See also KingJohns Guide to Sig2Dat 

Ok, you have captured your holiday in the sun, showing your Aunty Bet splashing in the sea... Transferred it to your PC, and would now like to share it with others.

I can see a lot of posts on this "More sources needed" and lots of complaints that people cannot download a home movie. It seams a few people don't understand how the P2P software works, and expect an instant download. Quite a lot of the files posted in forums are first time movie makers, this means that original poster is the only one sharing a file.

Who has the file you want
An individual user who is connected to KaZaA, and later a group of people who have all got a copy in their KaZaA shared folder. All of which must be online and using KaZaA.

Verified movies
Those home movies listed in some forums have been downloaded by someone other than the person who made it. They have downloaded the home movie and verified that its not a fake, and importantly that it is available for download via the quick link Sig2Dat code. You may also see that the person who verified the home movie has added a comment, which gives a description of the file, and in some cases anything special you need to know.

Start Downloading
When you click the Sig2dat quick link the file is added to your KaZaA download, in most cases you now need to restart KaZaA to see the file listed. As soon as you have the file in your list, KaZaA will start to search for someone who is sharing it. If its a new file with just a few people sharing it, it may be several weeks before it starts to download.

The people who are sharing it maybe connected to a different supernode to the one your connected to, so a search for the file may not find anybody sharing it, sometimes you get lucky and connect to a supernode that has the file listed.

If the people who are sharing the file are not online then you wont get it at all, you just have to wait until they do come online, or wait until someone else is sharing the file before your find it at all.

More sources
If you right click the file in your KaZaA list you can select "find more sources" and this sometimes starts the download. KaZaA lite comes with "Speed up" which will automatically search for more sources, this increased your chances of finding the file.

If after several weeks you still cannot download it, you might like to use the search in KaZaA and try to find it that way, try to find one that is the same size, or it may be a fake or a lower quality version.

Although this is mainly about movies, make sure that any executable files you download are always checked with anti-virus software before running the file.

Unique Sig2dat hash codes
When you have downloaded any file, don't edit or change it in anyway if you intend to share it. If you make any changes to the original file it is no longer the same as what everybody else has. If you need to remove bad frames from a home movie, do it on a copy and not on the original, as the unique codes will no longer be the same.

In fact you could use Sig2dat to make the code and check to see if its the same as a quick link posted, if it is different then you have had bad frames added during download.

Sharing a file that is different to everybody else means there will be no simultaneous downloads from several sources, but someone might find it in a search and would only be able to download it from you. Do not edit other peoples home movies, unless they have said you can.

KaZaA V Kazaa Lite

The demand for good performance grew, no longer did millions of P2P users want what Sharman was giving.  When KaZaA was first released it did not contain any of today's hidden "features", the Cydoor advertisements was dealt with quickly, however spy ware was very tame at those times, but later they introduced into KaZaA "Brilliant Digital"

The Imaging company Brilliant Digital teamed up with Sharman Networks and BD bundled their own stealth P2P program, An application called AltNet which could be remotely switched on after millions had installed the latest version of KaZaA Media Desktop.

There was already a Dummy cydoor. which killed the advertisements, however limits on MP3 bit rates, The Bonzi Buddy pop-up ads, and now the Brilliant Digital spy. This proved too much for a hacker called Yuri and he hacked into Kazaa Media Desktop removing all of its nastiness.

KaZaA Lite was born, later further enhancements were made, and it performed very well. Another version was also produced called Kazaa K++ and today they have merged into one application known as Kazaa Lite K++