Geek Central HOW-TO: RSS Downloading

Now that you have setup uTorrent and your computer for peer-to-peer file sharing, it's time to set it up for more advanced features. This time it is RSS Downloading, a type of search and download function that can be deployed in uTorrent.

Now, you may ask what is RSS downloading, what it does, and how it works. Let's start with what you will know: the logo. You have seen it across the internet, typically on news sites and such. It looks like this:

RSS is "Rich Site Summary " and is a group of web feed formats. An RSS document, which is called a feed, contains either a summary of the website or the whole text. Essentially, the site that is being summarized will update it's feed file and send it to it's subscribers, which have a program or application that reads the feed and turns it back into text and which ever. A good example of this is a home page from Yahoo! or MSN. It uses these feeds and translates them into information that would otherwise be in all corners of the internet and puts it right in front of you.

If a torrent indexing site has RSS ability, and it's sorted into proper categories, then you can access this feed from within uTorrent and download torrents that meet your criteria. You then can setup Favorites from within uTorrent to specifically download certain things depending on the criteria. A television show is a prime example of this; it comes out, let's say weekly, on Thursday at 9 and your boss regularly schedules to work Thursday until 10:30. Now, with Favorites and RSS Downloader, you can set uTorrent up to catch the show as soon as a release hits that has your criteria.

Adding a feed

Click on the RSS button, then click Add. Paste in the feed URL and hit OK. If you want to name the feed, simply type the name in front of the URL, like so:
TV Feed|http://somesite.com/rss.xml (NO SPACE BEFORE OR AFTER THE | )

Note that the RSS Downloader will NOT consume any extra resources if you have no feeds present/enabled. Some feeds do not give direct links to the .torrent files (most notably Mininova) and as such won't work, but you can use the RSSatellite to modify those feeds to work properly.

Disabling a feed or filter

Simply uncheck the box next to the feed or filter, and it will no longer be used.

Renaming a feed or filter

You can rename a feed by selecting it, then single clicking or pressing F2. You can do the same thing for renaming filters.

Sorting filters

You can sort filters by drag and drop. Simply click, hold, and drag to wherever in the list you'd like it.

Using feeds that require HTTP authentication

For feeds that require HTTP authentication, simply use this format for the feed URL: http://username:password@sometorrentsite.com/rss.php

Using feeds that require cookies

To use feeds that require cookies, you must find the cookie for the site, and grab UID and pass from it.

* IE users will find their cookies in %UserProfile%\Cookies
* Firefox users will find their cookies in Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> Cookies -> View Cookies
* Opera users will find their cookies in Tools -> Advanced -> Cookies, but they must scroll down manually, find doesn't work
* Users of other browsers will have to consult their browser's documentation

Once you have the appropriate information, use this format for the feed URL:
http://sometorrentsite.com/rss.php:COOKIE:uid=1234;pass=asdjh12378912y3lkj

Some sites do not use uid and pass as the variables, or use additional ones, so you MUST use the exact variable name and the extra variables they specify! For example, on a certain site, it uses id, password, and secure as the cookie variables you must use.

Automatically downloading torrents

To automatically download specific torrents from a feed, you can use Favorites to specify your own filters to grab torrents. It does NOT support regular expressions. Here's a tutorial explaining the various options and how to use them (with examples).

* Hit Add, then type the name of the filter.
* Click on the editbox next to Filter: and add your filter. The allowed wildcards are * ? and |. An example of a filter you could use would be *MP3 Archives*
If you have a strange feed using underscores or something besides periods, you can also try something like *Go?Open*
You cannot specify the season or episode number in the filter if it is decoded by µTorrent (check the Releases tab): you must use the episode number box, OR turn on "Filter matches original name instead of decoded name." You also can't match by group name without first using "Filter matches original name instead of decoded name." Remember, using "Filter matches original name" disables the "Episode number" function!
* Not: allows you to exclude certain strings from matching. An example is you don't want releases with AC3 audio and H.264: you can write *AC3*|*H*264|*x*264* in Not: to exclude those.
* If you want the torrents to automatically download and start without any further input, you MUST specify a folder in Save in:! However, if you have a path set in "Put new downloads in:" in Folder Options, you don't have to set a save folder here.
* Feed: chooses what feed you want the filter to apply to; either all of them or a specific one
* Quality allows you choose various qualities to match against, or allow all. You can choose more than one quality in the dropdown list.
* Episode number is to download only specific ep numbers, say to avoid releases of old episodes. It does support ranges (i.e. 1x4-26).
* "Filter matches original name instead of decoded name" is so that you can match based off what the original name is in the feed, instead of µTorrent's parsed result.
* Give download highest priority sets all torrents downloaded automatically through RSS to the top of the queue, making your seeds and other downloads get queued if you reach the max active torrents.
* Smart ep. filter makes µTorrent only download the first version of each new episode that matches your filter. Do NOT turn this option on if the episode number isn't parseable (shows ? for all episodes)!
* Minimum interval sets a minimum interval between matches for the filter: if you set it to 2 days, µTorrent will not download anything for at least 2 days after a match.
* You can use the Reset button to make µTorrent forget that it has downloaded episodes and the last time matched for that filter.
* Label for new torrents auto-sets a label for torrents that match the filter.
* All changes are automatically saved when you make them, so you don't have to do anything once you're done editing the filter.
* You can select a filter and press ? to see what the last four episodes were that matched, and the last time that the filter matched something. A list of the currently matching episodes from the feeds you've defined for it is also available in the "?" dialog, so you can double-check your filter expression.

Here is the Favorites tab with an example filter:


RSS Downloader Releases Tab

You can add and remove columns to the Releases tab by right clicking on them and choosing from the list. You can double click or right click -> open to download releases listed here.

Icon Meanings

RSS clock icon means the release is less than 24 hours old.
RSS checkmark means that the torrent was already downloaded and moved to the history.

Join me next time when I'll show how to properly forward ports on your computer, firewall and router to maximize download speed and to avoid getting throttled by your ISP.