Programs I recommend:

JAVA (needed for Azureus)
Azureus (BitTorrent Client)

dbPowerAmp Music Converter (from this point forward known as DMC)

NOTE: Newer versions (v11 and forward) of DMC require you to pay to register to convert to mp3. If you use v10, you do not have to register.

mp4 plugin for dbPowerAmp
FLAC plugin for dbPowerAmp
Shorten (SHN) plugin for dbPowerAmp
Monkeys Audio (APE) plugin for dbPowerAmp

You may also need LAME (LAME Ain’t a MP3 Encoder [even though it is]) 3.90.3. I have researched LAME extensively, and this is a very popular version. Hydrogen Audio has lots of good information reguarding codecs.

First things first, in order to properly access the BitTorrent network, you need to open up any port between 56000 and 56999 on your Router. I only have access to a Linksys WRT54G Wireless Access Point/Router, so I will provide instructions for that. All others should be similar.

Open up your web browser and point to your router’s web page (Linksys defaults to http://192.168.1.1/) Type in the username/password (Linksys defaults are admin/admin) and you should see the following screen:

[Click on the image to get a larger view.]

Click on Appilcations & Gaming and you should see the following screen:

[Click on the image to get a larger view.]

Under Application, type in torrent or whatever will be a good descriptor to you.
Under Start & End, type in any port between 56000 and 56999
Under Protocol, make sure Both is selected
Under IP Address, type in the IP Address^[1,2] of your PC that you will be using Azureus on.
Check the Enabled box
Click on Save Settings at the bottom.

[1] - I recommend using a static IP address for your PC. On a small home network, you probably wouldn’t have any problems, but there is a chance your PC could be assigned a different IP Address which would cause Azureus to not work properly

[2] - If you don’t know your IP address, click on start –> Run. . . –> type in cmd and click on OK. Type ipconfig and press enter. You should see something similar to the following:

c:\windows\system32>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 3:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.10
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.1

c:\windows\system32>


Alright, now that you have a port in the 56000-56999 range open, you can install JAVA & Azureus. Both are pretty self-explanatory.

Normally by clicking on the torrent link, it will open it up in Azureus.

A couple of notes:

1. The more seeds there are, the faster the d/l will go (generally speaking)
2. It is common decency to upload as much, if not more, than you download
3. All good downloads come with a text file that give you a description of what you downloaded and help you with tagging.
4. Sharing of lossy (mp3, m4a) performances is generally frowned upon

Now most of these files you are going to be downloading aren’t going to be iPod (or insert other mp3 player here [software or hardware]) friendly. The easiest way to transcode these files is to use dbPowerAmp.

Install DMC using all default settings during the installation. (You can choose weather or not you want icons on your desktop, though.)

Next install the codecs you need (I recommend mp4 [.m4a], FLAC [.flac] and Shorten [.shn])

To convert, browse in Windows Explorer to the folder where you have downloaded to. Your folder (or subfolders, more likely) will have a bunch of .shn or .flac files. Highlight all music files (don’t highlight .txt or .md5, etc.), right click, and you should have a Convert To option.

Click on that, and that will open DMC.

You should see at the top: Converting ## Files to with a dropdown box. You will wnat to select either .mp3 (Lame) (you may need to install LAME on your PC) or m4a (FAAC CLI).

If selecting m4a (FAAC CLI), I recommend using the 128Kbps ABR, as this is similar to the quality you get from the iTunes Music Store.
If selecting .mp3 (Lame), I recommend using Alt Preset ABR (selected in the Advance Options), and then selecting Bit Rate 128 Kbps or Bit Rate 160 Kbps using the slider.

Generally speaking the higher the number for bit rate, the higher the quality and the higher the file size and less battery performance on portables.

You can also select the Delete Source File(s) After Conversion if you don’t plan on keeping the original files (this will free up hard drive space for you)

Click Convert and wait. Once finished you can add into your favorite player and enjoy.

If you have any questions, or think I’ve missed something, let me know.