OpenNap and Utatane Guide

For a long time, the Japanese OpenNap servers hosted a wider variety of Japanese movies and music than any other P2P network. New releases arrived there faster, and stayed available longer.

Most Japanese OpenNap users are traders, at least initially. After you message them, they scan your collection, and then pop up in your upload queue. This means that you have to put a fair bit of effort into labeling your collection and making text dummies of files you have burned to DVD. You will also need to use a little Japanese to communicate, and you should aim for times of the day when other users are online.

On the plus side though, queues are short or non-existent, most users are on very fast connections, and they will stay with you until your download is complete. Once you have completed a trade or two, they will normally add you to their buddies list, and let you download more freely.

The main public servers in Japan seem to be ENDLESS, ONT2ch, and Kujira くじら. They each have different rules, but all servers accept the use of the Utatane client to connect. (The word "utatane" is the Japanese word for "nap" i.e. sleep, and thus a pun taken from OpenNap). Many Japanese servers ban WinMX 3.x, but some will accept WinMX 2.6. Utatane is Windows based.

Utatane 0.253 English can be downloaded from WinMX World Archive and the Japanese versions are also on Face-products.

Unzip, and install the file. Open the Utatane folder under Program Files, and then click on Utatane Manual.chm. This opens an illustrated English help file which shows you how to get set up.

It seems that Utatane is a non-Unicode program, so you may have to change your Regional and Language Options in order to view Japanese. If you are using Windows, there are several settings that need to be changed:

To install the fonts, and add the code pages:

Regional and Language Options - Languages tab - tick the box next to "Install files for East Asian languages." You will need to have a Windows CD with the "lang" folder on it in order to install.

Regional and Language Options - Languages tab - Click Details under "Text services and input languages" - Advanced tab - tick the box next to "Extend support for advanced text services to all programs"

Regional and Language Options - Advanced tab - set the "Language for non-Unicode programs" to the CJK language you want.

After this in Windows Explorer and dialog boxes, back slashes will appear as yen marks. You will need to switch back to English when installing multilingual programs.

The next step is to open up Utatane, right click in the main Servers window, and choose Add. Input server names, addresses, ports and the redirect settings for the top servers from the websites above or the

Kosaba List BBS

If a server has more than one address, add each using the "Add" button in the bottom left-hand corner of the "Add a New Server" dialog. Utatane will automatically switch between the different addresses.

Before you go online, you'll need to open up a port for Utatane on your firewall. In Utatane, click on Setting, then Servers, input a Login Name and Password, set your connection type, and note down the port you are listening on for incoming TCP connections. This should be a number between 10000 and 65000. Some port numbers such as 8844 are blocked by some servers. Open your firewall, and then open that same port. For example, if you are using the Windows firewall, click on Start, Settings, Control Panel, Windows Firewall, Exceptions, and then Add Port, i.e. the same number as listed in Utatane. If you are using a router, check its manual for how to open ports.

Another thing you need to do is get your collection into presentable shape. Everyone you try to download from is going to be browsing your files, and if they can't find something they want, they will just leave you sitting in queue forever. You can share files named in English, but you need to append a short word in brackets at the beginning describing the genre, e.g. (Album), (Asia), (AV), (CD), (IV), (movie), (mp3), (Nude), (pic), (PV) or (TV). IV stands for image video i.e. bikini idols, and PV stands for promotional video, i.e. music videos. DVD product codes are not as common as in the west, but they would help people find things. It is better not to share incomplete files, single jpgs or files with unmeaningful file names. Some traders make text file dummies of videos they have saved to DVD-R, adding the tag 【DVD退避】 to the beginning of the file name.

Try to share as much content as possible because some servers and big traders have 200 file and/or 50-100GB minimums. Once you are all organized, add the files to the Share window in Utatane.

Also under Setting, Transfers, set your incoming folder, making sure this is different from your Shared folders. Under Setting, Queuing, set the Number of Downloads per User to 1. When set this way, if you try to queue a second file for the same user, it will just queue the file locally waiting for the first download to finish. Under Setting, Message, stick in a wav file to alert you when someone has sent you a message (There are wav files you can use in the folders for Windows Live Messenger or ICQ).

Once you are all set up, go back to the Server screen, and click on "Link All." Some of the servers take a while to scan all the files in your Share folders, so they may initially send you error messages saying you don't have enough files. Hang in there though, and eventually five or six of them should let you connect.

Next we are off to the NewSearch screen. Type in a title, actress name or genre, and hit Search. You'll get a long list of files with the user and the server they're on. Once you find a file you want, browse what files he has, and then send him a PM.

こんばんは。
Konban wa.
Good evening.

After you have PMed them, wait a second to see if they send you an auto-response. If you can't read Japanese, copy, and paste it into an online translator such as the one on Google to try to figure out what it says. Often it will tell you if he is offline, or what files he is looking for. Then send him another PM recommending some of your own videos that he might be interested in.

あのー、コメディの動画を持っていますよ。交換しませんか。
Anoo, komedi no douga wo motte imasu yo. Koukan shimasen ka.
Um, I have comedy videos. Do you want to trade?

Even if you get no response, you can still enter their queue by right clicking on the file, and choosing Download.

Then you go looking for other files. The servers prohibit you from requesting 2 files from the same user, or the same file from 2 different users who are both on the same server. You can however request the same file from a different user on a different server, so pay attention to what servers people are on. Some users use two different login names for two different servers, but you can usually recognize this by the number of files they are sharing and the time they came online. It also seems to me that you can only queue up about five files on each server before they start sending you error messages, so try to spread your downloads out among the different servers.

You should try to aim to be online at the same time as users in Japan. That means 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. weekdays, 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sundays. During these times, the number of users on Zerosen ゼロ戦 will swing up above 2000, and you are more likely to get a response. Some generous users allow random users to download files automatically, but quite a few people will browse your shares first, and add a file to your upload queue at the bottom of the Xfer window as a sign that they want to trade. Click on his file to start him, and then right click on both the upload and download, and choose Auto Complete, so it'll reconnect if broken off. It is quite common to add each other to your Hot list, and allot each other a free upload of one file at a time. Do this by clicking on Hot List, right click on the name of user you are trading with, choosing "Add to Hot List," and then set "Auto User" to 1.

優先ユーザに追加しましたよ。どうぞよろしくお願いします。
Yuusen yuuza ni tsuika shimashita yo. Douzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu.
I've added you to my Auto-users list. Please be kind to me.

The etiquette is that you both stay online until both downloads are finished, but they may ask you just to be sure. If you have to go offline for any reason you may want to reassure them.

一回切りますけど、後で続けましょう。
Ikkai kirimasu kedo, ato de tsuzukemashou.
I'm going offline for a moment, but let's continue after.

If you already have one or two uploads in progress, it is a good idea not to go searching for more until those finish because users on T3 especially will complain.

You can also set Utatane to autostart uploads for people you are sitting in the download queue of: Settings - Transfers - Start Counter Queue. On the Queuing dialog, you can set maximum number of uploads for regular and Auto Users, but make sure these numbers are high enough to cover Auto Starts; otherwise you'll just keep timing them out.

If you have technical questions about Utatane's features or OpenNap in general, you could try asking in WinMX World Forum.