I just downloaded a video using BitTorrent (I think). Thus, a file of type TORRENT was created. My first question is the video was around 450MB but the file created is only 16KB. ??? When I click on it, BitTorrent comes up and tells me it’s already in the list of torrents. I know I’m doing something wrong. How do I extract the video? Please explain this whole process.
You didn’t download the video yet, you downloaded a file that gives you the info for a “tracker” for the video. Your bittorrent client then begins to download the file from other people through the tracker. You should be notified by the bittorrent client when the download completes.
I just checked what I downloaded at first which I believe is what you are referring to. I clicked it and it was added to BitTorrent. For the last 2hrs it was downloading. It finished. I don’t see anything that was created. Where the hell is my video? 
edit: Nevermind. If I right click on the torrent in BitTorrent, there is an option to Open Containing Folder, and presto, there is my video!
Yes, in your torrent program it should show the current progress of the file itself downloading. The Torrent file itself isn’t your file.
Edit: I can’t remember if this is the standard for BitTorrent or not, but check “My Documents/Downloads”.
The .torrent file is metadata, describing the nature of the file you are ultimately interested in downloading, and more importantly letting your client know what the trackers are that know which other computers host the same file and are interested in sharing it.
Glad you found it. Have fun masturbating! 
That was so funny, I almost forgot to laugh. But I didn’t forget to masturbate!
Most BT clients have a window at the bottom that can be set to File, letting you double click the name there, which fetches the file from the actual location, and launching the default application for the file type. You shouldn’t have to fiddle with Windows Explorer all the time.
Also notice that when the client tries to load the tiny .torr file, it will ask if you would like a certain location to save the file to be downloaded.
TV shows are 175 or 350 MB. Movies are 700 MB. Everything else is porn 
A TV show in MPEG-1/VCD format typically weighs in at about 450MB.
FYI unless the facts have changed, it is frowned up on to discuss file sharing on the dope.
Thanks for bumping the thread!
So, guys, imagine how much more efficient bittorent would be if there was some way for each person’s share ratio to be known by the decentralized cloud, and if download speed reflected how good that ratio was. It’d require some creative code to make it unfakeable, and some more protocol overhead, but it’d fix the problem of the commons.
There was/is a client, BitTyrant, which tried to be less egalitarian in the tit-for-tat exchanges i.e. it aggressively favoured peers that sent it data when doling out its upload. Which kind of rewards ratio, and should be fairly fake resistant.
But in many communities an oversupply of bandwidth is more of a “problem” than leeching.
Yeah, the ones that force a share ratio. How inefficient that is! (For those who don’t know, you sometimes can’t even download until you upload some number of bytes, and you can’t upload because everyone else is also uploading.) Very non-dynamic. Plus, of course, the community’s policy doesn’t extend outside the community, and it still doesn’t reward good uploaders with more bandwidth on demand.
Then there’s the 2nd big problem of bittorrent. It doesn’t search your harddrive for things to upload. If you don’t have the .torrent loaded in your client, you can’t be sharing files even if you have them. Also, renaming files or move them around breaks the upload. This dramatically cuts the number of seeders on rarer/older torrents.