I love the internet. I love TV. I love the internet AND TV. How can you get TV via the internet for free with setup in under 10 minutes? Continue reading dear reader….
What you’ll need:
- Your favorite BitTorrent client – for this guide we will use Transmission for Macs, Vuze for Windows folks.
- A free account at ShowRSS
- If you are a Mac user, Catch, for Windows Vuze users, that’s it, just #’s 1 and 2.
Alright, get out your favorite stop watch, or load up your favorite stop watch app. Ready, set…..GO!
Step 1: Download and install your BitTorrent client of choice – est. time, 1 minute (unless you are still using AOL dialup, and depending on speed of your computer)
Step 2: Sign Up for ShowRSS – est. time, 1 minute
Click on “Register from home page”
Step 3: Choose TV shows you want via ShowRSS, and grab your personalized RSS feed link – est. time, 3 minutes (less for those technically inclined 🙂 )
Use Dropdown Box to select shows
Click on “Feeds” in site menu to get here. Then click “Generate”
Copy the link indicated by the red arrow.
Step 4: Identify a location to store your TV shows and create a folder specifically for it, name it something like “TV Shows” or “ShowRSS” or “Heres Sticking It To You Cable Man!” – est. time, 1 minute
Step 5a: (Mac Only): Install Catch, Setup Transmission – est. time, 2 minutes
After installing Catch, click on its icon in the Mac menu bar in top left and select Preferences.
In Catch preferences, paste in the ShowRSS Feed with Namespaces link in Feed URL. Check boxes to organize shows by folder and open torrents automatically. Select your TV Shows folder to “Save torrents to:”
Finally, in Transmission preferences use the above settings on the “Transfers” tab.
Step 5b: (Windows): Setup Vuze with your RSS feed from Show RSS by copying the “Feed with namespaces” link from above into – est. time, 2 minutes
Select “Tools” then ‘Options” from Vuze menu. Select “Files”, then point to the folder created in Step 4.
In Vuze left column menu, click the “+” to the right of “Subscriptions”
Click “Create New Subscription” in the pop-up dialog box
First click the “RSS” tab, the paste in the “Feed with namespaces” link in the URL box.
Step 6: Point your favorite media center application (Plex, XBMC) to your tv shows folder – est. time, 1 minute
Step 7: Kick back, relax, and love your fully automated internet-based PVR. Total time to setup, 8 minutes with 2 minutes to spare for fat fingering.
My personal record for this entire process is 7:31, and that included the extra step for Mac users for setting up Catch. So there it is, get to it! In no time you’ll be cutting your cable bill in half. Report back on how quickly you were able to set this up. Happy cutting…
Hi all,
I use Plex on MAC OS X and I would like to know how do you do to move the TVShows in the right directory??
In your tuto, for example, when a new episode is downloaded how do you put it in the right directory?? to import it in plex??
Ex : ../TVShows/fringe/season 1/
Regards,
Franck
franck,
not sure i understand the question. the directions, as is shown in Catch preferences (2nd screenshot of step 5A), if you check the “Organize torrents in folder by show name” and the parent directory is the folder you created in step 4, which you had step 5a and 6 point to, it will automatically do that.
So let me be a little clearer here. Assuming you check the “Organize” box in the Catch Prefs.
1. Open up your PMS Media Manager.
2. Select the TV Shows library on the left hand side, then
3. Click on “Edit Section”
4. Click on the “+” in the dialog box that pops up and navigate to the folder you set up for Catch.
5. That will automatically add shows to Plex.
Hope that’s clear.
Let’s say I also want my Apple TV (not jailbroken) as my primary viewing device. I would probably need to add a Step between 5 and 6 (let’s call it Step 5.5) that would automate the encoding of files to m4a and importing them to itunes. Does that seem right? Any suggestions for how to accomplish this?
Daniel,
Thanks for the read…i actually think there would two steps…
1. Correct, all files would need to be converted to a native Apple format, other than using some apple script, which I am not fluent in, I’m not sure how to automate this.
2. You would also have to have the files added to the iTunes library. I’m not sure if simply have the files download to the TV Shows folder in the iTunes folder structure will have iTunes automatically see them and add them to the iTunes library.
I think the best bet is still a Roku+Plex….
Thanks… I have a Logitech Revue lying around unused. I wonder if the Plex app on it would work well enough to be worthwhile?
Look at Ivi Pro for this. I have it fully automated so that it is always watching my TV Shows download folder, automatically finds stuff, uses TVDB to set all of the correct meta-data, encodes the show to m4a, and imports it into iTunes.
Thanks Chris. Got a link?
I’m a bittorrent newb. How safe/secure is it if I follow this guide?
It’s not safe at all. Use a VPN.
I’ve used this for over 3 years without incident.