#bit-torrent

#torrent #vodo

The BitTorrent-powered VODO network has released what is arguably its highest-quality film to date. ‘A Lonely Place For Dying’, with Hollywood star James Cromwell as Executive Producer, prefers the BitTorrent community over Hollywood’s own funding mechanisms and debuts online before making its way to various movie theaters. A new distribution model is born.

These days it’s hardly surprising news when a filmmaker choses to share their movie using BitTorrent. VODO, the BitTorrent-powered distribution network for independent films, has released a few dozen high-quality movies in the past year alone.

Today, however, VODO sees arguably its highest impact release to date – ‘A Lonely Place For Dying‘. With Hollywood veteran James Cromwell as Executive Producer, a talented first-time Director, and a crew of professional filmmakers and actors it has all the ingredients for a quality product.

TorrentFreak: http://goo.gl/c7s1K

Chinese documentary directors say they have freedom

News of the arrests of prominent Chinese dissidents like Ai Weiwei and Liu Xiaobo has dominated headlines and painted a picture of harsh oppression and censorship. But two independent Chinese documentary makers attending a Hong Kong festival say they enjoy a great deal of creative freedom.

The two filmmakers say they can tackle most subjects they are interested in -- in part thanks to the dissidents' sacrifices.

"On the surface, people think that making documentaries in China is a very difficult task, that we are doing something that the (Chinese Communist) party doesn't like. That is not necessarily the case," director Zhou Hao said during a public talk on the sidelines of the 2011 Chinese Documentary Festival in Hong Kong late Friday.

Interesting to see the changes in the number of total downloads for the new Australian movie - THE TUNNEL.   (Note: As of right now they are at 805 downloads, with 545 seeders.  Not as many as I would have thought out of the gate.) The story of THE TUNNEL MOVIE is VERY unique! (Read about it here) They have bypassed all traditional methods of film distribution by FIRST uploading their film to VoDo using the Bit-Torrent technology. At the same time they are offering the EXTENDED version of a DVD and other items for sale on their web site, and also on the VoDo's website. I blogged about how one Film Family - The Winans did the same thing somewhat with their picture - INK.  Somehow it got leaked (or on purpose.. they have never said) onto Bit-Torrent, and became one of the biggest downloads for the month.  You can read about it here.

Distribution for film and video is changing very, very fast!!

At Blackrock Films we're also looking at unique and new ways of distributing quality film and video content. I still think the TRADITIONAL method of theactical, DVD/Blu-Ray, VOD, etc. is still the way to go if the film fits the proper audience.  But in some cases.. all these delivery systems might not be needed.

I'll be watching this new method by THE TUNNEL gang closely.  So far, the numbers aren't overly large.  But it's early in the delivery process for this method. 

More to follow!  Peace out!

MP

PS:  I'm currently downloading the movie using VUZE.  So far after 1 hour I've only been able to download 24% of the film.  See!  Torrent is STILL a pain in the arss in my opinion.  I'll update on the total time, the quality of the picture after I get a copy of the film.

A few of my friends have complained to me recently about receiving cease and desist letters from their ISP regarding torrents they were seeding. This guide will lead you through installing Tor and configuring Transmission for what I believe is the optimal balance between speed and privacy and should help you stay one step ahead of the tracking that the MPAA, et al. are trying to do of you.

1) Go to the Ubuntu community page and follow the instructions for installing Tor. 2) Open up the Transmission bit-torrent client and go to your settings. (Edit -> Preferences) 3) First, choose the "Privacy" tab and ensure that all boxes are ticked and that encryption mode is set to "require encryption".    4) Hit the button to update the blocklist. 5) Finally, choose the "Proxy" tab, tick "Connect to tracker via a proxy" and then enter "localhost" for the proxy server, "9050" for the proxy port, and "SOCKS5" for the proxy type.