Hutch

Fair bit of interest in this subject, what with the ITV thing that Aussiedreamz discovered and Fraser's free-to-air UK telly thing. So I thought I'd explain how to automate the download of your favourite TV programs using the usual torrent websites so you don't have to get up at 6am to watch The Apprentice. Yes, it may look long-winded, but it's basically three steps.

So, to do this we'll need a bit of software called Miro. Download, install and run it. Before we go any further, go into Miro's preferences and under 'RSS Feeds' set the 'Auto Download Setting' to off.

Okay, so we're going to use RSS feeds to let Miro know when a new episode of your favourite show has appeared online. All the good torrent sites supply data in this format, but in this case, we're going to use UK Nova, because a) all they do is British telly and b) their RSS feed system is particularly good.

So the first thing we need to do is generate our custom feed. Go to UK Nova and click on Torrents at the top of the screen. In the window on the left, enter the name of the show in question in the Keywords search box.


You'll see a list of the show in question on the right going back through the weeks, with the latest show at the top of the list. Okay, now click on the button that says 'Get RSS feed'. After a short pause your browser will show our new feed. Click in the address bar at the top of the screen, where it'll say something like "http://www.uknova.com/wsgi/feed/e06a5b7?title=Emmerdale", select all the text and place it in the clipboard (Ctrl C on Windows).


Okay, now select Miro and click Sidebar > Add Feed. Make sure that the button labelled Video is selected. Click the Create Feed button. Over on the left of Miro you'll noticed a new entry in the Sidebar called UK Nova. The first thing we need to do is change that name because the odds are we'll be adding more shows from UK Nova and we need a more meaningful name. So right-click on it, select Rename and call it Emmerdale (or whatever the name of the show is).

Now click on your new feed and you'll see a list of the most recent shows. You can click the Download Torrent button to start any of these going. You can also click on the Settings button to set the number of shows downloaded at any one time and how soon they'll get deleted.

Once the list is downloaded, toggle the Auto Download button to 'New' and then, whenever that show appears on that torrent site, Miro will download it for you. Miro is also a full blown media player, so you can play your downloads directly without needing to start another program.

Hutch

Update: Okay, they've updated Miro to add a really cool new feature, which means that the process I've listed above can be applied to any torrent site - as long as they support RSS feeds.

The feature in Miro that makes this possible is the Search Feed facility. It's really simple to use. Let's say you wanted to find all occurences of House listed in the TV Shows section of PirateBay and download them automatically.

In Miro you select Sidebar > New Search Feed. In the 'Search for' box you enter your search term - 'House' in this case. Then click the URL button and paste in Piratebay's TV RSS feed (http://rss.thepiratebay.org/205). Then just click the 'Create Feed' button and you're good to go. There's a full list of PB's RSS feeds here. Same thing at Mininova.

ABCDiamond

Where is the best place to get the series of "As time goes by" ?

Don't suppose it is on TV now is it ?

ozzieeagle

Wow a hit from the blitz....

Errm Vera Lynn is so 40's you know ABCD

Hutch

Seasons 1 through 9 are all in this 16Gb torrent. (You don't have to download it all, you can deselect portions of the torrent).

DunRoaminTheUK

I can't get an account on UK Nova for love nor money.

How do I circumvent this problem without going via mininova.org or extratorrent.com (as I am iiNet and they are being dragged over the coals at the moment by the Aussie MPAA)?

Cheers.

Hutch

http://www.paulbain.co.uk/2006/04/18...a-signup-tool/

DunRoaminTheUK

Thanks for that but the link informs me that it has been abused and subsequently closed BUT UKNova have (for the first time ever) allowed me to sign up directly so HOORAH!!...

Cheers.

Hutch

slipshot

Hutch

Top info fella.

Currently happily using torrentz to find my Apprentice dowloads which alweays work and I can schedule for a off-peak download but I've plenty to play with so it's fine.

As I find new shows then I'll look at using your system. Much appreciated...

DunRoaminTheUK

Hi Hutch.

I tried this last night and I found it so useful. Thanks for that.

One more question....

Is it possible to create RSS feeds from the schedule in such a way that the feed represents a series and not merely an individual programme? The reason I ask is because it would be nice to auto-download from a series once new episodes become available?

Cheers.

Hutch

Yea - sure is. Just use the New Search Feed option then and use a show wildcard. For instance if you want House season one added, just enter House.S01 as the search string and it'll download House.S01E01, House.S01E02 etc.

DunRoaminTheUK

Well that's just fandabydosy news.....

Thanks for that...

I only hope that there isn't a 3rd party tracking my torrent downloads as I am an iiNet customer?

Thanks again.

Just one thing though, is this an option within my UKNova account or Miro and where is it?

Hutch

http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/ - Peer Guardian 2 will help.

DunRoaminTheUK

One more Q?

Do I have to create the feed using UKNova first and then create the wildcard feed reader in Miro? How do I create series wildcard feeds with UKNova?

Cheers again.