Moviethon

Online movies and video streaming is advertised as one of the features by all the broadband providers; and why not? It is quite natural to opt for watching movies online for no cost when the theatres are demanding such high amounts. If there is a movie which you missed at the theatre or do not have it on CD/ DVD or just want to watch it for free, the internet offers many choices. In fact, some of the movie studios have launched online movie portals that offer films to be watched through video streaming.

There are regular requests for understanding how to watch the latest movies or shows through the internet. So here is my attempt at summarising some of the methods for using the internet for audio/ video entertainment.


You can search and watch a streaming video at one of the following sites, to name a few popular ones:
http://video.google.com
http://www.dailymotion.com
http://www.veoh.com [may require a free divx player]
http://www.stage6.com
http://www.watch-movies.net

One can also search for videos on the net using the following google query:
-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(mpeg|avi) "[name of the movie]"

Sometimes it is preferred to download and keep a movie for viewing it at leisure. Or sometimes the internet speed might not allow for a smooth streaming of video. In such cases, one might want to download the entire movie. That is where torrents comes in.

1. Download and install a BitTorrent client. [My preference is the ultra light µTorrent - http://www.utorrent.com]
2. Go to a BitTorrent tracker site and search of the movie you wish to watch. The most popular BitTorrent trackers based on the number of torrents and users in the share are:
   • http://www.thepiratebay.org
   • http://www.demonoid.com
   • http://sumotracker.org
   • http://torrentbox.com
3. For Indian movies, one should rather visit a forum related to Indian movies like desitorrent.com or exdesi.com. Search for more such forums through google. [keywords: torrents forum desi]. The advantage of this approach is that most of these forums provide a screenshot of the movie thereby, giving an indication of the print quality.
4. The downloaded file is usually a file with .torrent extension.
5. Open the BitTorrent tracker and add the .torrent file to it. This should now start the download (and the upload). Please check the help files of the BitTorrent tracker for more details.

Tips:
- Some forums restrict downloads until certain download/upload ratio is maintained. To override this, http://www.torrenteditor.com can be used to manipulate the .torrent file.
- If there is a choice of multiple torrents for the same movie, use the one with the maximum seeders count.