How to watch movies and TV shows via torrents without waiting for download

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

After all, no one likes to wait.

Torrent clients for Windows, macOS and Linux

qBittorrent

qBittorrent is a great torrent client with tons of features. It's free, but it can easily put the popular but ad-filled uTorrent on top. It has built-in search, convenient filtered RSS subscriptions, and a highly customizable schedule. But the real killer feature of qBittorrent is sequential download mode.

Add a torrent and start downloading any video file in qBittorrent, then right-click on it in the download list to open the context menu. Click on the "Load Sequentially" item. Wait 30 seconds, then right click again and select "Preview File". And that's it, video playback will start.

QBittorrent works best in conjunction with the VLC video player: the latter can play incompletely downloaded files.

Also qBittorrent, as befits any decent torrent client, can download certain files in the distribution in turn. This is useful if you are downloading an entire series with several seasons and want to start watching it from the first episode.

After you start downloading and tick the "Download sequentially" checkbox, click the "Files" button below. You will see a list of all episodes and seasons. Find the first release, right-click on it and set the "Priority" item to "Maximum".

Now you can start watching the first episode, and then the rest will download. Here you can also uncheck those episodes and seasons that you don't want to download.

Download qBittorrent →

WebTorrent

Nice open source torrent client. The WebTorrent interface is impossibly simple, although in terms of functions it is inferior to the same qBittorrent. But he copes with playing video from torrents as well as possible.

Open WebTorrent, and then drag any torrent file with video into its window. Or click File → Open Torrent Address … and enter the torrent URL or magnet link.

Then click on the round Play button next to the title of the movie in the download list.

If you are uploading an entire series, click on an entry in the list and you will see a list of all episodes. You can choose the one you want to view.

WebTorrent supports a fair number of video formats, but sometimes it turns out to be unable to open some MKV, for example. In this case, the program will offer to start playback in a third-party player - the same VLC is best suited.

Download WebTorrent →

Torrent clients for Android

Flud

The Android operating system has no shortage of torrent clients. And Flud is perhaps the best of them all. It looks good, runs stable and has a lot of customization, not inferior to desktop torrent clients.

Open any torrent file or magnet link in Flud and activate the "Enable progressive download" checkbox. Then click on the plus button. Wait a few seconds, click on the download torrent and go to the Files tab. Click on a video file and you will be prompted to open it.

You can choose any video player, but VLC will do better. If, when loading a file, it asks you about the corrupted index, just click Play as is and playback will begin.

tTorrent Lite

Another good Android client. It is not as functional as Flud, but it will still be useful for torrent lovers.

Start downloading any movie or series using tTorrent Lite, then click on the entry in the downloads section. On the properties tab, check "Sequential download".

Then, through your file manager, go to the folder where the torrents are downloaded and open the downloaded movie in VLC. If the player does not open immediately and notifies you of a corrupted index, click Play as is.

Unfortunately, tTorrent Lite does not allow you to start browsing directly from its interface, forcing the user to switch to the file manager and open the download folder manually.

Media players

ROX Player

ROX Player is a very handy Windows media player that has a useful torrent playback feature. Launch it, click "File" → "Open.torrent", and then specify a torrent file, a URL to it on the Web, or a magnet link. After a short buffering time, the movie will start playing. Everything is very simple.

At the same time, ROX Player even supports video rewinding. Click on the rewind bar at the bottom, and the program will start downloading exactly the part of the movie that you need.

By default, downloads are downloaded to the program folder and cleared when you exit ROX Player. This can be changed if you want to save the movies you watched so you can watch them again later.

Open "Options" → "Settings" and go to the "BitTorrent" tab. In the Downloads folder section, click the Change button and select any folder of your choice, such as Videos or Downloads. Then uncheck the "Automatically clear downloads when program starts" checkbox. That's it, now your films will be stored as long as you need.

ROX Player can play not only movies downloaded via torrent, but also TV shows. If you specify a torrent file or magnet link with several video files, the program will show you a playlist where you can choose which episode to show. The series will play one after the other.

Download ROX Player →