[geeks] Background on Bit Torrent???

[Lionel Peterson]

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?