Brickfrog

I don’t think it’s possible, or at least not in the way you’re thinking. Encoding a video with lossless flags usually results in a file size bigger or about the same as the source, and on top of that it takes a long time to actually do the encode.

Video is already highly compressed.

But for sure you can tinker around with ffmpeg (FOSS) & see how it goes for you. I’ve done it in the past just for kicks since some of the common video codec encoders do have lossless flags but it really wasn’t worth the effort.

EDIT: That’s just the video in the file, you also have to contend with the audio. That’s a bit easier if you just want to use ffmpeg to dump everything into FLAC but again, I don’t think you’re saving much hard drive space if any.

Jellyfin should work fine for what you’re looking for. I haven’t run it on a Pi but it should work on that. You’ll be able to play music using the web ui as well as mobile apps if that’s your thing. It can also transcode on the fly so if your current browser/device/whatever can’t play .flac directly it’ll automatically transcode the playback to .mp3 or whatever it needs to be.

There are some other self hosted music/streaming projects you could take a look at that are much more built out for music playback specifically. Look into Airsonic-Advanced or Navidrome for example - I’ve been meaning to check them out myself but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

So, OP is downloading a torrent containing a sequential zip file?

We’re in !jellyfin@lemmy.ml so OP is talking about downloading a media file (.mkv, .mp4, etc.). I don’t think Jellyfin can play .zip files (?) but could be wrong.

So in the filesystem envision a .mkv movie file that exists but is only say 1% complete so maybe it is currently at 1 MB file size. This is a sequential download so it is downloading in order from beginning to end. Media players like Jellyfin, VLC, etc. can recognize and play this .mkv file, normally it’ll stop when it gets to the 1% data end which could be maybe 3 minutes of playback or whatever.

The magic with a sequential download is that it is still downloading, in OP’s case the download is going faster than the media playback. So by the time Jellyfin finishes playing that first 1% of the file the torrent client maybe already downloaded an additional 10% so Jellyfin continues playing the file uninterrupted. Meanwhile the torrent client is still going, since the download rate is ahead of Jellyfin’s media playback that should mean that Jellyfin will eventually play the entire .mkv movie file uninterrupted from beginning to end.

You can sequentially download .zip files as well, in that case it’ll just be this blob of data that starts at the beginning of the file data & goes through to the end. Not sure that is very useful to most people but if the sequential download grabbed the first/end pieces of the file maybe you can at least view the inside file listing of the .zip file before it finishes downloading, could be useful if you just want to preview it before the download completes?

When I’m downloading .part zip files as part of one torrent, how can I go about continuing seeding but not having to have both the archives and the extracted files to save space? Is that even possible?

Normally not possible, you need the untouched torrent data to exist to continue seeding.

No experience with this but I’ve read that if you’re on Linux using a filesystem with FUSE you could sort of keep .zip files intact while still interacting with them, sort of like mounting the .zip files in the live OS. That might be more along the lines of what you’re after since you’ll be able to keep the .zip files untouched in that sense while still being able to use them elsewhere.

Just leave it loaded in the torrent client.

e.g. if a sequential downloading torrent was downloading into “thisfile.mkv” it starts off at 0% - 99% progress. Eventually when it finishes it’ll still be the same “thisfile.mkv” just at 100% complete. Nothing in the torrent client changes, it’ll keep the torrent loaded and seeding unless you configure it to stop.

With OP’s post they are downloading without moving or renaming the file so nothing changes from a torrenting perspective. Not sure if you meant to ask something else, like if you’re moving or renaming the file outside of the torrent client then yeah that would break the seeding.

Do you require that your torrent client download using .part files? Seems like it would be easier to disable that setting in your torrent client so it sequentially downloads into the expected file name and extension. That should be enough for Jellyfin to see it is a .mkv or whatever with the proper name and scan it/play it.

Should be fine, just don’t cheap out on the external drive / cable you will be using. And when you’re using something like smartctl you’ll know right away if SMART info is passing through your USB for proper testing.

I’ve done a lot of these type of scans via USB drives, honestly the more annoying part is that some USB drives do wonky things like go into sleep mode within 1-5 minutes which will disrupt any sort of scanning you had going. So with USB drive scanning I usually implement something to keep the drive alive and awake e.g. a simple infinite loop script to write a file every x seconds, or if you’re on windows you can also use KeepAliveHD.

is there anything you would recommend?

You’d need to donate via whatever means they accept donations, it’s not something you get to choose yourself. Unless you meant that you are going to keep contacting FOSS projects to ask them to set up new donation methods?

Personally I donate via crypto or other means that they allow donations via credit card (Liberapay / Ko-Fi work well IMO) . No Paypal/Venmo since I can’t use those services - some FOSS projects I don’t donate at all if they only accept Paypal.

True, wouldn’t be too different vs just using a VPN. You’re choosing to trust the Tribler tech and the Tribler exit node operator vs choosing to trust the VPN provider. Granted most VPN connections are going to have much better performance vs anything Tribler related.

There is a nice side effect of running an *arr stack against Tribler, even in 1 hop mode - Your Tribler node is much more easily pulling in new content into the Tribler network for other users to access afterwards without needing an exit node. Ideally it’s just one Tribler node/user needing to pull data through the exit nodes while the rest would just pull it from you and share with other nodes in-network.

Torrents over I2P work the same way. If the torrent data isn’t found within I2P and you have outproxies configured you could pull torrents from the clearnet & afterwards other I2P users just share amongst the I2P network.

That’s pretty cool, thanks for sharing! Been a while since I tried it out but last I looked Tribler’s own automation features were quite lacking so something like this helps a lot.

I was not able to download anything with more than 1 hops in between - ie it does hide your real IP address, but only uses one relay in between.

Hmm I don’t think there’s any relays at all in that configuration, unless you’re counting the exit node itself?

https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/issues/3067#issuecomment-325367047

One thing to keep in mind is that to download torrents from outside Tribler’s own network you would need to download through an exit node… not sure on the exact stats but last I tested exit nodes were only like 5-10% of the Tribler user base. For a while I tried volunteering my own VPN connection as an exit node for Tribler just to see how it went but the Tribler client kept locking up/crashing after a few days so the experiment did not go well… hopefully works better nowadays.

But, regardless, blocking any registrars that size the way you’re describing would break way more businesses and hurt the recipient provider’s own reputation.

Yeah I thought that too but when speaking with the email admin that was blocking Namecheap while figuring this out they had already decided it wasn’t worth trying to allow the 1% of valid emails vs the 99% spam emails they felt they received via Namecheap domains.

This honestly starting to sound more and more like a smear campaign

Smear against whom? I’m a Namecheap customer, just relaying my own experiences using them. Besides that quirk I like them fine as a registrar… I know it sounds dumb but I even renewed my domains there even after those email issues.

It’s fine, you don’t need to believe me as I said it’s just my own experience using Namecheap domains for emails. But you could just google around, you’ll see plenty of people discussing Namecheap & looking for solutions to block them (or solutions to successfully send emails with hem)… it’s not something I randomly made up if that’s what you’re implying.

e.g.

https://community.spiceworks.com/t/blocking-emails-based-on-registrar/816565

https://tacit.livejournal.com/608386.html

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/05/why-do-scammers-love-namecheap/

https://www.reddit.com/r/NameCheap/comments/13t6fvm/namecheaps_private_email_is_blacklisted_by/

https://www.reddit.com/r/NameCheap/comments/wlb6vp/namecheap_making_it_too_easy_to_register_domains/

https://www.reddit.com/r/NameCheap/comments/tz4mkb/my_emails_are_always_going_in_the_spam_folder_of/

https://www.reddit.com/r/NameCheap/comments/ye358x/i_am_getting_a_ton_of_spam_scams_from_namecheap/

etc.

If you’re using Google Workspace, Google will give you the appropriate DMARC, DKIM and SPF records to add to your DNS. The NS themselves should resolve the records and provide the recipient server with the values you’ve entered, thereby ensuring delivery.

Sure. But why would that matter when you’re dealing with hostile 3rd party email providers that intentionally want to blackhole all email domains at Namecheap? But yes, just to clarify I do configure DMARC/DKIM/SPF and that works great for most cases.

I’m just describing what worked for me though in truth I don’t know exactly how these hostile email providers actually determine the domain is hosted at Namecheap. My hunch is that they are using a lookup & finding the nameserver for the domain & have already blacklisted Namecheap’s default free nameserver IP addresses. For whatever reason those same hostile email providers don’t seem to be blacklisting Namecheap’s paid nameserver but I think that sort of makes sense…

The larger issue is that Namecheap is known for cheap domains that scammers/spammers tend to buy in bulk & then use to spam with. Those same scammers/spammers aren’t trying to spend extra money so they only ever use the default free Namecheap nameservers.

If you use Namecheap for email domain(s) you may want to consider also splurging for their PremiumDNS to keep your domain(s) off spam blocks at other email providers.

I help maintain some emails at Gmail/Google Workspace but the domains themselves are at Namecheap. For a while there were complaints that some emails never landed in other people’s inboxes… this led me to talk about the issue with one of the email provider recipients based in the UK & apparently they were null routing anything coming from Namecheap since they felt a lot of spam came from them. But after some experimenting I figured out their system (& probably others) were figuring out they were Namecheap domains via the default FreeDNS they use. On a hunch I switched those domains over to PremiumDNS and after that all our emails were landing in other inboxes correctly. I guess maybe it makes sense, a typical spammer buying a cheap domain at Namecheap isn’t going to splurge for the higher end DNS service for it.

I’m not saying all email providers treat Namecheap domains as spam but just be warned there definitely ones out there that do.

Bummer, the formfactor / specs look okay but it’s kind of a dead end if I can’t just install & use a vanilla Debian OS or similar.

With all the NAS OS options probably Synology has the best one but even there I don’t actually want to get locked into that. I doubt this UGOS software can match Synology’s let alone Debian.

If it’s any consolation it looks like UGREEN is responding to comments about installing other OSes at their kickstarter page https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/urgreen/ugreen-nasync-next-level-storage-limitless-possibilities/comments

Interesting, though I suspect that is a false positive, it’s happened before with that software

https://rejetto.com/forum/index.php?topic=9037.0

Most likely because it is a self-contained web server executable? That sort of software would seem suspicious and similar to other sorts of virus/malware.

Granted I have not used it in a while but I’d be surprised if it were true, their forums and github would be full of reports of malware.

https://github.com/rejetto/hfs

That aside you have plenty of other options to use if you prefer to use something else.

Syncthing, Resilio Sync, or one of those browser based p2p file sends e.g. https://file.pizza or similar.

If both p2p ends know how to use torrents then creating a simple torrent to share to the other peer would work fine. But that requires slightly more IT competence especially if someone needs to open a port forward (ideally you would make sure you have your own port forwarded so the other party doesn’t have to worry about this).

If you’re doing this more than once it might be worth setting up a simple server e.g. HFS is a nice open source/free HTTP file server, been a while since I used it but it still seems to be active https://www.rejetto.com/hfs/

Sucks but not surprising. Broadcom has a history of doing things like this, ugh. Even with their paid products they jack up the price so much that the only customers that stick around are the business enterprise types that are locked in & can’t easily migrate for various reasons.