Torrents vs. NZB

I'm also with Downstorm and I love them. Must surely be the easiest means of downloading media. I don't play PC games, so 6GB is enough to get series, music and almost all 720p movies. Plus they have an awesome portal page where all new TV show episodes are available for download.

I'd consider moving to NZB, but I don't know how much I would benefit, it seems like it would cost more per month, I have no idea how to use it and I worry that Mweb will shape it.

ponder said:
That's bloody expensive. News servers are MUCH cheaper, well Astraweb anyways but they are all more or less the same price.

I can't stand torrents, NZBs are much better. When I can't find something that's old I try demonoid or pirate bay.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, it's R49 for 6GB of storage space. You can download as much as you want as long as you manage your space.
 
I've been using Usenet (NZB as you people seem to call it) for awhile now, if you got it all set up then it is certainly much faster and easier than torrents.

You definitely need

1. A good "grabber" app (download+extract etc) , i use NewsLeecher (not free, there are good free ones like sanzb, but i prefer the app over the browser interface thing sanzb have)

2. A good news server , now Mweb / IS is generally pretty solid for most -new- stuff (if you are at those ISPs then it is obviously free and very fast) . I use Astraweb as backup for longer retention/rarer stuff, the main reason i use Astraweb is because you can buy once-off "per gig" download bandwidth (i.e. $10 for 180GB ) which never expires (as opposed to paying monthly at Giganews etc).
Also remember 1000 days retention on these international servers are like YEARS we're talking about here, that implies you'll get pretty much anything (old stuff too) .

I get like my full 3MB/s most of the time when download from a news server, so speed is pretty cool.

3. The most important i suppose , get a NZB Search Engine / Indexer . Do not even try to browse Usenet manually, this is where people start to think Usenet is useless because they don't got a proper search tool . I use NZBMatrix , you pay a once-off fee of $10 to get full access , trust me it is worth it, primarily because people comment+review the stuff on it (as opposed to downloading blind and finding "cam" quality content). Free Search engines like BinSearch, they are "ok" but very frustrating, just get a proper one.

4. Now if you throw in Sickbeard for Tv Shows....well then you got one hell of a well oiled machine going (in my case: Sickbeard search NZBMatrix and place the NZB in a folder where NewsLeecher picks it up automatically and then in turn downloads+extract it = completely automated)

Either way, so i don't quite see where all the "expensive" stuff is coming from, i get easily 80% of my downloads straight off the local free news servers (mweb currently) and the rest was once-off payments for NzbMatrix,NewsLeecher and Astraweb (about $40 total like a year ago) .
 
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diabolus said:
I've been using Usenet (NZB as you people seem to call it) for awhile now, if you got it all set up then it is certainly much faster and easier than torrents.

You definitely need

1. A good "grabber" app (download+extract etc) , i use NewsLeecher (not free, there are good free ones like sanzb, but i prefer the app over the browser interface thing sanzb have)

2. A good news server , now Mweb / IS is generally pretty solid for most -new- stuff (if you are at those ISPs then it is obviously free and very fast) . I use Astraweb as backup for longer retention/rarer stuff, the main reason i use Astraweb is because you can buy once-off "per gig" download bandwidth (i.e. $10 for 180GB ) which never expires (as opposed to paying monthly at Giganews etc).
Also remember 1000 days retention on these international servers are like YEARS we're talking about here, that implies you'll get pretty much anything (old stuff too) .

I get like my full 3MB/s most of the time when download from a news server, so speed is pretty cool.

3. The most important i suppose , get a NZB Search Engine / Indexer . Do not even try to browse Usenet manually, this is where people start to think Usenet is useless because they don't got a proper search tool . I use NZBMatrix , you pay a once-off fee of $10 to get full access , trust me it is worth it, primarily because people comment+review the stuff on it (as opposed to downloading blind and finding "cam" quality content). Free Search engines like BinSearch, they are "ok" but very frustrating, just get a proper one.

4. Now if you throw in Sickbeard for Tv Shows....well then you got one hell of a well oiled machine going (in my case: Sickbeard search NZBMatrix and place the NZB in a folder where NewsLeecher picks it up automatically and then in turn downloads+extract it = completely automated)

Either way, so i don't quite see where all the "expensive" stuff is coming from, i get easily 80% of my downloads straight off the local free news servers (mweb currently) and the rest was once-off payments for NzbMatrix,NewsLeecher and Astraweb (about $40 total like a year ago) .
Click to expand...

Thanks for the helpful response. I don't think I'll change from Downstorm though, as R49 a month is cheaper than NZB, everything I want is on torrent, Downstorm has excellent service and fixes shaping whenever it crops up, allows me to download 200+GB a month and is super easy to use.
 
xrapidx said:
NZB... torrents are a waste just about everything I do at home is automated now. If I want something, type it in on my phone, and it starts downloading at home.

Sickbeard
SABNZB
CouchPotato
NZBAir
XBMC
MySQL

Entire media collection automated.

And I pay R70 not R100.
Click to expand...

What's the difference between Sickbeard and couchPotato
 
Not that I would download such things...but nzb's are crap for music (nzbmatrix at least) - too little info. For the rest I prefer nzb's.
 
Cool. I'm on the giganews trial. And I've downloaded my first episode using sabnzbd (nzb file from nzbmatrix - free).

Trying to setup sickbeard now. But all on my 'work' laptop. Eventually I want to set it up on my microserver using linux. I see sabnzb, and sickbeard will work on linux.

Reason i'm using linux is its free :) I otherwise have no experience with it.
 
xrapidx said:
Series vs. Movies.

CouchPotato is actually pretty crappy... I've reverted to doing it manually.
Click to expand...

I don't use couchpotato that much anymore either, though it is nice to keep upcoming releases in there so that they download as soon as its available. I do get most of my movies manually but then still let couchpotato post process so I don't have to worry about renaming.
 
What are the mweb news server details. I see sabnzbd has an option to setup a backup server. So I thought I would setup mweb as the primary server and astraweb as the backup server.

(I'm still on the giganews trial, but as some one mentioned with astraweb you can pay per gig instead of per month).

Host: news.mweb.co.za
Port: 119
Username: ?
Password: ?
Connections: ?
Retention time: ?
Timeout: ?
 
nadimm said:
What are the mweb news server details. I see sabnzbd has an option to setup a backup server. So I thought I would setup mweb as the primary server and astraweb as the backup server.

(I'm still on the giganews trial, but as some one mentioned with astraweb you can pay per gig instead of per month).

Host: news.mweb.co.za
Port: 119
Username: ?
Password: ?
Connections: ?
Retention time: ?
Timeout: ?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the retention/stats of the Mweb server (some say it's 200 days or so, i haven't really investigated) , but to log into it, leave the username/password blank. You have to be using Mweb as your ISP of course.

I usually just setup 3 simultaneous connections , not sure what is the max/most efficient (i believe Mweb allows up to 4 connections) . I just check whether i'm getting full speed , and i usually do with 3 connections, hence never bothered pushing for more.
 
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nadimm said:
What's the difference between Sickbeard and couchPotato
Click to expand...

xrapidx said:
Series vs. Movies.

CouchPotato is actually pretty crappy... I've reverted to doing it manually.
Click to expand...

yup also looking into the automated business

i am still using couch potato - but not trusting it to find all the new stuff - what i do like and use, is its connection to trakt.tv

it keeps track of my collection online, and couchpotato monitors a watchlist on trakt.tv - so if i see a movie i like, i just add it to the list and CP at home will download the NZB for me... much fun :) :)

another app that seems to be a combination of everything(altho it seemed a bit buggy when i tested it) was media center master.

its basically a torrent/NZB automated series/movie downloader all-in one + sorting and renaming + prepping for various media center formats. Very powerful - but with lots of powers comes lots of bugs i guess :P_

*back on topic*
yes NZB's is by far the best - in more than i would say 3/4TB's of downloads, i rarely have a fake/passworded file.
most NZB's sourced from nzbmatrix,downloaded from astraweb/newsdemon/fastusenet via sabnzbd.
 
Sickbeard + sabnzbd + nzbmatrix + mweb= awesome

Got the giganews trial, but set mweb to default server. Sanzbd hasn't used giganews yet, only mweb. Nice.
 
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I am completely confused about NZB.

Could someone please post a link for a NZB newbie?

I have tried googling it but honestly its actually confusing me more.

Maybe I should get some sleep now and try google it again tomorrow morning
 
bigicy said:
I am completely confused about NZB.

Could someone please post a link for a NZB newbie?

I have tried googling it but honestly its actually confusing me more.

Maybe I should get some sleep now and try google it again tomorrow morning
Click to expand...

It's more or less the same procedure as torrents, however you need to use a free/paid server that grabs the content then you need to use a free/paid website that indexes the content. A friend of mine said I should use Alt.binz.

Hopefully this will clear some things up for you: http://www.newsgroupreviews.com/nzb-files.html

I have been slowly getting in to NZB's, this is what I can say so far:

NZB's are more or less the same speed as torrents, however I personally can see that the speed is defiantly not constant like torrents are, my bandwidth monitor jumps up and down like a yo yo when I am downloading via NZB's. This could be because I am currently borrowing 5 connections from a friend that has a paid account, or it could simply be the server he subscribes to or the site that I am using, I'm not sure I'm just saying from what I have. The speeds will never be as good as HTTP though, unfortunately the speeds on HTTP haven't been the same since the whole incident with megaupload.

You tend to have to download more with NZB's than torrents, for example I will see a 1 hour episode of The Walking Dead and it will be 394MB instead of the common 349MB with torrents.

The major thing though is that you don't upload to other people when using NZB's and the overhead IMO is lower than torrents. So at the end of the day you more or less download the same amount of data.

NZB's are much safer than using torrents in terms of viruses and the authorities knocking on your door. I must say though that I can't remember the last time I got a virus that wasn't a simple keygen or patch when using torrents.

In terms of being free, torrents have much better retentions, whereas so far I haven't found a free NZB indexer than has more than 100 days retention for free users. However if you pay a small monthly, yearly, even once off free then the retention is much higher than torrents around the 1000 to 1500 days mark, much longer than any torrent will last.

At the end of the day I will use HTTP, if that fails then torrents if that fails then NZB's (if it's a recently released episode of something, given the poor retention on free accounts)
 
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News articles are uuencoded which explains the size difference.
I paid for a 25gb trial with astraweb. I get downloads at 615KB per sec on my 6 meg line, off them.
Retention seems to be more of a factor with news servers themselves than with nzb services.
I won't use torrents as its too easy for authorities to crack down. After all with a torrent client you are making the media available which is more illegal than downloading afaik.
 
Sinbad said:
News articles are uuencoded which explains the size difference.
I paid for a 25gb trial with astraweb. I get downloads at 615KB per sec on my 6 meg line, off them.
Retention seems to be more of a factor with news servers themselves than with nzb services.
I won't use torrents as its too easy for authorities to crack down. After all with a torrent client you are making the media available which is more illegal than downloading afaik.
Click to expand...

Yup but torrents are needed for music sometimes, everything else on nzb but music is a bit of an issue with nzb's
 
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