Become a Screener for the Acadamy

The last Hack-of-the-Week showed you how to download and watch your favorite TV shows at whim. Now, you're going to learn how to get movies before they're released on DVD, or possibly even the theater. This is actually amazingly simple.

Important: You need to have uTorrent or Transmission installed and know how to access files you've downloaded with torrents. (If the previous statement confuses you, read steps 1 and 4 on Simplify Your TV Obsession.)


Step One: Add Shortcut

Right-click the picture to your bottom right and choose "Bookmark This Link". Make sure you choose to add the bookmark to your "Bookmarks Toolbar" (its the folder option in the 2nd drop-down box.) If you don't, you'll never remember where you put this bookmark.

Step Two: Become Familiar with VCDQuality

You should be checking VCDQuality everyday to see the releases for the day. Every time you load the page, new posts you haven't seen show up highlighted in red.

You need to become familiar with how the site is setup:

1. The "Type" column shows you what kind of release it is. The only ones you want to download are: DVDRIP, DVDSCR, R5, or WORKPRINT. (If you want to know the difference between these and other types of releases read this.)
   
2. Click and you will be shown an example of how good the video quality is.
3. If you see , the audio and video will be slightly out of sync. If you are using VLC media player you can fix the problem (PC users: "J" and "K" or Mac users: "F" and "G" will adjust the audio forwards or backwards).
4. The symbol tells you how many 700mb CD's the video fits on. This will help you later when determining which torrent to download.
5. The "Rating" column is what users have rated the video's quality. It goes Video/Audio/Content.
6. Use the search box to see if a movie you're interested in has become available. If the only version that comes up is a CAM or TELECYNC, a good quality copy is not available and you just need to wait.
   
   

Step Three: Search Your Movie

Go to ThePirateBay and search 2 things: The name of your movie and the release group.

(For example: I want to search "Scream of the Butterfly" released by the group "EPiSODE". My piratebay search would look like this: "scream butterfly episode")

You will probably get a couple results. You want to download the torrent with the most "SE".

Once the progress bar hits 100% in your torrent program, don't forget to remove it from the list and shutdown the program.

Optional: Watch It on the Big Screen
If your computer doesn't have a 50" plasma hooked to it, you probably are wondering how to watch these movies on your TV. You have 2 options:

1. Use your Xbox 360. Transfer the movie to a flash drive or a blank CD/DVD.
2. Install a program called ConvertXtoDVD and burn the movie in DVD format. Download here or here.
   

Notes:
If you have playback problems, you need to be using VLC media player. All your problems will disappear.

Now I know you're going to ask if this is legal or not. The answer is no, it is not legal. If you're afraid, go ahead and stop. But before you run to your router and rip it out of the wall, consider this: the MPAA only cares about people selling movies or mass distributing them. You're a small fish and the worst they would ever do is send a letter to Comcast telling you to stop. Comcast would then kindly give you a copy of that letter (I've never received one). Better yet, use your neighbor's wireless connection.