Video On Demand
A few years ago we were told that we would soon be able to see movies on
demand streamed through our Internet connection. This haven't happened and
it looks like big distributors don't really want this to happen for all
sorts of reasons. Even if it is not with the explicit consent of big
distributors, movies are available on the Net from a number of alternative
channels.
The RIAA Fights Back
Many expected the RIAA to start fighting piracy with legal action to
defend their rights in early 2002, as online piracy of music and movies was
becoming increadibly widespread. For some reason, the RIAA took a very long
time to react.
Finally, in early to mid 2003, they did react. The starting point has been
the U.S. appeals court rulings requiring Internet providers to readily
identify subscribers suspected of illegally sharing music and movie files.
In June 2003 the RIAA sent millions of
cease-and-desist letters to individual swappers. In Jully 2003, the RIAA
started issuing subponeas against heavy traders at a rate of about 75
per day.
Getting the movies
- With eMule
-
Get eMule -
Install it and you're all set.
- That's it, it will work out of the box.
- With eDonkey (now considered by some to be obsolete)
-
Get eDonkey -
eDonkey is excellent file sharing software especially well
suited to when big files are involved.
-
Update your
servers list - From time to time, you might also want to
update your server list. You can download a up-to-date
server.met file from this site to replace the one you have
in your eDonkey directory.
-
eDonkeyBot -
A nice litte tool that will automatically update your
server list and tweak your donkey to make it work faster.
Filtering
Filtering the IP you do business with has become a hot subject since the
RIAA, MPAA and others have started to send threatening
letters in an attempt to prevent people from using P2P software.
What's available
-
ShareReactor -
Of course you can do a search in eDonkey, but you can
also go on the ShareReactor Web site to get a listing of the
what's available on the network. They also provide the
"eDonkey links" which contains a hash of the file so you're
sure to download the correct file (instead of a fake).
Burning
On Linux, you can use cdrdao to burn cue/bin couples, cdrecord for ISO images
and mkisofs to create ISO images. Typically:
-
mkisofs -o cd.iso -R -J cd to create an image with the
content of the cd directory (here in Joliet format with the Rock
Ridge protocol).
-
cdrecord --dev=0,0,0 cd.iso to burn the ISO image just
created (device might be different on your system).
-
cdrdao write --device 0,0,0 --driver generic-mmc cd.cue
to burn a cue/bin couple (device and driver might be different on
your system).
Playing it on your DVD
-
CDRDAO -
Software to burn cue/bin files. It works fine both on
Windows and UNIX.
-
TMPGEn -
If you have DivX, AVI or other format, you will need to convert
it. TMPGEn will convert "any" video file (provided you have
appropriate codec installed) into an MPEG file.
-
DV-Tool -
If the MPEG file it too large to fit on a CD, you can
split
it with DV-Tool.
-
VCD Help -
You will find ll the information you might possibily need about VCD
on this site.
What's Next
Jed and his team (the author of eDonkey) are working on a new network called
Overnet (previously known as Flock). Overnet is a server-less network based
on the Kademlia routing
algorithm.
