torrents and file clouding or posting in mail

I have a couple of movies that were from magazines, sorry, I meant to say they are home movies, some of you would like perhaps. On motorbike stuff. I can transcode them to AVI format but thye still come out at 700 meg, to be watchable on a TV. However that means they squeeze onto one of the cheap blank CD's I have. Too much to stick on 'image shack free' or similar anyway.

I have read mixed reports of whether it is OK, or worthwhile trying to send a DVD/CD or thumbdrive into China. Some say no probs some say they are all destroyed at border or local Post Centres. Surely by now businesses are sending promo discs around and so on? Or is it all electronic?

So, to torrent or to cloud? If I torrent doesn't my machine have to act as a server and be on all the time or are there repositories you upload to? Would it be easier to cloud host them and send links to mates etc. so they can download? I have to watch the expenses as I am tied to very slow wireless internet and high rates of $15 a gig minimum. Also it takes a few hours to upload so once at a time is what I want with easy uploads.

If I post, how do Chinese addresses work? I assume I would need both English and Chinese addresses?

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Originally Posted by jape

If I post, how do Chinese addresses work? I assume I would need both English and Chinese addresses?

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Country in uppercase & postal code MUST correct (Check http://www.cpdc.com.cn if unsure. City/Province in English are reference ONLY) ensure it delivered to nearest post office.
Postal staff in "town " delivers ur mail may/ may not (there was story some di**head dump ??? address mailings in news ) like the FULL address in English, so write something he reads clearly ... FULL address in Chinese.

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Originally Posted by jape

I have read mixed reports of whether it is OK, or worthwhile trying to send a DVD/CD or thumbdrive into China. Some say no probs some say they are all destroyed at border or local Post Centres. Surely by now businesses are sending promo discs around and so on? Or is it all electronic?

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I wouldn't recommend sending data on CD/DVD or USB stick through from outside the PRC. Just another thing that may, or may not, get held up and thrown away. Promo discs and junk mail are not very common.

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Originally Posted by jape

So, to torrent or to cloud? If I torrent doesn't my machine have to act as a server and be on all the time or are there repositories you upload to? Would it be easier to cloud host them and send links to mates etc. so they can download? I have to watch the expenses as I am tied to very slow wireless internet and high rates of $15 a gig minimum. Also it takes a few hours to upload so once at a time is what I want with easy uploads.

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You only need to seed the torrent log enough for one person to get the entire file, then everyone can leech it off of them instead.

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Originally Posted by jape

If I post, how do Chinese addresses work? I assume I would need both English and Chinese addresses?

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It's best to put an English (get it out of your country) address and a Chinese (ensure it actually gets delivered) address.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Why so much trouble? Put the video(s) in a .rar file and upload it to Hotfile for example and post the link. Torrents are :bs:

I 2nd to Barry's method, archive videos in a encrypted (password protected) rar/zip. Besides, I would use avc/h264 codec for smaller file size, mpeg4/divx is out.

Thanks to all of you, will look into all that.

when we send DVD to Germany, we use a "human postman". somebody takes them into his/her luggage and in Germany they make their last trip per normal post office.

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Originally Posted by Barry

Why so much trouble? Put the video(s) in a .rar file and upload it to Hotfile for example and post the link. Torrents are :bs:

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Boardband in OZ using a "fair" system More Bandwidth = More $$$
The common chinese "unlimted" entermient (d/l evething: latest porn / TV series .... ) NEVER heard there:mwink:

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Originally Posted by Barry

Why so much trouble? Put the video(s) in a .rar file and upload it to Hotfile for example and post the link. Torrents are :bs:

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Being in China most known video sites are blocked. I heavily rely on torrents. Takes a bit of time to learn, but worth it. It's the best method to transferring large data: no need for zip/rar archiving, can pause/resume upload multiple times, is happy with whatever bandwidth it gets(you can set a limit). All you need to do is find a good tracker. But not everything is easy to find on torrents.
Hint, if you're going to use a service like http://hotfile.com better split the archive into multiple parts; usually if your connection is interrupted, you have to restart the upload from the beginning. Another such service is http://www.filehosting.org/ they say no size limit.

Well it is all annoying me today, can't get Handbrake software into apt-get, the DVD rip software says it needs 85 gig free to do a simple 3.6 gig transcode, hotfile and filehosting uploads both stuffed up after hundreds of megs and have no resume thus all lost at my expense. I might use some cloud backup like dropbox temporarily.
But no more today!

Another one that can be handy for sending big files is www.sendthisfile.com

We use it at work all the time to send artwork and the likes.

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Originally Posted by felix

Another one that can be handy for sending big files is www.sendthisfile.com

We use it at work all the time to send porn and the likes.

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Fixed...:icon10:

Cheers!
ChinaV

Ah, the power of moderation, outstanding!

Hey! I never wrote that, asshole!

Besides, we only use sendthisfile because our internal ftp server is already completely clogged with porn research.

I use Google talk a lot to send large files (over 1G) between eu and cn - no problems. You just have to install the talk client on both sides.
If you have own web space upload the file through ftp.

Skype often works well for this too. open a chat window with someone anywhere, and drag your big file into the chat window. off it goes.

I expect you have fast ADSL2 or more for files that size? It is a great idea if time-zones match or can be organised to coincide. Does Google talk or skype have a resume process if you drop out? It is optimised with codecs and routing for voip I suppose but on Wireless BB would still take hours. No way round that so possibly the ftp to a website using resume is the safest, fastest way.

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Originally Posted by chinabiker

I use Google talk a lot to send large files (over 1G) between eu and cn - no problems. You just have to install the talk client on both sides.
If you have own web space upload the file through ftp.

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What is the paranoia about DVD's? Is everything checked for subversive material or something like that on the way in, is it just a holdover from when China was closed? I am going to try posting one when I get the right address to use, it is legally owned and not subversive, just bike stuff!

OK, guys there are a multitide of ways to deal and share files large and small... some have already mentioned torrents (some good and bad points being made from either camp) I use them, have used them and will continue to use them too. Google also has Gmail drive which worked well... though I've not used mine for an age. There are as others mentioned many filehosting websites, some of them do have some limitations especially for free downloaders - so best to check before uploading. I'm with others in that it's always better to split/archive large files into smaller volumes so that it makes it easier all round for both uploading and downloading. I use so many different applications:
HJSplit - one cool splitting and joining tool... worth a look...
Yousendit is a good site... but if you don't want to use filehosting websites there is an application called Team Viewer... it allows sharing and even remote desktop/control amongst other features which is great way to share ;)

Dealing with video files... there's loads of compression codecs around and if you are going for the smallest compression consider "RM" or better still "RMVBR"... by 'real media' Some of my favourite video compression codecs come in apps like 'shrink and burn' 'winAVI, 'ImTOO video converter' plus more pro suites like 'Studio Pro' or 'Video Edit Magic'

As for handling downloadable files from hosting websites which can be lost and don't allow resumption - I use JDownloader and Mipony, each are excellent pieces of software that allow for using downloadable click-able links and the new captcha windows that many filehosting websites use.

As for CD/DVD's in and out of the country, I can speak for receiving DVD's and CD's into the country (China), and have received all those that I expected, either medical or education related. Many from a Uni in Australia (CSU) and a few medical DVD's from USA. Though that being said I've had cheques sent by me to both NZ/AUS go missing, and a few essays being returned from CSU in NSW seemingly disappear... I've still got like 3 sent to me from last year that have never materialised.

Just my 2 fen's worth :)

Lots of good info there BD, thankyou, especially the resumable downloader/uploaders which are platform independent. I am going to try a few different things as time goes by. I downloaded Handbrake transcoder for Linux and finally got it working, I am a bit of a linux newbie, it has the codecs mentioned earlier and did the job after a struggle to work out how to get it loaded, just took hours to process files on my old machine, but hey, leave it go and come back hours later and it is done in background. I also just had a purchase from China disappear after a couple of years of no problems, not here after a month but this is quite rare I think. No more than from elsewhere. I have had the same problem from UK and USA and within Aus. Next time I will ask for tracking post service from ChinaPost but this item wasn't worth the expense. Maybe temporary staff over Xmas a bit light-fingered?

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Originally Posted by jape

What is the paranoia about DVD's? Is everything checked for subversive material or something like that on the way in, is it just a holdover from when China was closed? I am going to try posting one when I get the right address to use, it is legally owned and not subversive, just bike stuff!

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The paranoia is that in times before important events (Olympics, Asian Games, party congress, national day, Chinese new year, ...), many items are banned from being mailed to or within China - not always, but sometimes, no reason given, TIC.
On two attempts mailing CD/DVD to China to me personally, these were impounded and I got a friendly note that if I wanted them I had to pay xxx "inspection fee" :eekers:, pay the return mail or just forget them. This was when I decided for my own webspace and started to use file transfer in various forms.
Mailing from company to company always worked without problems.

Thanks Andy, I had best try to find a business address then for first step, then maybe it could be sent o internally. It is just a magazine dvd, paid for so legal to pass on.

Another thing with physical shipments: the China Customs and China Post now have begun aggressively assessing import duties on stuff shipped into the PRC. I had a diary mailed to me from the US, and they taxed me 60 rmb, almost US$10, on a product that was priced on the invoice at $40. I did not appreciate that, but get used to it -- it was all done with computer printouts and clearly is being rolled out.

One of the great thing about China was how the left hand never knew what the right hand was doing. Those days are fading fast.

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Originally Posted by euphonius

... Those days are fading fast.

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Yep, the glory days are numbered :-( Time to go??

Thanks jape. Got something in the mail just before CNY!! More when I get back home. I'll upload a torrent or two. Three CDs right? Package was unopened!

Very good. Unopened is good, I didn't include all the plastic covers, just the pictures that slip inside and the DVD's of course. I hope you enjoy them and maybe practise the moves. There's a lot on them to learn! Only do the torrents if you think it worthwhile but I reckon some of the lads might quietly enjoy them too.