I say to stay away from those.  I like my torrent trackers to be private and streamlined.  In my opinion, the best torrent trackers have strict rules about uploading and downloading.

Here is a short list of my favorites.  Keep in mind these are private trackers and require invites.  If you can manage to get invited in, you will be stunned by the quality of what people share.

Demonoid

TV Vault

Cinemageddon

TV Torrents Ro

Last Torrents

If you're looking to replace Oink, there is a big gazelle running around the internet.  If your really, really lucky, you may be able to catch it.

How To Copy a DVD Using DVD-Shrink.

Have you ever tried to copy a DVD to your hard drive?  Have you ever tried to put your favorite DVD on a portable device?  When you look at the contents of a DVD, you may wonder how a DVD player even knows how to play the video on your TV.  And god forbid should the thing get scratched!

The process of extracting a video from a DVD is called Ripping.  One must rip the video from a DVD and format it into one of many various video formats.  This method is also used if you wish to copy a DVD.

Wait, did you just say copy?  But isn't that illegal?

DVD manufacturers do whatever they can to prevent you from being able to copy a DVD.  They are concerned about people copying movies for friends, or distributing them on the internet.  The fact still remains, DVD's are fragile, and there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to copy them.





The How To...



1)

DVD Shrink is a freeware software.  It has gained a huge amount of users, and can be found at numerous website across the internet.  I was able to find the latest version HERE.  Once the file has downloaded, install the software onto your hard drive.

2)

The Shrink interface is simple.  The limited icons make it very easy to use.  The tricky part is knowing how to tell it where and how to store the file.  First we need to get the DVD loaded.  Insert the DVD into your DVD burner.  (I recommend this because I have run into issues when going from the copy phase, to the burn phase of DVD Shrink.  To avoid that issue, I find it is best to simply use the same drive to read and write the DVD.)  Here is an image of the main interface with nothing loaded.

Click on the "Open Disc" icon.  You will see another window pop up showing your disc drives.  Shrink will automatically detect when there is a DVD in your computer, and will show in which drive.  If you have more then one drive, you can select between drives by clicking on the drop down menu.  In my sample below, you can see that I have four disc drives.  Here I am copying "Stop Making Sense", which I inserted into my DVD burning drive.  Highlight the drive that contains the DVD and click "OK".

3)

Shrink will perform a quick analysis of the DVD, and then display the DVD structure.  The default setting is to automatically compress the DVD into a size that fits a single layer DVD-R.  Most DVD's are dual layer, so there will be some loss of quality.  At this point you can change the amount of compression by selecting and deselecting various audio tracks or subtitles, maybe some extra features.  I suggest leaving the video compression on automatic, and leave all the other features alone.  When you are satisfied with your settings, click the "Backup!" icon.

4)

Another window will appear.  This is when you choose to copy the DVD to another DVD-R, or to create a file system for you computer.  You can create a Video_TS file system, or create an .ISO file for compatibility with other DVD burning software.

To define what to do with the backup, you need to select the backup target.  To create a copy of your DVD, select your DVD burning drive.  (If you wish to create an .iso or Video_TS folder on your hard drive, choose the corisponding option listed under "Backup target".)  In the lower field you can browse your computer to choose a folder to use for temporary files, or to save your .iso if you choose that feature.  It is important to remember where you save the temporary files, because Shrink does not automatically delete them when the copy is finished. 

Note:  The "Burn Settings" tab has a feature which allows you to slow the burn speed if you are concerned about the burn quality.  The slower the burn, the better the burn.  Shrink defaults to the maximum burn speed.

Once you have set those fields, you can click "OK" and Shrink will begin to read the DVD.  You will see anther window, giving you a preview of the video as it copies to the temporary folder.  It should look something like this.  If you want to save memory, you can disable the preview.

5)

When the encoding is complete, your DVD drive will eject, and prompt you to insert a blank DVD-R.  Shrink will now burn your copy, and eject the DVD-R when complete.  The time of this process varies depending on the burn speed of your drive.  A typical copy and burn will take between 15 and 30 minutes.  Shorter if you have a 16x burn speed or higher.


After the burn process has finished, go to the folder that you designated for the temporary files and delete them.  I suggest doing this right away because the files will be upwards of 3 to 4.5 gigs.


That's it, you're done.  Your DVD copy should work in any DVD player capable of playing DVD-R's.  It will also play in any computer equipped with a DVD drive.

How to Split an MKV File.

In the past I have received much sarcasm and joking about the fact that I have a knack for guessing what is under the christmas tree.  For the past few years, my wife has taken it as a challenge to not only get something for me that is thoughtful, but to surprise me on December 25th.

This year she accomplished that feat.  She didn't have to ask any questions.  She didn't have to give me false clues.  She didn't even have to wrap the gift in an obscure box, thus camouflaging the factory package.  She did this by purchasing a BluRay machine.


What a great idea.  We've had a 720p HD tv for 3 years, it's time to fire up the HDMI.  My only concern from the beginning was playing downloaded video's.  Oh no!  All the time I spent collecting various tv shows, old movies, etc.  Will they work on the new machine?  Will I be able to pay back my huge catalog of movies?


To my surprise, the new machine worked great.  It far surpassed not only the old DVD machine, but my expectations of the format compatibility.  Soon, I was downloading all my favorite movies in 720p.  (You probably should stick to 720p, unless you want to set aside 50GB of hard drives space for a 1080p).



The How To...
 
So this is a guide for how to split an .mkv file using mkvMerge.  .mkv is the main format used for HD video.  The 720p format is gonna run between 4GB and 8GB, depending on the codec used, and the length of the movie.  Splitting that large of a file is important if you want to store the movie on DVD-R's, or if your playing files off a USB flash drive.  (My Blu-Ray has a USB port.)




1)

The first thing you will need to do is download the program.  You can download it at this link HERE, but I am also including a screen shot because it took me a second to find the actual file.  Once you click on the link, scroll to the bottom of the page. 

You want to click on the "an installer" or the "a 7zip archive", whichever you prefer.  I have highlighted the the two links in this next image.

2)

When the file is done downloading, go ahead and install the software.  Follow the on-screen directions to install MKVMerge on your hard drive.  Once the install has completed, open the program.

3)

mkvMerge is a pretty basic software.  There are only a few setting that you will adjust.  Below you will see an image of the software interface.   Click the "Add" button and select the mkv file you wish to split from your disk space.

4)


Once the file is loaded, you will notice video tracks, audio tracks, possibly text or subtitle tracks, you may even see chapter definitions.  In my sample, there is only a single audio and single video track.  I recommend deselecting any tracks other then audio and video.  If there are no other tracks, simply leave the audio and video selected, and move on to step 4.

The audio track in my example reads...
A_AC3(ID 1, type: audio) from your_video_file.mkv (C:\Users\Chris\Desktop)


The video track in my example reads...
V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC (ID 2, type: video) from your_video_file.mkv (C:\Users\Chris\Desktop)




4)


mkvMerge is defaulted to compress the audio and video.  This is where I ran into problems playing back the mkv on my Blu-Ray machine.  You should turn off this compression to reduce the chance of your player from not being able to play back your file.  Do this by clicking on one of the tracks.  (You will need to do this for both audio and video.)  When you select a track, the tabs below will no longer be grayed out.  Choose the "Extra options" tab.  Then select the "Compressions" drop down menu and choose the "none" option.

5)

Once you have set the compression for both tracks, you can move onto the split function.  Back at the top of the interface, you will see a "Global" tab. Click on that and you will see a bunch more functions, including the ability to split the file by size, or by duration.  The duration feature is useful if you want to split at a specific time (ie, between two songs from a music video, or between two scenes in a movie).

Click on the "Enable splitting...", then click the drop down menu to choose a default size.  (You can also write in any number, but it must be followed by "M").  I choose the 1000M file size because my USB flash drive does not like large files.  The 4483M option is ideal if you're only concerned about burning to DVD, but that size is too large for my USB flash drive, even though my flash drive is 16GB.

6)

Now choose the file name and destination.  This is located at the bottom of the interface.  When you're satisfied with your file name and location, click the "Start muxing" button.  A new window should appear letting you know the progress of your file being split.

When the muxing is complete, you can click "Ok" to close the status window and return to the main interface. You can then close the program or start another split.  If you wish to open another mkv, hit the "Remove All" button near the "Add" button, and the old mkv will be removed from the input files.


I hope that this is useful to someone...

About User Created

My name is Chris.  I've been sitting in front of this computer for a long time.  Long enough to recognize when it is time to start a blog.  So here I am starting a blog to try to help users increase their computer knowledge.

Recently I noticed that that I type "how-to..." often into google.  How to put an EPub on my iPhone.  How to split an MKV.  How to create an online portfolio.  How to write a blog.  Hopefully the last one will serve me well.

The thing that usually happens when I type "how-to", is that I still end up trying to figure things out on my own.  There doesn't seem to be a set way to get things done.  You may run into issues not addressed in the "how-to".

So here I am, refining those "how-to" guides.  Trying to make the answer a little easier to find, as well as some insight that may help you when you don't get the result you want.

As for the "how to create an online portfolio" search, here is the latest result of that.  Again, I figured a lot of this out on my own, so it may be a while before you see a blog entry about making a dot com.  -> CLICK <-