How do I use Downloads?

[Jordan]

I'm afraid I'm going to sound like a hopeless noob here, but I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do with the Downloads area of Boxee. I'm assuming it's a BitTorrent interface, and I've seen hints around the forum that Boxee uses rTorrent internally. But what can I do with it? I can't figure out how to download anything with it. Ideally I'd like to be able to, from another computer, tell Boxee to start downloading something for me (and, ideally, automatically file it into the appropriate directory for me). But maybe I'm expecting too much? Am I missing something blindingly obvious?

[jaffer1979]

Thats the exact question I am looking for the answer to. I am not having any luck figuring out how the downloads work for bit torrent. I am using OSX 10.53. What I am currently doing for my video downloads is I use the RSS plugin for azureus torrent client to download all my shows from one custom rss feed i have setup. Then I watch them in Divx player or VLC etc. My ultimate solution would be to do this all in boxee. Is this at all possible? If I have to edit any config files or anything like that I am fine with that, but I would love in an ideal world to keep boxee running in the background like a tivo and whenever a .torrent is added to my rss feed have it automatically start downloading it then I can just sort by date and see what I have thats new in my list when I sit down.

[vulkan]

well - the downloads section is a built in torrent client (rtorrent).
you have a few ways to make use of it -
1. there is an rss feed of royalty-free torrents shipped with boxee (see "internet videos->video downloads" for example)
2. you can recommend torrents to friends (again - from the rss feed for example)
3. you can add other feeds - currently manually by editing sources.xml but on the next version (careful - spoiler...) you will be able to add them from ui (and from the web site too)
4. boxee is constantly "watching" a folder called torrent under your "Downloads" folder (~/Downloads/torrent) - whenever a torrent file is added to that folder boxee will automatically start to download it. you can "drop" files there and boxee will get them.
NOTE that the location of the watched folder will change in the next version.

have fun! :)

[Jordan]

4. boxee is constantly "watching" a folder called torrent under your "Downloads" folder (~/Downloads/torrent) - whenever a torrent file is added to that folder boxee will automatically start to download it. you can "drop" files there and boxee will get them.

Sweet!

On a slightly different topic, will Boxee be getting a web administration panel so I can control it remotely?

[vulkan]

On a slightly different topic, will Boxee be getting a web administration panel so I can control it remotely?

under construction :)
(meaning - maybe not for the next ver. but the one after...)

[edrock]

well - the downloads section is a built in torrent client (rtorrent).
4. boxee is constantly "watching" a folder called torrent under your "Downloads" folder (~/Downloads/torrent) - whenever a torrent file is added to that folder boxee will automatically start to download it. you can "drop" files there and boxee will get them.
NOTE that the location of the watched folder will change in the next version.

have fun! :)

where is this folder in linux/ubuntu?

[vulkan]

~/.boxee/torrent

and when the download is done its moved to: ~/.boxee/downloads

[blastactionhero]

is there some kind of "miro-functionality"
like add an rss feed for videos at youtube, and boxee automatically downloads them?


damn, i want to try boxee so i dont have to ask all hiss questions ...

[tsella]

@blastactionhero PM me with your email address for invite.

see http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=52&highlight=sources.xml for manually adding an rss feed. next version will allow you to do it via the ui, and soon via the web as well.

boxee will not auto download at this time, you can browse and stream. we generally support mrss and itunes standards for playing media present in an rss stream.

[harminoff]

I can't seem to get torrents to work in Ubuntu. Am I suppose to create these folders, as I don't see them in any directory.

[chomafin]

Is there a way to configure the rtorrent via GUI?
Currently, I use rTorrent as my default app, so I'm familiar with its config file. I've located it as : /usr/boxee/3rdparty/rtorrent/rtorrent.rc for others interested. Are there any boxee specific values needed to keep the same? Like if i change my download dir will that mess up the rest of boxee's operations? or would it be best to simply link ~/.boxee/downloads to my preferred directory? Also, to change the ports used?

[tsella]

when you go into downloads, there is a settings button for some on the rtorrent settings, including the port range.

you can edit other values directly in the rc file, though that's unsupported. it would be best if you leave the boxee dir or symlink it to yours.

[estuardo4]

Hello,

I'm using the latest Alpha of Boxee on my AppleTV. I am sending .torrent files to the Torrent directory on Boxee. When I go to the downloads section at the main menu, I'm presented with a few options to change, but all the options are blank. I cannot access the options. I click on them, but nothing happens. Also, the screen has an Error and the download and upload are both at 0.

What am i doing wrong?

Please let me know if you need more information that i can send to you.

Thank you.

gb

[misconfig]

Is there a way to configure the rtorrent via GUI?
Currently, I use rTorrent as my default app, so I'm familiar with its config file. I've located it as : /usr/boxee/3rdparty/rtorrent/rtorrent.rc for others interested. Are there any boxee specific values needed to keep the same? Like if i change my download dir will that mess up the rest of boxee's operations? or would it be best to simply link ~/.boxee/downloads to my preferred directory? Also, to change the ports used?

I have 2 boxee machines, both are HTPC's with very small laptop hard drives. Myself and my wife sometimes like to download torrents from the living room or bedroom machine.

I simply created a symbolic link pointing to my NAS, on the NAS I have a cronjob that runs a Perl script I wrote for the sole purpose of keeping things tidy on the NAS. It filters by movie//music genre and re-labels if needed.

This way all boxee heads in the house work together and share all of the same source information.

Cheers

[Tom Dibble]

4. boxee is constantly "watching" a folder called torrent under your "Downloads" folder (~/Downloads/torrent) - whenever a torrent file is added to that folder boxee will automatically start to download it. you can "drop" files there and boxee will get them.
NOTE that the location of the watched folder will change in the next version.


Currently on AppleTV, the Torrent folder is /mnt/Scratch/Users/frontrow/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/Torrents/

Presumably, it's in ~/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/Torrents/ on a Mac too. It's a different location on Linux though.

At least, that's where I put torrents, and they start downloading immediately.

[marcel]

thanks Tom Dibble ..linux version is under ~/.boxee/:)