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Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody?
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:36 pm    Post subject: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Well, the bastards at Shaw called me up again. Last fall the guy who called me was polite and nice and lenient. Today's Shaw tech was a prick. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. ugh. He wants to hold me to 6GB/month max downloads. This, of course, is impossible-- last month I downloaded 36GB, for example. Higher than my typical 20-30GB, but not much higher... I'm going to aim for 12-15GB-- 2 episodes per day.

So anyway, is anybody interested in doing a CD trade, or a co-downloading arrangement for anybody else on Shaw or (or with other download-limited ISPs)?

I had a co-downloading arrangement going with Gorunova for a while, I think it was fairly successful-- Gorunova, interested in restarting it? If others are interested as well, perhaps we can get it going as a 3-way or 4-way thing, whereby each person is responsible for downloading 1 or 2 series, burns multiple copies to CD, and then mails them out when done (or hand-exchanges them, if in the same city)... Lots of anime for all, and less downloading per-person!

Here's a list of anime that I've got. Ongoing series that I'm downloading (for the most part) are not on the list-- I've got about a hundred CDs worth of uncatalogued stuff.
The list: http://japanese-animation.net/temp/melchior_list.xls
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:46 pm    Post subject: Re: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Melchior wrote:
Well, the bastards at Shaw called me up again. Last fall the guy who called me was polite and nice and lenient. Today's Shaw tech was a prick. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. ugh. He wants to hold me to 6GB/month max downloads. This, of course, is impossible-- last month I downloaded 36GB, for example. Higher than my typical 20-30GB, but not much higher... I'm going to aim for 12-15GB-- 2 episodes per day.

The swine! That really bites, doesn't it? I was holding at around 15GB until the last few weeks when the service got soo much better. I guess I'll have to miss even more stuff. All the more reason for smaller encodes!

Melchior wrote:
I had a co-downloading arrangement going with Gorunova for a while, I think it was fairly successful-- Gorunova, interested in restarting it?

I thought it was still on, actually. I was about to send you a list of stuff I've got saved up for burning. But maybe starting from a fresh list is a better way to go.

Melchior wrote:
If others are interested as well, perhaps we can get it going as a 3-way or 4-way thing, whereby each person is responsible for downloading 1 or 2 series, burns multiple copies to CD, and then mails them out when done (or hand-exchanges them, if in the same city)... Lots of anime for all, and less downloading per-person!

I'm up for that. I'm not too excited about the mailing idea, unless we were to encrypt the data. Call me paranoid, but I don't want my real name too easily associated with large-scale Copyright violation.

Once we work out an arrangement I can provide my episode list by email. I have about 700 CDRs full, all catalogued. I have a fair bit of non-anime cartoons too.
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2003 4:49 pm    Post subject: Re: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Gorunova wrote:
Once we work out an arrangement I can provide my episode list by email. I have about 700 CDRs full, all catalogued. I have a fair bit of non-anime cartoons too.

I should note that this sort of arrangement is good for getting fills too. The episode list would be for selecting your fill requests. We would also each list the ongoing series we're interested in so that we can work out mutual interests and divide up the downloading work.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2003 5:14 pm    Post subject: Re: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Gorunova wrote:
I thought it was still on, actually. I was about to send you a list of stuff I've got saved up for burning. But maybe starting from a fresh list is a better way to go.


I wasn't too sure one way or the other-- I've continued to download the same series (still have the old list on my desk here, sitting under some papers). ...Yep, I've got all that stuff-- burning it to disc will be easy enough. I think you've probably downloaded and burned more, though, since all I've got is a bit of GTO (actually, a fair bit), some WHR, an ep of Azumanga Daioh, and a few episodes of Tenchi GXP, and one ep of NieA, I think.

As far as non-anime stuff goes, I've recently started downloading Farscape (alt.binaries.tv.farscape)... I'm quite enjoying it. I think Farscape is what pushed me into the range where Shaw decided to call me.

As far as copyright violations go, I believe that copyright laws in Canada provide that we can copy shows/music for friends, provided that there's no monetary exchange-- the levies on audio cassettes, blank CDs, blank video tapes are supposed to compensate copyright-holders for their losses. Posting videos to the internet, on the other hand, isn't legal-- it's more of a gray area, if not outright illegal. At any rate, as long as I'm trading within Canada (preferably), and with long-timers from the groups, I'd feel pretty safe. That's my opinion-- if we did a 3-way arrangement, I'd be willing to stand in as a proxy.
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LaughnCynic



Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts: 105

PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2003 5:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Melchior wrote:
He wants to hold me to 6GB/month max downloads.


Wow! That's pretty disgusting seeing as a modem could theoretically grab a little more than twice that in a month running 24/7. These corporate bastards sure have a screwed up definition of 'broadband'. *sigh*

Like drinkning a small coke through a hose. *slurp* :/
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:10 pm    Post subject: Re: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Melchior wrote:
I wasn't too sure one way or the other-- I've continued to download the same series (still have the old list on my desk here, sitting under some papers). ...Yep, I've got all that stuff-- burning it to disc will be easy enough. I think you've probably downloaded and burned more, though, since all I've got is a bit of GTO (actually, a fair bit), some WHR, an ep of Azumanga Daioh, and a few episodes of Tenchi GXP, and one ep of NieA, I think.

I've also continued downloading the same stuff as before. I don't have the list handy but off the top of my head I've got a ton of Shaman King and InuYasha for you, plus the rest of Juuni Kokki up to #28.

Melchior wrote:
As far as non-anime stuff goes, I've recently started downloading Farscape (alt.binaries.tv.farscape)... I'm quite enjoying it. I think Farscape is what pushed me into the range where Shaw decided to call me.

A friend and I have started shipping an 80B USB drive back and forth for file trading. I've got a bunch of Futurama and Looney Tunes here that I'm struggling to burn, plus some other stuff too.

I guess in comparison to that the occasional batch of CDRs is small potatoes. Smile
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Gorunova wrote:
A friend and I have started shipping an 80B USB drive

Obviously I forgot a 'G' in there somewhere. Embarassed
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

LaughnCynic wrote:
Wow! That's pretty disgusting seeing as a modem could theoretically grab a little more than twice that in a month running 24/7. These corporate bastards sure have a screwed up definition of 'broadband'. *sigh*

They have this crazy idea that people will pay $40/mo for faster access to email and the Web. That stuff works almost as well on a 56K modem. What people are willing to pay $40/mo for is fast, large downloads!

I think their business plan overestimated the proportion of casual users and underestimated the cost of the hardcore users. Bandwidth of the kind we want is really much, much more expensive than that. We're getting a good deal - enjoy it while it lasts.

What bugs me is the way some providers seemed to be deceptively marketing it. "Unlimited access" to them means you can stay online 24/7. Gee whiz, Batman!
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LaughnCynic



Joined: 16 Jul 2002
Posts: 105

PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2003 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gorunova wrote:
What bugs me is the way some providers seemed to be deceptively marketing it. "Unlimited access" to them means you can stay online 24/7. Gee whiz, Batman!


Yeah, I pointedly asked my new Ma&Pa isp if there were any restrictions on uptime/bandwidth usage. There weren't, but then ISDN is just a mature old skinny pipe. However I have pulled down 2.4GB or so in the little over a week I've had it up filling holes and completing things. It's slow but it beats a modem. Wink

P.S. Marketing = Deception Wink
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2003 9:20 pm    Post subject: Re: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Gorunova wrote:
Gorunova wrote:
A friend and I have started shipping an 80B USB drive

Obviously I forgot a 'G' in there somewhere. :oops:


Heh, I figured as much. My fingers keep on getting themselves tangled up in the keys on my keyboard. grrr....

It must be madness trying to burn CDs each time you complete a trade! heh!

Should I start burning CDs for you, or do you want to do our next trade on harddrive?
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Fri Apr 11, 2003 7:52 pm    Post subject: Re: Co-downloading or CD trading, anybody? Reply with quote

Melchior wrote:
Should I start burning CDs for you, or do you want to do our next trade on harddrive?

Well, it doesn't look like anyone else is interested in this deal right now, so hard disk is an option. I guess not enough people have been getting the nasty phone calls yet. Smile

Thing is, I'm supposed to be shipping a full drive back to my friend next month and I only have one portable.

Also, we'll just end up burning the stuff anyway, right? It's probably easier just to burn the way we did before.
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Fri Apr 11, 2003 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you're considering making a habit of it, it might be more cost effective to use external enclosures so you can just send much cheaper to replace internal HDs back and forth. I suppose those external units may have some improved shock absorbtion which would be good for shipping, but I kind of doubt it's better than a properly packaged internal HD. Plus the enclosures are so handy. They suddenly make all those old drives useful for backing up and archiving.

Also, sorry to hear about them being hardasses on y'all. Sad
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(inc)



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 356
Location: San Diego

PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2003 9:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hehe... and at the other end are the new WD 250G USB2/Firewire drives -- I'm afraid to even look at what they cost...
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030411/index.html

(inc)
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2003 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Keikai wrote:
If you're considering making a habit of it, it might be more cost effective to use external enclosures so you can just send much cheaper to replace internal HDs back and forth. I suppose those external units may have some improved shock absorbtion which would be good for shipping, but I kind of doubt it's better than a properly packaged internal HD. Plus the enclosures are so handy. They suddenly make all those old drives useful for backing up and archiving.

Actually most of those external USB drives ARE just regular hard drives in an enclosure with some USB logic in it.

Thing is, all my old hard drives are in use right down to the 128MB level (wow, less than one episode would have fit on my original hard disk!) and I can't afford to buy any more drives right now.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Sat Apr 12, 2003 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gorunova wrote:
Actually most of those external USB drives ARE just regular hard drives in an enclosure with some USB logic in it.

Thing is, all my old hard drives are in use right down to the 128MB level (wow, less than one episode would have fit on my original hard disk!) and I can't afford to buy any more drives right now.


I've got a 60 GB Seagate kicking around that I've been meaning to send off for warranty (it makes an intermittent squealing sound when it's not accessing data-- it did that right from day 1, but I never got around to dealing with it). It could be used for trading (it's reliable, no bad sectors, quiet aside form the occasional squeal), else we can just burn to CD (which works for me as well, since I'll just be burning stuff to CD anyhow).

Gorunova, if interested, I can also get us some (relatively) cheap blank CDs-- I've got a mailbox in Point Roberts now, so I can get cheap CDRs from the US without paying the bastardly CDR levy-- Fuji CDs normally run about CAD$60 or so for 100 discs including taxes and shipping charges. (and sometimes less, if there's a mail-in rebate, but so far Fuji hasn't been all that good at refunding my rebates...). Other brands of CDs can be cheaper (or even free, after mail-in-rebates).
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