Torrent Help Regarding Video Quality! - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

alltherage · 07-12-2007, 05:56 PM

If you've ever downloaded video from torrents, i'm just wondering which tags or titles will tell you about the quality of the video.

I'm not talking about pirating, so please do not discuss that. I'm talking about royalty free video. I want DVD quality if possible.

Thanks in advance!

Barnes · 07-12-2007, 06:31 PM

Do you mean like TS....

That type of thing?

alltherage · 07-12-2007, 07:03 PM

Excatly, just wondering what the different compressions like TS, TC, Divx, CAM, and all these things mean, and then which ones are higher quality.

Bobblehead · 07-12-2007, 07:41 PM

From another forum that deals with this sort of thing....

Quote:

What does all the gibberish mean?

Some random examples:
The.Wire.S04E07.DVDScr.XviD-OMiCRON.[eztv]
Respectable.S01E06.WS.PDTV.XviD-RiVER.[eztv]
psych.s01e08.dsr.xvid-orenji.[VTV]
CSI 7x03 (HDTV-LOL)[VTV]
Jericho S01E01 HR HDTV AC3 5 1 XviD-NBS [eztv]
Stargate.Atlantis.S03E02.HDTV-720p.DivX-sQuaD-G REPACK [QcR]

The title should be obvious.

Next is the episode number. For example, season five episode one can be written as
501
5x01
S05E01

Next is the source from with the show was capped (captured):
WS/FS - Widescreen/Fullscreen
HDTV - High definition. Always WS unless otherwise noted.
PDTV - Pure Digital TV. Better quality than DSR but not as good as hdtv.
DSR - Digital Satellite/Stream Rip. Low quality. Refers to all 480i Stream rips. Fullscreen unless otherwise noted. Sometimes ritten as DSRip.
DVDSCR - DVD screener. These are preairs of an upcoming show. Often the content, video and/or sound is not finalized yet, and will probably differ from the official ep 1 release.

Output format:
HR - High resolution. Filesize is usually around 700MB/HR.
Xvid/DivX - The video codec used for the encode.
AC3 5.1 - Surround sound. Mostly seen on HR releases. Requires AC3 codec (if you don't have it you won't get any sound).

Cap Group:
OMiCRON
XOR
Loki
CRiMSON
FoV
SFM
etc
These are the groups that capped the ep. They only deal with distro groups and except in rare occasions never distribute the files themselves.

Other info:
REPACK - A re-release from the same group when there is a problem with their original release (gets nuked).
PROPER - When the first release is nuked, and a different group releases a fixed version.

Distro Group:
eztv
VTV
etc
The group that distributes the ep to the masses (in this case, the torrents).

Codec links:
Xvid - http://www.koepi.org/xvid.shtml
AC3 - http://ac3filter.net/index.php?name=Sectio...cle&artid=5
And if I don't include this one I'll probably get flamed,
VLC Player - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Includes all codecs and filters.

Barnes · 07-12-2007, 07:50 PM

Hehe..

TS is tele sync. It was recorded from an output on a hearing imapired seat. It looks like what you would see at a theater. The video is captured by a camera usually in an epmty theater by the projectionist.

Cam is a camera hidden in the crowd somewhere so you'll get crowd noise, guy standing up etc.

TC is telecine. It was recorded by a machine digitally from the reels.

SCR is a screener. The source is a vhs tape sent to various places for promotional uses. You may also see dvdscr.

divx is a video codec. It is the compresion scheme used to compress the video files. They also require a container to wrap the audio and that's why you'll see files that are .avi. It is based mpeg4. Now that mpeg is being standardized you may see h.264 files or .mp4 files that ar based on the quicktime movie format. Divx was on of the first and most successful mpeg4 formats.

Quality depends on a lot of things. Read the torrent comments on the various sites.

BlackEleven · 07-12-2007, 07:58 PM

My general rule of thumb is to download whichever torrent has the most seeds. Usually this will be the one that has the best quality (for the size), and if not, at least it will be the fastest download.

alltherage · 07-13-2007, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

From another forum that deals with this sort of thing....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barnes

Hehe..

TS is tele sync. It was recorded from an output on a hearing imapired seat. It looks like what you would see at a theater. The video is captured by a camera usually in an epmty theater by the projectionist.

Cam is a camera hidden in the crowd somewhere so you'll get crowd noise, guy standing up etc.

TC is telecine. It was recorded by a machine digitally from the reels.

SCR is a screener. The source is a vhs tape sent to various places for promotional uses. You may also see dvdscr.

divx is a video codec. It is the compresion scheme used to compress the video files. They also require a container to wrap the audio and that's why you'll see files that are .avi. It is based mpeg4. Now that mpeg is being standardized you may see h.264 files or .mp4 files that ar based on the quicktime movie format. Divx was on of the first and most successful mpeg4 formats.

Quality depends on a lot of things. Read the torrent comments on the various sites.

That was a ton of help you guys, i truly appreciate it.

Barnes · 07-13-2007, 09:12 AM

Arrg...

You be welcome matey...

Hack&Lube · 07-13-2007, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alltherage

Excatly, just wondering what the different compressions like TS, TC, Divx, CAM, and all these things mean, and then which ones are higher quality.

If you want DVD quality, get the ones that say DVD or DVD-9 in the title. Simple as that. Or are 4GB to 9GB.

As you supposedly claim you are looking for royalty video, you aren't really going to find anything under TS, TC, Screener, or CAM, etc. as those are Telesync, Telecine, etc. and Cam meaning filmed in a theatre or filmed off smuggled theatre prints.

General rule of thumb is - bigger the video size, the higher that quality. But it will still be junk if the source was junk.

Prototype · 07-13-2007, 11:29 AM

I stay away from CAM, TC, and TS (the later two I'll do if the movie is computer animated, cause the quality is maintained better for some reason.)

dvdscr, scr, dvdrip, or R5 is what I usually go for. R5's are actually really good quality.

Azure · 07-13-2007, 04:09 PM

What you download doesn't necessarily have to be 4gigs....a lot of videos available through torrents have decent quality, and are only around 700megs.

I stay away from anything that says CAM....brutal quality all the time.