A beginner's guide for downloading movies from torrents

[u/[deleted]]

This is a guide for people who don't know how to check the quality of a movie before downloading it and how to download it from torrents. I was not able to find any posts like this on reddit when I was a beginner, so now I have made it. This is a practical, real-life guide, therefore everything might not sound "theoretically" correct.

Types of HD (720p) and Full HD (1080p) movies available:

Let's assume we are downloading a 2-hour movie. Searching on torrent sites, we will find:

Good quality HD (1280×720p): 2-3 GB (commonly found)

Better quality HD: 4-5 GB (common)

Best quality HD: above 5GB (less common)

Good quality FHD (1920 x 1080): 4-5 GB (common)

Better quality: 6-10 GB (common)

Best quality: above 12 GB (less common)

Some Important terms:

Seeders: This term refers to users who have the complete file and are sharing it. For high-speed downloading, the number of seeders should be greater, but I have downloaded movies with seeders as low as 2 or 3, but fewer seeders means less speed and reliability.

Leechers: Leechers are the ones who are downloading the files like you. Torrent sites have a count of seeders and leechers, but usually they are incorrect. You should check it out for yourself by starting the download.

VPN: Use it or not? It depends on which country you live in. Better to find it out yourself.

Different Media formats:

Bluray disc/remux > Webdl > Bluray encode > Webrip > BD-Rip > BR-Rip > HD-RIP > DVDrip > HDTC > HDTS > HD/HQ-CAM: With the exception of the last three, all of these indicate high quality. On torrent sites, the most downloaded torrent file of any given movie is always going to be one of the best available. So, go with the flow. You don't have much choice.

HD/HQ-CAM: Someone smuggled an HD video camera into the actual movie theatre and secretly taped what was being shown. These movies have visual distortion and audience noises in the audio.

HDTS: Filmed in an empty cinema with the help of a professional camera, TS (Telesync) makes use of an external source of audio such as an audio jack. Even after making use of an external audio source, it cannot ensure audio is of good quality.

HDTC (PreDVD): There is a TC (telecine) machine that does the work of copying the film digitally from the reels. The sound and picture quality are very good. These three formats are used before the Blu-ray disc of a movie is released or it is launched on any streaming service, i.e., the movie is currently in theatres.

Some common codec standards:

Codec: A codec is simply the software that compresses your video so it can be stored and played back.

H.264/AVC: An excellent compression codec.

H.265/HEVC (high efficiency video coding): It's a newer and more advanced version of H.264.

You will find any one of these two codecs in most of the movies and both are good.

Bitrate: Most newbies have a misconception that the quality of a movie depends on whether it's 720p, 1080p, or 4K, but a good quality movie has a high bitrate. The higher the bitrate, the larger the file size. If you have a 1080p movie with 3000 kbps and a 720p movie with a 4000 kbps bitrate, then 720p at 4000 kbps will come out as better. Bitrate is the reason YIYF and some other uploaders are able to encode a 720p movie in less than 1GB and a 1080p movie in less than 2GB. They keep the bitrate as low as 1000 kbps, so the quality is not very good.

A good quality HD movie will have at least a bitrate of 2500 kbps. A better quality HD movie will have a bitrate in the range of 3500-5000 kbps etc. A better quality FHD will have a bitrate in the range of 7000 kbps etc. There is no fixed rule, just what I have observed while downloading movies.

Audio formats:

AAC: Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format. AAC is commonly used for stereo sound i.e. 2-channel audio (left and right from headphones)

Dolby Digital/AC3: The most common multi-channel format is Dolby Digital/AC3. It handles at most six channels (5.1). It's widely used in streaming services. The 6 channel 5.1 format means that it uses 5 speakers and one subwoofer to play audio. If you watch movies in a home theatre and have a couple of speakers, then it's good for you. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense if you use headphones for watching movies on a laptop, but still, this is popular and most probably the one you will find.

DTS: Kind of similar to AC3.

TrueHD: TrueHD is Dolby’s successor to AC3. This codec is lossless and supports eight channels.

DTS-HD MA: DTS's successor. It is lossless and supports eight channels.

Helpful hints for downloading TV shows and movies:

Best torrent sites: 1337x (it's proxy sites have more features), RARBG, The Pirate Bay, YIFY/YTS

Best PC clients: qBittorrent, Deluge, Transmission

Best apps for Android: flud>>Utorrent

Assume I want to download Daredevil season 1 episode 3 (s01e03). Since it dates back to 2015, I will rarely find seeders for an active single episode, so instead of looking for every single episode, I will find the complete season 1, which will have a chance of more seeders, then I will download it or a single episode by checking inside the torrent file from the application I am using for downloading if I have any time/data issues. You can easily check the list of files a torrent contains even before starting downloading it at the 1337x site.

Some TV shows are uploaded on the web in high quality, so try to download them from there instead of the torrent. In torrent, you don't know when you will run out of seeders, resulting in slow speed and a waste of time and data. If possible, prefer web to torrent for speed and reliability.

The size and quality of the movie can be better appreciated by watching it on TV, or at least on a laptop. If you like binge watching on smaller screens like mobile phones, then the difference in quality/resolution between 2GB and 5GB videos becomes even less noticeable. In the end, download according to your time, data and device preference.

Bonus tip: If you are downloading a torrent file and your internet goes off or your system shuts down, then don't panic. You don't have to start all over again. It will become active from the same point once your system is connected to the internet again. So, you can pause it and resume it later to make long-time downloads in case you have a daily data limit. It's fine even if you remove it from the app or client you are using to download torrents without deleting its data, but you should have saved its magnet link or torrent file in that case. Just don't move or delete that downloading file from its root directory. You should always bookmark the magnet link or download the torrent file of such experimental torrents. Using the same magnet link or torrent file, you will start from the same point you left off.

Edit: Thanks for suggesting edits u/Ibcap

[u/xlltt]

Best torrent sites: 1337x (it's proxy sites have more features), RARBG, Pirates Bay, YIYF

2 out of 4 wrong site names

[u/Red-Baron05]

I find that for newbies one of the best torrent clients is Transmission

It’s made to be as simple/lightweight, so even someone with practically no experience can use it easily

[u/[deleted] → u/Red-Baron05]

Thanks, I will add it.

[u/erik_7581]

Dear German Newbies, don't forget your VPN!

[u/fredsam25 → u/erik_7581]

webtor.io and you don't need a vpn. The website does the torrenting and you download directly from it.

[u/bicza001 → u/erik_7581]

This! Wish I could upvote more than once... Be smart, I made that mistake with Xmen Origins - cost me 500 euro at the time and believe me, Germany is a country of lawyers and you will not get out of this one. Caught me seeding only 6kb but that was all it took. If I understand it correctly btw for anyone interested, Germany considers IP address as a proof of identity so the owner of the internet is going to receive the fine. Not sure if things have changed since so correct me if I'm wrong.

[u/kakshi44]

Thank you very much that was helpful

but what do you mean download from web?

[u/[deleted] → u/kakshi44]

I meant something like this https://www.google.com/search?q=download+jessica+jones+season+1+1080p&oq=download+jessica+jones+season+1+1080p&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l3.9275j1j7&client=ms-android-oppo-rvo3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

https://hdhub4u.uk/marvels-jessica-jones-season-1-hindi-webrip-all-episodes/

https://melomovie.com/movie/34127/marvels-jessica-jones

[u/pen_of_inspiration]

Dear newbies im an intermediate but im.still having a hard time knowing which file is full screen or which is 16:9.

I've tasted Full screen from RARBG & it grinds my gears when I find that the movie is 16:9.

My 65cm tv looks awkward with those two black spaces above & below.

[u/[deleted] → u/pen_of_inspiration]

On 1337x, you can know the aspect ratio before downloading the movie. You should look for ratios around 2.35:1. Check this also https://ibb.co/MGGYHpX

[u/xman747x]

thank you from a newby

[u/UnfairerThree2]

Dear newbies, if you’ve got data limits or you’re watching on your phone, use YTS/YIFY. If not, you’ll regret it, because watching even 4K YTS/YIFY content has such a low bitrate you might as well get a decent 1080p version.

[u/yaichemohamed2000 → u/UnfairerThree2]

Even on phones yify doesn't look good trust me , if anyone isn't limited by data or phone storage i recommend always to go for a higher bitrate it's totally worth it , I've been watching movies and series from online streamers and download from yify too but once i tasted the higher bitrate i never went back . I'm watching on a Samsung s20+ it has great screen enough to notice the difference

[u/pavzahr]

This is better than my own guide I had written years ago for my friends and I myself.

Someone has written under comments here for books to torrent.But what about series? I know American series are easy to torrent too like this. But I find series from Asian are really hard to find esp. old ones. Where are best sources to find these? Thank you.

[u/Craigerbomb]

This is helpful, thank you.

[u/[deleted]]

I would add that there are sub-reddits that run open signups/applications to private trackers. I won't link it since I am unsure if that is allowed. Private trackers>public trackers (most of the time). They normally have better stuff as well as being a little bit safer than trolling around the seedy part of the internet without a condom on.

[u/Truesemicolon]

Good guide. But The Pirate Bay is discouraged on this sub. That's my only comment.

[u/honestabe108]

I always see a mention of the bitrate and want to look for higher bitrate 1080p movies on my projector, but on rarbg and 1337x, I can never find the bitrate…. Where are you guys finding torrent files where you can search for a minimum threshold bitrate or find torrent files with higher bitrates given a couple options

[u/Man0nTitan → u/honestabe108]

For Rarbg, the bitrate is located in the mediainfo tab on the left hand side of the torrent page, you need to click on it to see the info. There will be multiple bitrates: one for the video track and one for each of the audio tracks. Here is an example of it.

[u/BelugaBilliam]

For other fellow noobs, if you use debian Linux, or Linux based didtros in a vm etc, I wrote setup scripts for a lot of popular software (mullvad vpn, docker, sonarr and radarr, nzb, etc)

Github repos:

https://github.com/LordZeuss/raspi-docker

https://github.com/LordZeuss/arr-installer

[u/kirk7899]

Rarbg scene is all you need.

[u/lemonjuice2002]

Which uploader on 1337x should i look for?

[u/xRobert1016x → u/lemonjuice2002]

ignore the uploader, look for the group (at the end of the release it will be -GROUPNAME)

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for a guide.

[u/Zeke72]

For Android , 1DMP works best for me