May 14, 2008 by sharky
If you’ve already got an account at a great private tracker such as ScT or BitMeTV, then we don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to maintain a good sharing ratio. Everyone jumps on the recent additions, and a 50 : 50 S/L torrent quickly turns into 98 : 2. Getting into a fresh swarm is crucial and a seedbox can help, but there’s also another way — Why not just seed a torrent that you’ve already downloaded?
We’ve already discussed this same tip for µTorrent, but this is done with a twist for seedbox owners.
Seeding a Torrent to a Different Tracker
It works like this: You need two private tracker accounts. Download a torrent to your seedbox from a private tracker that you have a good sharing ratio at (or, one that is easy to upload to) and seed the finished files to a more difficult-to-seed tracker. This way you’re not incurring any download stats against your ratio, only the upload ratio will increase. Simply upload the new torrent, making sure the torrent name is the same.
The key here is speed - which is why you need a private tracker in the first instance. Torrents from mininova just won’t cut it - by the time you finish downloading it, there’ll be no leechers left on the "same" torrent from the second site (ScT). Pre-times are also important: If, for example, ScT gets the torrent at 10:00, but it doesn’t arrive on the other tracker (i.e. FunFile) until 12:00, then that’s a whopping two hours of swarm time that you’ve missed out on. So you need to find a tracker that gets the new releases at or about the same time.
A great example of this is using TorrentLeech to complete the torrent, and then re-seed it to ScT. This really works well with TL because it’s not too difficult to seed to, has fast download speeds, and it has amazing pre-times for a larger tracker.
How it Works - The Example
First, this won’t work on special "packs" - you’ll need to do this through proper ’scene’ releases that make their rounds through all the private trackers. Movie releases (XviD) work great for this.
1. Find Identical Torrents
Browse between the two sites, and be sure that the torrent is fresh, but it doesn’t have to be the most recent one. It helps to select a more popular title - something that a lot of leechers will come into - rather than something a little newer but less popular. RSS feeds can also help in this, if you’re so inclined. The first torrent below is from ScT, and the second is the same torrent listed on TL.
2. Download / Finish the Torrent
Once you’ve found two identical releases, download the torrent from the "source" site (i.e. "TL") to your PC and upload / start it in your seedbox. If possible, don’t restrict the download speed - time is crucial. You want to finish downloading this as quickly as possible.
3. Rename The Torrent (if needed)
After the torrent has completed downloading (Status: Seeding), go to the second site, (i.e. "ScT") and download the torrent to your PC. If you’re prompted to overwrite the existing torrent (in Internet Explorer) - do so. However, this is a small problem for Firefox users, as a new torrent will be created instead.
In Explorer, you were prompted to overwrite the existing torrent, then you’ll only need to upload it - skip to Step 4. If they are NOT the same name, you’ll need to rename the second torrent to what the first one is. (i.e. Move the first torrent to a different folder, and rename the second one).
If you downloaded the torrents with Firefox, they will not be the same name, regardless. So, delete (or move) the first torrent and rename the second torrent to what the first one is.
4. Stop and Remove the Task in TorrentFlux
After the torrent has finished downloading, stop and delete the task in the main TorrentFlux window.
Back on your PC, you should now be left with just one torrent from the second tracker, and it should be exactly identical to the name of the first torrent you downloaded.
If you do NOT see the "Verifying local files" status, and the torrent begins to download from 0%, then there’s a problem and it didn’t work. The most likely culprit is the torrent name not being the same as the original.
NOTE: There’s always a little ‘overhead’ that needs to be downloaded when performing this trick. As in the above screenshot, the torrent contents are usually a little different, and 87.15 MB was needed to be downloaded from the second one. To verify that this worked, go back to the main TorrentFlux window.
You’ll notice above that the torrent is now happily seeding, and only a minimal amount of downloading needed to be done to complete it. And for this example, 87.1 MB is very high for ‘overhead’ - most often it is much lower than this. You can also verify the new URL (and your passkey) by going into the "Details" for the seeding torrent in the "Transfer Settings" window.
Alternative Method:
If you’re familiar with editing the announce URL of a torrent, you can also use this approach:
After comparing both torrents to make sure they’re the same name, simply edit the existing one (either on your computer or in the seedbox) and enter in the complete path of the announce URL (with your passkey).
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