[geeks] Background on Bit Torrent???

[Matthew Poertner]

> On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 08:06:46PM +0000, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> 
>>Hello all,
>>I'm trying to download a 900 meg video (from http://tv.seattlewireless.net/ ) using Bit Torrent, and am in awe of the slow speed...
>>As I understand it, when I run Bit Torrent, I am both client *and* server, using my uplink to service other folks download requests for pieces of the file I've already downloaded, right? What amazes me is that while my download speed fluctuates between 1 and 5 KiloBytes/second, the upload speed is between 5 and 20 KiloBytes...
>>Why such a huge disparity? AM I downloading form one particular user or a collection of users? Will it really take over 55 hours to download this file?
>>I can stream the file in near real-time if I choose either Real Audio or Windows Media formats, but real-time vs 2+ days for the .mpeg file? Really?
>>Seems odd to me... Anyone got some insight?

Are you behind a firewall?

BitTorrent uses TCP 6881 - 6999

I had a similar problem and had to open more ports.

Matt