nsane.forums Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Some Internet piracy groups decided to implement some new regulations and standards last week. Instead of releasing TV shows in the Xvid/avi format, groups responsible for putting major TV shows online switched to MP4/x264. Outraged by the lack of democracy, some BitTorrent users are directing their anger at bewildered torrent sites and even threatening to boycott releases. For those who understand, the whole thing is pretty amusing. Every now and again, the world’s most famous piracy release groups get together and have a big old meeting to decide how they’ll carry out their future activities. At the top of the agenda is an item of utmost importance – how to change things around to ensure the highest levels of annoyance and inconvenience for BitTorrent downloaders. Ok, so the last sentence isn’t true, but nevertheless that appears to be the current assessment of events according to some BitTorrent users. Worryingly, the interpretation from others is even more wide of the mark. The problem stems back to a new document which details a set of standards TV show release groups such as LOL and MOMENTUM will have to live up to in order to comply with so-called ‘Scene rules’. Not complying with the format means that a release group’s work risks being ‘nuked’ – a term which means something has been rated second-class by their pirating peers. The document – ‘The SD x264 TV Releasing Standards 2012′ – is extremely detailed and covers all sorts of technical issues, but the main controversy stems from the adoption of the x264 codec. “x264 has become the most advanced video codec over the past few years. Compared to Xvid, it is able to provide higher quality and compression at greater SD resolutions,” the rule document begins. “This standard aims to bring quality control back to SD releases. There are many standalone players/streamers such as TviX, Popcorn Hour, WDTV HD Media Player, Boxee, Xtreamer, PS3, XBOX 360, iPad, & HDTVs that can playback H264 and AAC encapsulated in MP4,” the doc adds. From February 22nd and earlier in some cases, release groups including ASAP, BAJSKORV, C4TV, D2V, DiVERGE, FTP, KYR, LMAO, LOL, MOMENTUM, SYS, TLA and YesTV began releasing TV shows in the new format. Out went Xvid and avi, in came x264 and MP4. However, while the release groups want to move with the times, there are many people consuming their content who either don’t or can’t. In the main, people seem disappointed because their standalone Xvid compatible DVD players won’t play the new releases. Some of the reactions are polite enough, but show a misunderstanding of how the system works. “LOL, why are all your new uploads MP4 format? How do we get hold of you? We need the AVI format back, really frustrating as most DVD players don’t play MP4 format which means we are back to converting format to AVI – how 3rd world LOL,” begins one user on popular torrent site EZTV. “Hi there, I agree too please can you revert back to AVI as most DVD players cannot recognize MP4 format and this means I need to do conversion to AVI all the time for my grand mother and its quite painful,” says another. At worst, some of the comments show an embarrassing sense of entitlement and an attitude that those downloading for free are actually “customers” of these release groups and as such deserve to be treated better. “F@#k LOL and their mp4′s,” is just one example of the aggression directed towards them. But there are another set of users who don’t understand where the releases come from at all and are instead directing their anger at the torrent sites – the equivalent of blaming Google for not listing the pictures people had hoped for in their image search. “MP4 SUCKS AND IS A BULL SHIT FORMAT. AVI WILL ALWAYS BE KING. MORE TROUBLE THAN IS WORTH. TIME TO GET MY DOWNLOADS FROM A BETTER SITE THAT OFFERS AVI AND I KNOW A MAJORITY OF THE DOWN LOADERS WILL DO THE SAME,” shouts an EZTV user. “SO I THINK EZTV HAS A LIMITED LIFE SPAN LEFT IF THEY DO NOT TELL DOWN LOADERS TO GO BACK TO AVI IT IS PROBABLY ALL OVER FOR THIS SITE.” First off, these release groups aren’t deliberately releasing TV shows to please the masses. They do it for their own entertainment and it’s only when they leak out do the wider world get access to them. They are certainly not being put online to satisfy the needs of ALL CAPS MAN. Second, the torrent sites index other people’s content, they tend not to be the originators of it. Sure, some of the more friendly but bewildered comments of upset downloaders are pretty amusing to read, but the more aggressive ones highlight a more worrying trend. Somewhere along the line a consumer appeared who not only wants everything super quickly and for free, but also believes that the same should be offered with Class A service. Should these things not be delivered, he feels it is his right to take his “business” elsewhere. Could this become the new consumer standard for service on the Internet? At the moment this toughest breed of consumer appears to be in the minority but thanks to the law of supply and demand, even he will find his needs served. Already people are ‘pirating’ the MP4 releases and re-uploading them in the Xvid format to satisfy his needs. In the meantime, no doubt LOL and LMAO will be doing what their acronyms suggest. 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RadioActive Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I for one was VERY happy they dumped XviD in favor of x264 :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted March 3, 2012 Administrator Share Posted March 3, 2012 :lol:I can't believe the noobs. I don't know if mp4s can't really be played in players, but x264 is the right way to go. They just don't seem to understand that that it's going to give them far more better quality than XviD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweety.Abd Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Very well written article. LOL @ that Caps dude :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweety.Abd Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 They just don't seem to understand that that it's going to give them far more better quality than XviD. But it will also increase download time considerably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shought Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 They just don't seem to understand that that it's going to give them far more better quality than XviD.But it will also increase download time considerably.Untrue. Generally a 500 MB h.264 encoded MP4 delivers the similar quality to a 700 MB Xvid encoded AVI. @DKT It's true most DVD players have DivX support and do not support h.264, more recent Blu-Ray players will play h.264 though ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted March 3, 2012 Administrator Share Posted March 3, 2012 They just don't seem to understand that that it's going to give them far more better quality than XviD.But it will also increase download time considerably.Untrue. Generally a 500 MB h.264 encoded MP4 delivers the similar quality to a 700 MB Xvid encoded AVI. @DKT It's true most DVD players have DivX support and do not support h.264, more recent Blu-Ray players will play h.264 though ;) I see. And yes, approximately, an 500MB H.264 file will deliver same quality as 700MB XviD. In some cases, the difference of the size can be almost half. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tek2005 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 i actually hated on the switch to x264, it might just be me, but with x264 releases i tend to have delayed audio. There may be a fix for it, but have been unable to find it. Otherwise i don't mind the switch over, the files are smaller from what i can tell, a hour show was roughly 600-700mb xvid wise, but in x264 they are at 400-500mb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted March 3, 2012 Administrator Share Posted March 3, 2012 i actually hated on the switch to x264, it might just be me, but with x264 releases i tend to have delayed audio. There may be a fix for it, but have been unable to find it. Otherwise i don't mind the switch over, the files are smaller from what i can tell, a hour show was roughly 600-700mb xvid wise, but in x264 they are at 400-500mb. What codec or media player do you use to play them files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tek2005 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 i actually hated on the switch to x264, it might just be me, but with x264 releases i tend to have delayed audio. There may be a fix for it, but have been unable to find it. Otherwise i don't mind the switch over, the files are smaller from what i can tell, a hour show was roughly 600-700mb xvid wise, but in x264 they are at 400-500mb. What codec or media player do you use to play them files?Vlc 2.0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted March 3, 2012 Administrator Share Posted March 3, 2012 Vlc 2.0 Hmm. Well, I think you should try playing it in Media Player Classic Home Cinema or something else. Cause I've recently tried several files in VLC 2.0 and it's unable to play them properly. Audio problems in particular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kojootti Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Scene groups couldn't care a less about torrents anyway, but I'm glad NOT ALL groups decided to follow this path..There's still groups releasing TV stuff as XviD,like the good old FQM and CRiMSON.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mastershake Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 now a lot of dvd players are dropping xvid like lg did on a lot of models with the newest firmware updates since they dont want to pay royalties. i for one dont care both are basically the same and both play 99% of the time just fine if i have a issue ill throw it through convertx and convert it to a playable file these files we get are FREE people need to stop complaining imo i actually hated on the switch to x264, it might just be me, but with x264 releases i tend to have delayed audio. There may be a fix for it, but have been unable to find it. Otherwise i don't mind the switch over, the files are smaller from what i can tell, a hour show was roughly 600-700mb xvid wise, but in x264 they are at 400-500mb. What codec or media player do you use to play them files?Vlc 2.0 i dont know i have klite installed on one system and mediaplayer plays just about anything i throw at it...it even does quicktime etc now as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowdrop Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 This change seems like the right way to go IMO. Don't know about most people, but I use my netbook (soon to be a R.Pi) to play my content... never needed to convert any to formats except when using my iPhone >.>What advantages does using a DVD player have over Win/Nix? Clearly I'm missing out on something here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marke68 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I noticed the format change a few weeks ago and tbh honest i was a little bit pissed off as it meant i'd have to re-encode the x264 back to xvid because my cowon j3 wont play mp4.LOL at the torrent noobs comments,they really have no idea how the scene works. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HATE9X Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I've been anticipating this switch for around 4-5 years.. Finally! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DNM Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Not especially fond of that so much Xvid releases have disappeared since most DVD players dont have support for x264/AAC/MP4. It really sux that u 1st have 2 grab the MP4's and then convert it to Xvid/MP3/AVI. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi81 Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Well it's about time!This codec has been around for how long now and you only just decide to switch? As I said it's about time!Jedi81. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louie19 Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Personally I like mp4 better.. Better and more crispier picture... Better sound... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kojootti Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Not especially fond of that so much Xvid releases have disappeared since most DVD players dont have support for x264/AAC/MP4. It really sux that u 1st have 2 grab the MP4's and then convert it to Xvid/MP3/AVI. :( Exactly. But glad my mobile phone supports AAC+MP4 tho :D None of my stand-alone dvd-players do not tho. :( (well,AAC yes but not mp4/mkv) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deisler Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 this shows how bad the torrent community is now filled with idiots, they're willing to take but not help in anyway other than being good uploaders. we've always had re-encoding groups or dedicated members of a site to release such a minor fix, but with such rude demands it's best to leave it as it is. this issue is almost laughable that if only users were to search tutorials on how to re-encode it back to avi (even thou it does take quite some time to re-encode roughly an hr on an avg pc) and while also saving internet bandwidth which some countries are extremely expensive compared to power savings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bizzyb0t Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 I am so glad. Xvid and the AVI container can go the way of the dodo, I don't care. Everyone knows that x264 is the way to go better all-around compression and quality than Xvid files. I've got a couple DivX playing DVD players, and they seem to play the MP4 x264/AAC files fine. It's time for people to get with the times. If you have to re-encode, get a faster computer or get a TV capture card and make your own TV-rips and quit the fucking whining. I sort of wish the release groups would have picked MKV and the "standard" container, just to hear all these dummies that don't know shit about remuxing, moan about compatibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosticles Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 I cant see what all the fuss is about, i for one am very pleased that they are switching to h264. One bonus is that, that format is native to iphone/pod/pad's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcani Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 oh people still use xvid/avi?oh well all I'm watching are anime, so have been using h264/mkv/mp4 for years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eqagunn Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 It's been about two years since I started downloading only h264/x264 and dumped DivX/XviD.I have absolutely no need for DivX/XviD since I always watch media on my PC.Considering the fact I get same quality at smaller sizes, and ability to add/remove audio streams and subtitles, x264 satisfies my needs perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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