How Should I Do This?

[Downloader]

Hi guys, I need to ask your opinion on something. This weekend, I am planning on downloading a whole bunch of very large video files from Viacom's server. The videos are episodes of the show "Robot And Monster", and there are a LOT of them. I will also be downloading them in very high quality, so they will be very large files (about 250 MB each, for about 50 11 minute episodes). What I want to know is, will Viacom be able to know that I am downloading these videos? If they do figure out that their videos are open for downloading from the server, would they be able to put a stop to it? The very LAST thing I need right now is to go to download some more episodes, only to be greeted by a 403 Forbidden message, or even worse, a 404 Not Found, meaning they took down the videos entirely. Would they do this if they found out I was able to download the episodes? Would it be a better idea to get half the videos this weekend, and the other half next weekend, or all at once? I will be downloading them to my Android phone. Are there any apps or software for that platform that could possibly mask my downloading so that they can't tell I'm doing it? Please give me your thoughts and opinions on this. Thanks!

[AmazingMatze]

If you are really so concerned about this issue there are three ways I can think of to possibly help masking this:

• Use a proxy server
• Artificially limit your bandwidth (stream in realtime compared to the episode duration) - Not what u are looking for, huh?
• Reconnect from your ISP after each successful download of an episode
  (If you have a dynamic IP address you could write a batch script that
  automatically reconnects you from your ISP to give you a new IP address.)

[Downloader]

Thanks so much for your response.

I would like to use a proxy server, but I can't find one that works with my phone.

I've visited a bunch of online proxy server sites, but none of them will download videos.

I've also installed some Android proxy server apps, but none of them work either. Do you know of any proxy servers I can use to download the videos to my Android phone? Please let me know if you do. Thanks.

For the second thing you listed, can you please explain that a little more?

And for the third thing, I have actually tried to do that. I have this Android app called XBMC, and it allows you to use scripts to download videos.

I haven't quite figured out how to do it, though. If there are any other ways of doing the third method, can you please explain them?
Thank you.

But my big questions are the following:
Does Viacom or whoever runs the server have any way of knowing that I am downloading all these videos?

If so, would there be any way for them to block the videos from the public so that I can't download any more of them?

When I do go back to download more, is it a good idea to only get a few at a time, or is it okay to get them all at once?

If it matters, what is the best time(s) of day / day(s) of the week to download videos from the server?

If you can, please try to answer all my questions. I greatly appreciate all your help. Thanks again!

[Stream Ripper]

HOLY CRAP MAN - space out your posts PLEASE, it's hard to read them when they run on and on and on and you keep them all in one gigantic paragraph without hitting the enter key a few times. See, right now would be a good time for ME to hit enter a few times to space out my post a bit, and it's starting to get a bit harder to read. But nah, I won't space it out i'll just keep typing and asking questions and typing and asking questions. Point made?

[anon069]

I have this Android app called XBMC, and it allows you to use scripts to download videos. I haven't quite figured out how to do it, though.

Why are you downloading these to your phone? Why don't you download them normally, convert them to a smaller file size, and then transfer them to your phone?

But my big questions are the following:
Does Viacom or whoever runs the server have any way of knowing that I am downloading all these videos?

Of course they do, it's their server. They can see every connection, every transferred byte.

If so, would there be any way for them to block the videos from the public so that I can't download any more of them?

Very easily in any number of different ways. They could change the directory, change the connect method, ban your IP, throttle their bandwidth, etc etc...

When I do go back to download more, is it a good idea to only get a few at a time, or is it okay to get them all at once? If it matters, what is the best time(s) of day / day(s) of the week to download videos from the server?

You could try grabbing them all at once in whenever is the dead of night for wherever the server's time zone is, but even then it could be an automated script that runs and detects so many gigabytes of requested bandwidth from one IP and takes action. I would do as suggested and space them out through different IP addys.

[Downloader]

@Stream Ripper You're right, I should space out my posts. I will always do that from now on whenever my post is running really long. Thanks for letting me know.

@anon069 I need to download all these videos to my phone instead of my computer, the reason why is really complicated. If I were to download them to my computer, though, how would I go about doing that while hiding my downloading? Could you please give me specific instructions for the best way of doing it? Thanks.

Honestly, I think I'll be okay, though. I downloaded a few episodes last weekend and nothing has happened yet. Also, all this week, I streamed (not downloaded, but that probably doesn't really matter) tons of large files from Viacom's servers and nothing happened. So I most likely have nothing to worry about, right?

Just to be safe, I'll download a few episodes (about 2 GB) each weekend from the server. If anyone even notices, and if they even care, then that'll probably look a lot less suspicious than one IP address grabbing about 13 GB of content all at once, am I right?