"MMC" wrote in news:751lf.56841$1l6.17617
@tornado.tampabay.rr.com:

Larry,
How do you download and use these files?
MMC


You need four pieces of software.....

I use Xnews from http://xnews.newsguy.com as the download client because it
has a nice Q field where I can que up all the pieces of all the files I
want then simply walk away and let Xnews do the work on tens of thousands
of message files. Xnews will download, decode any encoding scheme,
assemble the group of messages that make up a piece and store it in
whatever download directory you tell it to.

You mark all the various pieces on Xnews' nicely-compiled file list. It
automatically threads (collapsed) all messages of a part, say a single .rar
file into one line on the list. You simply click the Q field in that line
and a que number is installed for that line. You click and drag down the Q
field to select all the rar and par files for the movie you want. After
you've marked one, click the blue rubix cube in the middle of the lower
edge of the newsgroup panel and a window will pop up for you to select
where all these files should be stored on your disk...in a SEPARATE
directory from where your movies are actually stored, please! You continue
to mark more movies until you bottom out the list...today. You can mark
more files while it's downloading, no problem. The numbers just get
updated ok.

Ok, we've gotten all the .rar parts and all the .par parts for "The Movie"
on the MOVIE DOWNLOAD directory. We'll need two more pieces of software
to, first, check the rar files with the par files for parity accuracy,
automatically CORRECTING any errors, even supplying missing whole parts if
there are enough par files present. The software for that is freeware
called "Quickpar" from:
http://www.quickpar.org.uk/
Install it in the usual manner...run the .exe file and follow the
instructions.

Ok, all the rar pieces (or in another case the numbered pieces like .001,
..002, .003 which I'll describe in a minute) have been parchecked and
automatically fixed by Quickpar for this movie. Now we'll need another
proprietary software called WinRAR from http://www.rarlabs.com/ that's
shareware to read all the pieces, uncompress them by a lot, assemble all
these uncompressed rar files and store the REAL movie on you MOVIE
directory to watch. (It's really easy to do all this in a few minutes
after you get the swing of it.)

Download and install WinRAR. You can pay for it later. This is
proprietary and the finest file splitter, well worth the pittance it
costs....about 2 movie tickets in our scenario..(c;

Once Winrar is installed, it assigns itself to handle all the rar files and
files numbered .r01, .r02, .r03 from the old version of the encoder. To
automatically combine all these rar parts into the movie file, just
doubleclick on your Windows Explorer on file with the ending "part01.rar"
or ".r01" on the end of it. DO NOT BE ALARMED NOTHING HAPPENS INSTANTLY!
Before Winrar pops up the interface screen, it gets basic information from
the first rar file telling it what SHOULD be there and does a thorough test
before it boots the windows window looking for you. This can take 30
seconds to a minute on these huge movie files. Just wait.

Ok the Winrar window pops up and you see the file in the file list you
clicked, now what? Click on JUST THAT FILE....nothing else. This keeps
you from tryin to decode some asshole's virus someone may have attached.
It happens VERY infrequently as these posters are very proud to post what
they post. It's a regular hacker competition to see who has the best copy
of some movie the theatres won't get until 3 weeks from now. So, click and
highlight just that ONE file with the .mpg or .avi or .dat (VCD wrapper)
that's the movie. Some movies come with several other small files for
chapters and subtitles! ALL these extra parts are optional and up to you.
I like subtitles if they are available. Subtitle files have extension .sub
and the chapter files have .idx extensions on them. It's ok to get them,
too. Some .subs are separate rar files on the server you'll have to decode
with winrar separately. It's up to the poster how he splits them.

Now that you've highlighted the filename in Winrar's file window, click the
EXTRACT button and a directory tree selection menu should popup. (On some
complex winrar sets, a window will pop up asking you if you want the whole
set or just the file you've highlighted. There may be HIDDEN FILES so,
being a paranoid that has served me well, I tell it just the file(s) I've
selected to make sure.) Be SURE to select your MOVIE directory, not the
root directory or desktop or some place crazy so you have to search all
over for the movie. You can set an option to open a default location in
Winrar. Click OK and Winrar will create a watchable movie file with an
extension like .avi (almost universally DivX format movies now), .mpg
(almost universally VCD or SVCD format, now, which is Video CD or Super
Video CD), or .wmv/wma in Windoze Media format. DO NOT DECODE OR RUN ANY
..BAT, .COM, .EXE, .VBS or any kind of RUNABLE files! If you see a runable
file in the winrar window when it boots up....DELETE IT AND FORGET THIS
MOVIE AS IT MAY BE JUST A VIRUS/TROJAN INSTALLER. **** happens....

Oh, oh....we tried to watch the movie and it wouldn't play with any
standard player on our computer.....nuts! The movies are in DivX or VCD
formats that BillyDOS, in cooperation with his movie and music friends,
does not include in Windoze to try to prevent you from seeing them. Isn't
that nice after you've given him $300? The cure is a new player that's
free from some really smart French engineering students in Paris, called
VLC (Videolan Client), which comes with its OWN codecs that'll play most
anything on the planet....so good the MPAA lawyers are all over them to try
to block them or bankrupt them.

VLC player is available as freeware from:
http://www.videolan.org/
Click the "Download Now for Windows 9.0MB" to go to the download page. VLC
is a great little movie player that's gotten even better with 400 hackers
making improvements to it across the planet. It comes as an auto-install
..exe file. Download and run it to install VLC, very simply.

When VLC asks if you want it to be the default player, say YES and it
automates it running all the movies and music it can run. After you've
gotten it installed, simply point your mouse in Windows Explorer at the new
movie and doubleclick. VLC will boot and start your movie. Right click on
the movie, itself, and pick FULL SCREEN to put VLC in TV mode. There are a
LOT of controls in VLC to play with. The docs are also for downloading on
their webpage. Your movie runs....sounds crappy on those cheap PC
speakers....so get some cables and HOOK THE PC TO THE BIG STEREO! In the
boat, I recommend buying the PC an FM transmitter module so you can listen
to the movie on the boat's nice installed stereo system from whereever the
laptop is running the movie....laid back in the cockpit, libation in
hand....

Oh, look at that guy MMC 2 slips over! Is that "Master and Commander"
playing on his notebook through the cockpit stereo speakers?? COOL!
For those boring dock parties, just boot up a good concert or chick flick
and watch those beautiful girls from down the dock slip quietly into your
boat to watch...(c;....making all this decoding WELL worth the effort!

I can see, already, you're running out of hard drive space. You'll need
permanent storage on DVD+R for archive and I recommend a Maxtor 300GB
external hard drive to plug into the notebook's USB2 port for online movie
storage....hundreds of movies and thousands of MP3 music files in one box
on the boat. Works great, and you can just take the hard drive to someone
else's party and run VLC on their computer. On DVD's you get SIX DivX
movies on a single DVD if they were encoded, as most are, to fit on a
single CDR..733MB. The higher res DivX movies, you get 3 on a DVD, usually
split in two to store on cheap CDRs by the poster.

You can also get a gazillion MP3 music files from Usenet with Xnews more
directly! You don't need Winrar or Quickpar for MP3 files. They are
simply split in Usenet to overcome usenet's 10000 lines/message limits on
some servers. If you point to a song, which will show up on a single line
in Xnews' list (collapsed), Xnews will deocde the MP3 directly to a
playable MP3 file as it wasn't compressed with Winrar, just split and
posted. Those newsgroups start with alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.(genre here).
Whatever type of music you like, Usenet has a group for it....

I have 21,000,000 MP3 files collected over about 12 years. Party
music?...shuffled? No problem.

Need an MP3 catalog program to organize them? MP3 Catalog Pro from:
http://www.wizetech.com/amc/
These Russians have the finest MP3 catalog program on the
planet...Blazingly fast, even on HUGE directories with 10000 MP3 files in
them! All others just suck by comparison.

"Have you got 'My Love's Gone' or any music by the Platters?", she asks in
a husky voice. You click the search in AMC and type in Platters. A new
window pops up showing her the 329 Platters songs scattered across your
300GB hard drive in 28 directories. "Oh, I want to hear that one.", she
says smiling at you and pointing those lovely fingers at your screen. You
click and drag it into Winamp's playlist under the song that's playing,
now. "It will play next.", you reassure her slipping your arm casually
around here waist ready to dance her night away. Great program...(c;

Life is GOOD......