Check The Movie Quality Before You Start Downloading
Downloading a movie is sometimes like heading into Oblivion. You have no certainty of exactly what you’ll end up with. Be it a crappy movie in great quality or (even worse) a great movie in crappy quality.
For instance, you’ll never want to watch your favorite movie in cam format, which sounds as if you’re standing in an empty factory hall. Quality matters – higher definitions are there for a reason.
If you’re in need of a great script, check IMDB. On the other hand, if you’re looking for more information about the download itself, there are two things you’ll need to do.
Learn the different release formats and become best buddies with ‘VCD Quality’.
VCD Quality is a release news website. What does this mean? Whenever a new movie release is set free online, an info page on VCD Quality is added. This page includes the following information:
- Date (date of the release)
- Type (the type of release, we’ll clarify this further on in the article)
- Release (the name of the film and the specific release)
- JPG/NFO (a supplied JPG and/or NFO file, explained further on in the article)
- IMDB (a link to the IMDB page of the movie)
- CD# (the number of CD’s or files of which the release consists)
- Group (the name of the group ‘responsible’ for the (encoding/filming/… of the) release)
- Rating (three ratings; respectively judging the video- and audio quality and the movie on its own)
Also available, but often not filled out, are the format (AVI, MKV, etc.), the trailer and other miscellaneous information about the producer, the cast, the genre and the plot.
VCD Quality also automatically provides a link to cdcovers, where you can find your DVD covers, and an Amazon link to purchase the given DVD.
JPG/NFO
As mentioned above, most movies are accompanied by one or multiple JPG’s and an NFO file. The function of the JPG file should be pretty obvious. It’s a full size screen capture of the movie, so you can have a sneak quality peek.
Next, the NFO… An NFO (derived from info) is, as you may have deducted, a file which contains various information about the release. The NFO is always supplied by the encoders, and most often contains things like the video/audio-bitrate, screen resolution, language, etc.
You can download these NFO files from VCD Quality as an image, or in the original format. After which you can open it in a special NFO reader or in good ol’ MS Notepad.
Type
There are a lot of different types of releases and it’ll come in very handy sometimes if you know them. We’ll try to give a brief, concise explanation of the most important types. Check this forum post for more (detailed) information.
- Cam (filmed with a camcorder, the video and audio quality are often poor)
- Telesync (a cam with an external audio source, sometimes filmed with a professional camera)
- Telecine (filmed directly from the reel, good quality)
- DVD Screener (uses a non-retail DVD as a source, sometimes with a counter or other text on the screen. Most often, you’ll periodically find a “Do Not Copy” text on the screen). These copies are also produced for award ceremonies purposes such as the Oscars.
- DVD Rip (uses the final retail DVD as a source)
- TVRip (ripped from a (mostly digital) TV source)
- R5 (uses R5 DVD’s, comparable to DVD Screeners – also has scrolling text and black and white scenes to separate them from retail DVD’s)
- VCD (aimed to fit on a standard CD, most of the time its slightly less in picture quality)
- XVCD (a VCD which uses higher quality rates, but aren’t recognized by all VCD players)
- x264 (an upcoming video codec, which allows a very high picture quality in relation to the file size)
(By) Simon is a student and tech enthusiast from Belgium. On MakeUseOf, he's the primary gaming writer and eBook editor. Check Simon out @ http://meme.yahoo.com/slangen/
R5 doesnt have a counter oder watermarks whatsoever, R5 stands for Region Code 5 and its source is a DVD released BEFORE official release in china/russia in order to fight the common pirate copys there. the dvd release has got no extra features like making of or so and it comes mostly without an proper DVD-Box. But it is an official release by the movie industry.
greetz uuzi
Furthermore, there usually is no JPG included in a scene-release. scene-rules state that there has to be an nfo, a sfv, and rar’s of 15/50/100mb and a sample. a JPG is not required and therefore is mostly not available. Sometimes releasegroups include JPG’s in their PROPER releases, in order to show ivtc/aspect ratio flaws in the release propered. but this also is not required by scene-rules.
Bets way to check for the actual quality of the movie, is by downloading the sample and looking at the releasename.
greetz uuzi
Oh man, I can’t even remember how many times I patiently waited for movie to finish dwonloading just to find out how crappy the picture was.
So. True.
In addition to uuzi’s highly accurate corrections, not all releases come with samples. using VLC to watch partially downloaded files is handy when forced to download a release without a sample.
yeah forgot about that, using vlc is probably the best way to go when downloading from a fileshare service like emule or some bittorrent trackers who havent got the releases in their scene format (rar’s) but have the decompressed avi file instead.
btw: nice overview over the possibilities though, keep up the nice work MUO
Thanks for the rectification uuzi. I must point out that most releases on VCD Quality contain a JPG file, though.
imdb doesnt provide much info..wikipedia is good…aXXO rocks …check opensubitles.org for sub availability den pick a pirate
The best thing about IMDB (in my opinion) are the pretty harsh ratings. I find them a lot more objective compared to other websites.
g– i don’t know how many times i’ve accidentally wasted so much time downloading movies filmed on a dinky camcorder in theaters.
Scene releases come with sample files, VCDQ just takes JPGs from those files
Of course not all downloads come with samples or .jpgs, and even if they do, some are not the same as the quality as the video.
The NFO is usually included but even the info contained in this can be false.
Nevertheless, this guide is very useful for those who didn’t know….
I would also advise reading the torrent comments and downloading rips from trusted uploaders….
Great article, keep up the good work…
VCDQuality and sites like it need to be obliterated off the face of the internet. The scene is already insecure as it is, and the last thing it needs is more publicity. When you’ve got a blog describing scene rules and it’s one of the more popular stories on Digg, you know you’ve got a problem. Go back to p2p and leave the scene what it should be: private.
P2P stands on the foundation of a community; it’s ‘for the people, by the people’. If you rid it from what you call ‘more publicity’, and make it ‘private, you’re in fact destroy its very essence.
I want to destroy its essence. People in the scene risk a lot by participating and only gain more exposure by sites like this. The average Joe shouldn’t be able to download a pirated film with a few clicks, it’s ridiculous. Don’t confuse my stance with elitism, you want access? Contribute. You have nothing to contribute or don’t want to? No loss.
(Comments wont nest below this level)I get what you’re meaning and I agree with you to some degree.
I admire the people in the scene who risk with no aim for personal gain and frown at all those freeleechers. For this reason, the private tracker system should indeed be applied more broadly.
However, I don’t think we should make a taboe out of p2p.
amen lont
If you are downloading winrar compatible archive file types you can extract a sample from the first couple of files:
Just right click on the first file and select “extract files…”, make sure you check “keep broken files” in the dialog box. (If click “save settings” you dont ever have to select this again and you can use “extract here” next time.)
Winrar will extract the file and tell you “next volume is required”, just hit “cancel”, then “close” the diagnostics messages window.
Open the file with vlc (vlc may ask if you want to fix the file, just say no).
lont, stop being over dramatic. vcdq is not going to get these guys in grps caught. Its not like it leads the mpaa to the top site where these groups affil. So take a chill pill bro, we all know your prolly the first person to check vcdq for new releases. So stfu bro. Your prolly just some stupid racer kid who thinks he’s cool cause your on a 1-2 hour pre site.
Lets keep it low on the flaming bro.
Perspectives differ. We can try to argument our positions, but opinions are never ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
The scene had next to no security 5 years ago, these days following busts you’d think it’d be sorted out. But no, the amount of clueless kids with axx is ridiculous, and if you think anyone has ever been busted over information provided on iSONEWS, VCDQ, NFOrce etc then you’re insanely naive. You think sites providing release data are the reason every torrent tracker on the net has films just past, 0sec then you’re retarded.
Pretty neat guide. Was always looking for this. Nice tip once again!
Syngenetic, http://www.CoderScripts.com
Wow dude I think you hit the nail right on the head this time.
Jiff
http://www.privacy-center.ru.tc
is anyone else having problems trying to go to vcdquality.com??
It’s rumored to taken down… I hope it isn’t.
There should be option to check the movie quality before download, other after downloading those 1GB+ movies we will be unable to enjoy the quality.
I am used to downloading films from rapidshare using one of its SEs http://rapidqueen.com/ . It is true that sometimes the films’ quality leaves much to be desired, but nothing doing – these are disadvantages of free web services…