How does the RSS Downloader filter?

[Badsecurityforum]

I missed several episodes of a tv show because of the RSS downloader.

For example, i have "Scrubs" as a favorite. And today i checked the feeds for something different and there where 3 torrents for Scrubs in plain sight and the RSS downloader is doing nothing.

My filter settings are not very complicated:

Filter: Scrubs

Feeds: all

Quality: all

nothing else.

Why doesn't it recognize the torrents like "Scrubs.8x03.(HDTV-NoTV)[VTV]"?

I added this torrent as a favorite and utorrent set the filter to "Scrubs VTV" and began downloading? Where is the big difference? It should work also without the additional keyword for the release group.

Another example: There is a show with torrents like "Being.Erica.....". I tried to manually add a filter with filter set to "Erica". No matches. It has to be added with the filter set to "Being Erica" otherwise it won't match. This makes no sense.

Another example. RSS entry "Private.Practice. ... .[VTV]". After some testing i found out, that the filter has to be exactly set to "Private Practice VTV" like utorrent enters it automatically, otherwise nothing will be downloaded.

This has to be one of the worst implementations of a filter method i have encountered.

The normal user would expect that the Downloader would catch any RSS feed depending on the filter string. But is nowhere clear, that the full name of the show has to be entered or that even the release group has to mentioned.

I call this "broken".

[dtjohnst]

Wildcards. For Scrubs try using "Scrubs*" as a filter. That way text after Scrubs won't matter. Helps out if someone gives the episode name too. For Private Practice, same thing, stick a * at the end, so "Private Practice*". Or for even better matching, "Private?Practice*". The ? in this case will match a space or a . or anything else they stick in there. For more complicated ones, like your Being Erica example, put a star on both ends. So "*Erica*". That should catch all those pesky additions like HDTV/VTV/DIVX/Episode Title.

The release group does NOT need to be mentioned, you just need to put a wildcard in. If you want a specific release group, you simply add that back in using whatever naming convention that group uses.

Also, I'd recommend you use the smart episode filter for TV shows, especially since uTorrent by default (if you have the latest version) will redownload propers and repacks.

Had you read the RSS guide linked from the uTorrent website, you would have seen all that I've just explained. Or had you even punched in "uTorrent RSS tutorial" or even "uTorrent RSS help" into Google. Which means RSS implementation isn't "broken", you just failed to read the documentation, made a poor assumption, and then failed to attempt to find the solution to your problem before calling something "broken".

Here's the direct link to the guide. Hopefully it helps you resolve any other issues you have.

http://utorrent.com/rsstutorial.php

[tempmine]

Ok there is defnetly somthing hinky with the rss downloader. This is the rss feed

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?><rss version="2.0">    <channel>        <title>BitTorrent @ AnimeSuki.com</title>        <link>http://www.animesuki.com/</link>        <description>The latest BitTorrent links to unlicensed English anime fansubs.</description>        <language>en</language>        <copyright>Content 2002-2006 AnimeSuki.com, BitTorrent 2001-2006 Bram Cohen.</copyright>        <image>            <title>BitTorrent @ AnimeSuki.com</title>            <url>http://www.animesuki.com/images/animesuki_button.gif</url>            <link>http://www.animesuki.com/</link>            <width>88</width>            <height>31</height>        </image>        <item>            <title>To Aru Majutsu no Index 1x15 (h264) [Eclipse]</title>            <link>http://eclipse.no-sekai.de/</link>            <description><b>To Aru Majutsu no Index 15</b> (h264)<br />By <a href="http://www.animesuki.com/group.php/587.html">Eclipse</a><br />Filesize: 336.5 Mb.<br />Show all torrents for <a href="http://www.animesuki.com/series.php/1311.html">To Aru Majutsu no Index</a></description>            <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:58:55 +0000</pubDate>            <enclosure url="http://torrents.no-sekai.de/eclipse/%5bEclipse%5d%20Toaru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20-%2015%20%281280x720%20h264%29%20%5b876622E9%5d.mkv.torrent" length="27172" type="application/x-bittorrent" />            <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.animesuki.com/details.php/36055.html</guid>        </item>        <item>            <title>To Aru Majutsu no Index 1x15 (XviD) [Eclipse]</title>            <link>http://eclipse.no-sekai.de/</link>            <description><b>To Aru Majutsu no Index 15</b> (XviD)<br />By <a href="http://www.animesuki.com/group.php/587.html">Eclipse</a><br />Filesize: 231.4 Mb.<br />Show all torrents for <a href="http://www.animesuki.com/series.php/1311.html">To Aru Majutsu no Index</a></description>            <pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:58:47 +0000</pubDate>            <enclosure url="http://torrents.no-sekai.de/eclipse/%5bEclipse%5d%20Toaru%20Majutsu%20no%20Index%20-%2015%20%28XviD%29%20%5b064ACDBB%5d.avi.torrent" length="18763" type="application/x-bittorrent" />            <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.animesuki.com/details.php/36054.html</guid>        </item>    </channel></rss>

This is my filter

Filter: To Aru Majutsu no Index*Eclipse*

Not:

Save in: E:\Anime

Feed: AnimeSuki

Quality: All

Episode Number: 1x15-

Label for new torrents: Index

Episode Number and smart ep. filter are checked

Now the hinky part when you click the "?" as listed you get 1 return the h264 torrent but if you check the "Filter matches original name instead of decoded name" you get both the Xvid and h264 versions.

-Tempmine

[dtjohnst]

Hmmm. I added the RSS feed to my uTorrent and set up your same filter, same thing happens to me. If you want even more fun, take out the Eclipse part altogether, and just use "To Aru Majutsu no Index" as a filter and hit ?, then you just get the XVid one. haha So it seems like on the Xvid version, uTorrent doesn't see the [Eclipse] part in the reformatted name, but picks it up fine in the original name.

[Badsecurityforum]

I still say that the filtering is broken. "broken" meaning "non-intuitive". (Actually it is beyond non-intuitive)

If i have "Scrubs.8x03.(HDTV-NoTV)[VTV]" in the feed, it should be enough to add "Scrubs" as a filter. The is absolutly no hint that you also have to include a space and VTV in the filter term.

And if there is a "Being.Erica.4x06" the filter "Erica" should catch it. OK, there a wildcards. But why does "Being Erica" work? Is space a wildcard?

Filtering should be easy for the user and it is not. Imagine a file search in windows where you search for "day" in the filename and it wouldn't find "best.day.jpg". Or that you have to use wildcards all the time when you search through your emails.

OK, utorrent obviously doesn't take the easy way of presenting filtering to its users, but even the way it does it, it is doing it wrong.

The problem is that there are the names of the feed items on the one hand and there is the filter on the other hand. The normal user would think that he can edit the filters and then gets matches from the list of item names. But this won't work.

Example:

Displayed name: Big.Love...

Filter: Big Love (works)

Filter: Big.Love (doesn't work)

The problem is that utorrent has its own internal scheme how to handle the names. And you have to adjust the filter to this internal scheme which you can't see. You can only see the name which is put together by utorrent. And the filter doesn't work on the displayed name, but on the internal representation. Then everything makes sense.

But even then it is all non-intuitive if i examine it closely.

Example

There are 3 items:

1. Being Erica S1E03 HDTV Xvid-2HD [eztv] (1607S/1309L)

2. Being.Erica.S1E03.HDTV.Xvid-2HD

3. Being.Erica.S1E03.HDTV.Xvid-2HD.[eztv].torrent

Here are the corresponding filters for each item made by utorrent:

1. Being Erica eztv 1607S/1309L

2. Being Erica

3. Being Erica eztv torrent

You can't tell me that this is in any way an intuitive way to filter items.

So, if the name of the show consists of several words, you always have to use space. Even if there is a dot between the words, dots in the filter won't work. And then you have to add all he crap that comes after the codec, no matter what kind of parentheses are used. Or also, if there are no parentheses at all. Just add all the crap separated by dots or spaces or it won't download. You even have to add that "torrent" to the filter, just "Being Erica eztv" won't match anything.

Oh, and the documentation is bad. There is one point about the wildcards and no explanation, that you also have to use it in the cases described above. Of course, you can always say "RTFM" and blame the user. But IMHO it is better to have a good filtering mechanism which can be used easily.

[dtjohnst]

You want Scrubs to catch everything with the name Scrubs in it somewhere. That's great. But maybe someone doesn't. Maybe they want only a torrent with the name Scrubs in it and nothing else. Something their friend uploads maybe. By forcing you, who wants to match against everything, to put in wildcards, like * and ?, it enables them to get what they want and you to get what you want. I guess you don't use search engines much, the usually drop punctuation. I assume that's what happens here. So a search for Being.Erica is viewed as BeingErica. "Being Erica" also ignores the punctuation in matching I suspect which is why it works with Being.Erica, but "Being?Erica" guarantees that should any matching methods change, it will still work. Again, this is user error, not a "broken" system. Something being non-intuitive to you doesn't mean it's non-intuitive to everyone else. You just failed to RTFM. Take someone who's never seen a car and throw them into it. It's not intuitive. Or put them in a plane and ask them to fly. Or do math. Very few things are intuitive. They're intuitive because of our experience, they're "familiar". That's one of the basics of Software Engineer: make it look like something else so it's familiar. If you used search engines like Altavista back in the mid-80's, this would be VERY familiar to you. If you're a younger generation that's only ever used Google, you're used to searches being completely rewritten by Google to find what you meant instead of what you typed. Things are ONLY intuitive if you understand how they work. In this case, matching requires exact phrases. So you need wildcards. It's very intuitive once you accept that and RTFM.

Space is not a wildcard, but a wildcard will match to space. In your Being Erica example, the following will catch ALL of them, only 1 filter. "Being?Erica*". You won't need 3 separate filters. This will also filter out torrents like "Why I Hate Being Erica" (no wildcards before in the filter so it won't match to it), or "Being Someone Other Than Erica". You could catch all those as well with "*Being*Erica*". The downside is, you will also catch things like "Being Erica Really Sucks". But alas, it's attempted to filter everything unwanted instead of randomly matching to everything with the words "being" and "erica" in them.

The way YOU think it should work, makes it difficult in many situations to get what you want. Your suggestion would have everyone wanting "House" to get "Desparate Housewives", "This Old House", "Little House on the Prairie", "Full House", "Run's House", etc. Go to TV.com, punch "House" in the search, then look at the "Shows" tab. 755 results. Your logic would have uTorrent matching to at least 100 of those. So now instead of adding 1 wildcard and a few "not" filters, people wanting "House" need 99 not filters. 99 not filters because you don't want to have to enter a * somewhere?!?! That seems pretty selfish of you, don't you think?

I'm sorry it's not "convenient" or "intuitive" for you to use *'s and ?'s, but it happens to make things A LOT easier for pretty much everyone else and by forcing you to RTFM and learn how to use it, it will save you headaches in the future as well. The guide shouldn't have to say "You need to use wildcards to match everything" because that's what the term wildcard means. It's not going to define each word. There's also Google that turns up really great tutorials if it doesn't make sense. Had you attempted to find an answer before coming here to call things broken, you would've seen that. You use EZTV torrents from your Being Erica examples, their tutorial is VERY well written, lots of detail about wildcards. In addition, there's a bunch of posts in the forums that talk about RSS and wildcards.

You're failing to attempt to help yourself, and decide instead to call things "broken" without considering the ramifications of how you think it should work.

"Being Erica" will match "Being Erica", "Being.Erica", "Being.Erica.HDTV.Xvid", Being.Erica.1x03" and so on. It knows about episode numbers and it knows about (most) compression methods. If you want it to match any release group with any possible naming convention (which not everyone will and that's why it doesn't work the way you want it to), you add wildcards. So you can stop saying "you have to add all he crap that comes after codec, no matter what kind of parantheses are used", because you DON'T! You just put a * after your filter!!! And you can stop you shouldn't have to, because as I've shown with my "house" example, that's a really terrible way to do it as it makes life VERY difficult for everyone else.

The way it is works best for everyone, not just you. So yes, I will continue to say RTFM and blame the user because I don't want to see myself needing to add hundreds of "not" filters to stop getting things I don't want. Some of us have a few dozen RSS feeds and dozens of RSS filters. Some of those would easily match to 15 or so results if your method is implemented. I don't think that to make your life easy, I need to add 15 NOT filters to 60+ RSS filters. That's 900 more words I need to add into "NOT" so you can get away with easily getting 1 show and not have to use wildcards? I don't think so. RTFM and figure it out.

[Badsecurityforum]

To sum up most of your post: Just add an option "Exact match"

This is the way practically every search engine, every word editor and almost every other filter does it.

For a search it always best to use the greedy option, especially if you don't know or can rely on what the data is looking like.

What happens if the release group quits and another one picks up? Shit, the filter fails.

So, i like Scrubs, but what about specials that don't fit in the naming convention? I will miss them.

And, sure, every search is unintuitive if you have never seen a computer. But assuming that a user can use Google, a file search or a word search, this filter is still not intuitive. It would be if it would behave like these other common filters.

So, to sum up.

You can set a filter to be greedy or not to be greedy. utorrent does the latter which is uncommon and does it in bad way by obscuring the way the names are stored internally. There are disadvantages for both options, so both should be included.

And still, the filter method is bad.

Try "Being Erica *" vs. "Being Erica *". Every search engine would ignore the second space. But in utorrent it doesn't match anymore.

[dtjohnst]

Holy crap you're not listening.

What happens if the release group quits and another one picks up? Shit, the filter fails.

If you use "Scrubs*" instead of "Scrubs" as your filter, it won't matter. It will continue to work. If you use you're inane method of "Scrubs VTV" it certainly will. But why are you doing that when I've repeatedly told you that you should use "Scrubs*"?

So, i like Scrubs, but what about specials that don't fit in the naming convention? I will miss them.

You mean like "Scrubs Holiday Special"? Simple, you use "Scrubs*" as your filter and it will catch them too. Your desire to use "Scrubs VTV" instead of "Scrubs*" (why you won't add a damned asterix is beyond me) won't. But guess what? Using "Scrubs*" saves you from downloading all the other crap you DON'T want, like "Fat Man Scrubs His Hairy Anus With Sponge" or "Ugly Fat Woman Scrubs Pans Nude". Your concept of "I want everything with the word "scrubs" in it to download would you get you all that. This method avoids it. So stop whining, put some *'s in your filters, and everything will work.

Youre "Being Erica *" (2 spaces) doesn't match in uTorrent because space is not a wildcard. Why are you putting a * after a space? You're telling it you specifically want to match ONLY if there's a space there. What if they stop putting a space in? What if they start making it a "-" instead? Now it won't match! OMG what will you do?!?! Easy, you'll use freaking wildcards already. With 2 spaces, you're telling it to match only if there's 2 spaces there.

Reread this thread. You'll see that you're not listening. All of your concerns are fixed by wildcards. You're worried about "missing something" because you don't seem to think you should have to use wildcards. Why, I don't know. Google is a poor example, as is any modern search engine. They're set up so your grandma can use it. Your grandma probably isn't using torrents, if she is, she should be spry enough to figure it out, although aparently you're not.

From a purely Computer Science or Software Engineering standpoint, the filters work the way EVERY computer search does. Go to Unix/Linux my friend. Not only will it match spaces and exactly what you type, it will match uppercase and lowercase too. "Scrubs" would not match with "scrubs". You say searches will ignore the spaces. Go to the Windows Search, and type in "CMD .exe" and search. Do you know what results you'll get? None. Why? It's matching the spaces. Go to C:\Windows and type in the search box "CMD" and you'll see "CMD.exe" in the results, now add a space and guess what? It goes away. "Search engines" will ignore a space, but very little else in the computer does. If you're skillz in computer usage is limited to google (which I still think you failed to use or you would've learned about wildcards, so I question if you can even use that one properly) and you have no background in programming, computer science, or software engineering, you shouldn't be trying to tell me "how they work." News flash: I have an education in that field. I KNOW how they work. I'm also not a selfish twat who thinks that the way I'd like to do it is the way it should be done, even if that screws things up for everyone else. I also have nothing against wildcards so I don't refuse to use them. Is this how I would've made filters work? Probably not. But I see the logic and reasoning and it's perfectly acceptable. In fact, it's probably better than what I would've done. It's definately better than what you suggest.

You want to make sure you get everything with the word "Scrubs" in it? Use "*scrubs*", don't set episode filter, you're good to go. You want ONLY things that are EZTV releases of scrubs, use "Scrubs*eztv*". If someone ONLY wants scrubs, they'll use "Scrubs" and it won't download all that stuff they don't want.

Stop being selfish and thinking it should work best for you instead of everyone else, put some damned wildcards in your filters so they work the way you want, and move on with life. Seriously dude, what do you have against *'s that you refuse to use them? Did someone murder your family with *'s? I assume it has to be that you refuse to use them, because all your arguments are based on the concept of NOT having them in your filter. "But I'll miss this, but if that changes I won't get it, but I can't get these other things", no shit!!! If you don't set your filter's properly, that's what will happen. Set them properly with *'s.

I've come to the conclusion the filter is not broken, you are. So this is my final reply to you. Use *'s and it works. Refuse to and it won't. Complain all you want, but I'm 99% certain they won't change it to suit your misinformed opinion of how searches "should" work and screw over the other 4 million people using the software just fine and getting only the matches they want.

User error. Still. 'Nuff said.

[Badsecurityforum]

You really love to see yourself typing, don't you.

I won't even bother to answer to any of your points, because you failed to understand most of the problems i have with the filtering. And the amount of contradiction in your posts are just unbearable.

Stop your fanboyism and get some sense into your head.

[dtjohnst]

Yep. I <3 *'s. Love them *'s. Will push everyone to use them all the time til the day I die. Go fanboy me.

Yeah, "sense". Like refusing to use a wildcard and then complaining everything will fail if a release group changes names or a Christmas special is released. I don't want that kind of sense. I'll stick with the common stuff.

[pendarlon]

Hi.

im new with rss feed.

So i need a simple explanation how i do. from the start to the last step.

I hope some kind person out there can and will help me.

Thanks

[dtjohnst]

http://utorrent.com/rsstutorial.php

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dgsf923m_2d6k97n

[pendarlon]

Ok..i dont understand that with url. if i for exampel will have feeds from tvtorrents what url shall i use than?

[dtjohnst]

I have no idea. Does tvtorrents have an RSS feed? If they do, there'll be a link to it somewhere. You use that URL.

[xyanide1986]

Right so how about I just ask it straightforward instead of trying to figure out this filter.

When I want episodes of Angel Beats by group Mazui, they name their files as such without a 'standard' format of Season#xEpisode# : [Mazui]_Angel_Beats_-_05_[3667FE9A].mkv

These are HDTV 720p but aren't specified in the filename, I don't want the SD xvid remuxes and I want episode 06 and onwards so from what I understood from the posts here my filter for this should be:

filter: ?Mazui?Angel?Beats?*.mkv (because who knows if they change _ to spaces right, doesn't matter)

not: xvid

episode number: 06- (the box showed up red because it's not standard format)

smart episode filter: on

Match: Always

Will this work? Yes/no and if not why?

[PilotBob]

The filter docs and the RSS tutorial talk about the "parsed name". Is there anyway to view this name in uTorrent ? I don't see it as a column I can add to the feed like I can add episode?

Also.. a question if I don't specify a label, what is used as a label the "filter" or the name of the filter that is listed in the left box? If it is the filter and I use wildcards, are those just dropped when the label name is created?

Thanks,

BOb

(sorry to revive such an old topic, but seems better to not start a new one since it is relative to this thread.)

[balagast]

OK sorry to dig up an old thread, but I found this one while trying to get my RSS downloader to work.

I've read through this entire thing and the tutorial, but I think I just need a quick clarification on how the wildcards function.

If I wanted to download a torrent named. Archer.2009.S02E11.720p.HDTV.x264-CTU but not a torrent named Archer.2009.S02E11.HDTV.XviD-ASAP

I should use the following filter:

archer*720p*

but this does not seem to want to work.

if I use archer* it will download all the archer releases on the feed in the given interval I specify.

Am I simply using my wildcards incorrectly?

Thanks!!

[PilotBob]

If I wanted to download a torrent named. Archer.2009.S02E11.720p.HDTV.x264-CTU but not a torrent named Archer.2009.S02E11.HDTV.XviD-ASAP

Use a filter of

Archer

or you might need

Archer 2009

and select a quality of 720p.. that should do it.

Press the little question mark button and it will show you the matches to your settings.

BOb

[trettontusensju]

Sorry for bringing this thread back up again but i really need some help.

I have tried almost everything but some stuff in my RSS Feed just don't wanna work.

When I'm adding a filter i usually just add a favorite directly from the feed and it works awesome.

But when it comes to anime downloads it just doesn't work.

The filter looks like this when i add it from the favorites

Filter: Anime HorribleSubs Hunter X Hunter - 75

Not:

Save in: \anime\Hunter x Hunter

Feed: Tokyo Toshokan (or my customized feed)

Quality: All

Episode Number:

Label for new torrents:

Nothing else.

This will work like a charm, but now to my problem. This will only download episode 75, not 74 or 76 because of the name.

I have tried to remove 75, but then it wont download anything.

I've tried with

Hunter?x?hunter*

Hunter x Hunter*

Hunter?x?Hunter

Anime* HorribleSubs* Hunter x Hunter*

Anime HorribleSubs Hunter x Hunter*

Anime HorribeSubs Hunter?x?Hunter

Anime HorribeSubs Hunter?x?Hunter*

Anime|HorribeSubs|Hunter?x?Hunter*

Anime|HorribeSubs|Hunter?x?Hunter

Anime|HorribeSubs|Hunter x Hunter

And so on, this happens with all my anime shows exept for Naruto.

when i added naruto from the feed into favorites it looked like this

Filter: Naruto Shippuuden - 307 HD HorribleSubs

Not:

Save in: \anime\Naruto

Feed: Custom Anime Feed

Quality: All

Episode Number:

Label for new torrents:

Changed it to

Naruto Shippuuden -HD HorribleSubs

And it workes fine.

I would love some help It's probably just some really stupid thing I'm doing wrong, but i've read on the forums here and on other sites, I've read the tutorial 5 or 6 times and i still don't understand why it doesn't work.

Would love an answer and some help!

[DreadWingKnight]

I'm not sorry for closing a 4 year old thread due to hijacking.