Heads Up

[loverboy]

Over at CG (cinemageddon) Dutch member bokaal has made many releases (159 actually), mostly from the True Movies UK weepie satellite channels. I've ripped & released some from these channels previously here so I don't doubt there will be quite a few that generate interest & can be considered suitable FLM material.

http://cinemageddon.net/userdetails.php?id=200183

I released mine in my usual 2CD size XviD format whereas bokaal has chosen x264 mkv format with most of them coming out around the 700mb mark. This is actually perfectly adequate bearing in mind the mediocre transmission quality (no HD here!) & abysmal programme editing that seems to be a trademark of these channels.

The posted link will go nowhere unless you are a CG member. This is a private torrent tracker with closed registrations at present. However, as discussed previously, myself & others are happy to provide invites for those who would like to join. A working email address along with an understanding you need to maintain some semblance of share ratio will open up a surprising amount of relevent FLM material.

lb

[ghost]

Thanks for this info loverboy.

But i have a question: why poeple still make 700 MB rips???? Everyone should have a dvd burner for years now! why limiting size to 700 MB for a loss of quality? it is just senseless in 2011!

And xVid is outdated.. The x264 codec just give you much better results.

Nothing against you lb ... i am just asking my self this question for a long time...

[loverboy]

Interesting question ghost!

I fully agree with you that 700mb is obsolete & has been for many years. I also agree with you that XviD is obsolete & encodes in a modern format give much better quality, but.......

I'm fortunate in having a robust enough system to handle all (including the modern) formats but I'm mindful that not everyone else can. My past & present rips have always been a compromise between quality & the ability to play on virtually anything. We still have members who struggle to play mp4/mkv rips (including I believe FLL) & I want my rips to be accessible to everyone. I welcome criticism but have yet to receive any regarding playback issues with my rips! There is nothing special about me producing a 2CD size rip.....this probably originated from it being instilled in me that we must work to multiples of the 700mb CD! AutoGK (which is my final encoding application) also works very well in producing accurate file sizes whereas it struggles to consistently produce rips of identical quality (ie bitrate) hence the 2CD size. This seems to give acceptable quality with a manageable filesize. If you look at my latest release of 'Saturday' in UK the filesizes represent pro-rata adjustment for different running times. Ultimately, if I end up with a bitrate of around 2000KB/s I'm happy.

Expect me to start producing rips using the x264 format soon, but not quite yet.....there's a bit more mileage left in XviD!

lb

[ptguardian]

people are slow to change and many only update their equipment when it dies. many people still have older divx stand alone players and they only play xvid and basic divx codecs. also it saves bandwidth with the smaller size. that is why there is still smaller rips being done. however the popularity of these small files is changing. I don't hear as many gripes when a larger rip is posted and I have noticed lots of people downloading it over a smaller rip if both files are posted. I always go for the sharper detail of the larger rip. any one with an hdtv bigger than 42" can easily appreciate the better detail of a larger rip using x264 or h264 compression.

[ghost]

@loverboy: this was no critizism.. i just wanna get the best quality when i do a rip.. so i do them with MeGUI with the x264 codec with 3 passes and mostly with a bitrate not under 1500.

Well.. i understand your point, but only if mp4's with h264 are posted, ppl will upgrade their old systems .. everyone will do, but this is the future. hmm ok, some ppl have stand alone players which only accept xvid and divx, but i still will prefer quality when doing rips.

Enough of tech speeking... thank you for being here lb

[ptguardian]

LB posted while I was writing my reply. LOL apparently so was Ghost while I wrote this one. Double LOL

Expect me to start producing rips using the x264 format soon, but not quite yet.....there's a bit more mileage left in XviD!

lb

this is very true. depending on your media player upconversion can be very good with xvid. I have a Panasonic that the only media files it plays is xvid avi. here is a quote from there specs. "With the new P4HD Enhanced full HD upsampling, standard definition movies on DVD approach full HD quality. The picture is intelligently analyzed to have the best matching process done on each pixel, resulting in a sharper image with no false outlines, higher resolution for details, and less noise in unchanged parts." I can verify this to be accurate and this also applies to media files.

[ghost]

Hmmm i don't burn disks... my grafic card is connected to my TV with a HDMI cable.. so i play them on my computer and watch them on my TV as a second monitor.

[Debaser]

Interesting question ghost!

I fully agree with you that 700mb is obsolete & has been for many years. I also agree with you that XviD is obsolete & encodes in a modern format give much better quality, but.......

I'm fortunate in having a robust enough system to handle all (including the modern) formats but I'm mindful that not everyone else can. My past & present rips have always been a compromise between quality & the ability to play on virtually anything. We still have members who struggle to play mp4/mkv rips (including I believe FLL) & I want my rips to be accessible to everyone. I welcome criticism but have yet to receive any regarding playback issues with my rips! There is nothing special about me producing a 2CD size rip.....this probably originated from it being instilled in me that we must work to multiples of the 700mb CD! AutoGK (which is my final encoding application) also works very well in producing accurate file sizes whereas it struggles to consistently produce rips of identical quality (ie bitrate) hence the 2CD size. This seems to give acceptable quality with a manageable filesize. If you look at my latest release of 'Saturday' in UK the filesizes represent pro-rata adjustment for different running times. Ultimately, if I end up with a bitrate of around 2000KB/s I'm happy.

Expect me to start producing rips using the x264 format soon, but not quite yet.....there's a bit more mileage left in XviD!

lb

Thanks for being mindful

For some reason my PC freezes as soon as I try watching MKV files, so I just stick with avi's.
I don’t like the idea of being made to upgrade my system just because some people aren’t content with picture quality.

DivX films play just fine when converted to DVD video, and they cost nothing to download, so I don’t cry about the quality.

I just have to hope that future releases will consist of two video formats; one for the elitists and the one for the norms.

[gilbert2]

Format (avi, mkv, ogm, mpg, mp4, ...) and codec (xvid, x264, mpeg2, ...) are two different things and mostly independent of each other. Nothing prevents using mkv with xvid or avi with x264. Unless embedded subtitles are used, I think mkv does not have much advantage compared to avi. Most importantly, rips should be HQ and not scaled.