This paper Identifies current developments in Torrent technologies and how it is being used to develop user friendly Torrent downloading applications. Furthermore, this discusses the implementation of a "Task Oriented Torrent Application" which allows its user to state his/her media preferences and automatically set the application to download relevant media files for them.

1. Task Oriented Torrent
Downloading Application
G.H.ACHINTHA REEMAL

2. What is Torrent Technology
• Born out of failures made by Napster (Single point of failure)
• Bittorrent - easy to use file sharing platform created by Bram Cohen
• Decentralized Distribution of files (Peer-to-peer)
• Files divided into small chunks called pieces
• Rapid download speeds by requesting multiple
pieces from different computers simultaneously in
the swarm.
• Pieces are immediately made available for download by others in the swarm

3. Task Orientation in Torrent Downloading
• General torrent sharing involves users seeding/downloading files over the internet.
• Task orientation adds another layer of specificity to a given activity
E.g. : - Identifying the favorite media content of a user and downloading upon availability, without the
user involvement.
- Download the next version of a previously downloaded file/program etc.
• Allows users to automate several actions to be performed at once by the system

4. How Media Companion Works
• Media Companion is designed to download user specified movies and TV show episodes with or
without the involvement of the user.
• User has the ability to suggest their favorite TV shows.
• Media Companion would take care of downloading the show, without the user having to manually
undertake these activities.
• Three major components
• Media Companion – Web Component
• Media Companion – Desktop Application
• Media Companion Mini – Android App

5. Media Companion - Web Component
• User Registration
 Registers users to the system
• User Preference Identification
 User will be able to set their preferred TV shows for the system to be tracked and downloaded when
available. This service includes providing useful information related to any TV series that the user
searches for.
• User Profile Management
 Users registered with the Media Companion System would have their own profile which would
include their download history (last downloaded TV show and its episode) and his current
preferences

6. Media Companion - Desktop Application
• TV shows / Movie search engine
 Retrieves basic information
• Automatic Torrent Download Setting
 Once the user sets his preferred list of TV shows, Media Companion would keep track of their
availability daily and download when available .
• Manual Torrent Download Setting
 Users registered with the Media Companion System would have their own profile which would
include their download history (last downloaded TV show and its episode) and his current
preferences

7. Media Companion Mini - Mobile Application
• Display currently available downloads for the user.
• Remotely initiate downloads
 Media Companion Mini would retrieve
download information from Media Companion
Web server and provide a list of downloads
that are available for the user to be
downloaded Remotely initiate downloads
 From the list provided by the application,
based on currently available downloads of
user’s preference, user has the ability to select
one or many downloads to be downloaded
remotely

8. Core Technologies Used
• Ttorrent (Turn's BitTorrent Java library)
• Slim Framework for PHP
• RedBeanPHP - ORM
• Apache HTTP Components
• Java Swing

9. Similar Java implementations of the BitTorrent protocol:
• Write performance of the BitTorrent client ~10MB/sec/connected peer.
• Distribution of a 150MB file to more than 1000 machines – Less than 30 seconds,
• Very little network overhead for the initial seeder (only 125% of the original file size uploaded by the
initial seeder).
Similar Technologies and Comparison
Implementation Stability Completeness Integratability
Vuze Stable Complete Complex
torrent4j Unstable Incomplete -
Snark Unstable - -

10. Limitations
• Dependency on external APIs to retrieve information and the possibility of them being deprecated.
• Legality of torrent sharing (Copyright Infringement)
• Slow Download/Upload Speeds
• Limitations in torrent technology (dependency on see)

11. Future Improvements
• Major Competitor for Torrents – Usenet
 Non-centralized network of people who exchange
articles/files tagged with common labels called
“newsgroups”

12. Thank You