Tips for Downloading Movies

November 20, 2007 by sharky

It takes a bit of experience and know-how when it comes to downloading movies and getting exactly what you want without any surprises. There are certain key characteristics that you are looking for, and ones that you definitely want to avoid. Here are a few tips to get you going down the right path. And lately we need all the help we can get to avoid the bunk out there.

With BitTorrent, when I look at a page of ‘recently added’ torrents on a public tracker, I am simply mortified by the sheer number of people who are trying to download the bad torrents. To a seasoned BitTorrent veteran, they stick out like a sore thumb.

Good vs. Evil

Below are two screenshots of GOOD movie torrents and BAD movie torrents: To generate a result for the good movie torrents, I simply arranged the torrents by SEED from highest to lowest (by clicking the “S” column). This gave me the most popular torrents. For the bad movie torrents, well, they’re everywhere anyways so they weren’t too hard to find! For both examples, we visited http://thepiratebay.org:

Most sites have two ways to download torrents: A ‘quicklink’ button next to the torrent to download it right away, and a ‘download torrent’ button found inside the link on the information page of a torrent. This info page is extremely helpful and usually shows all the files that are included in the torrent release, and sometimes show an image of the NFO file for additional release data. The quicklink button won’t show the files included in the torrent until it is launched by your BitTorrent client.

Verifying Proper ‘Movie Releases’.

With new movie releases, there is really only one sure-fire way of knowing whether or not a movie is a proper release - and not some scam or fake. How? Check to see if it’s listed at www.vcdquality.com. If they have it listed, chances are that the movie is a proper Release Group ’scene’ release, and thus likely OK to download. However, just because a movie is listed there doesn’t make all torrents that contain the same movie name automatically a safe bet. You’ll want to be sure that the titles of both match (the title of the torrent from the BitTorrent website and the one listed at VCD Quality).

Note the titles of the releases, as shown below. This is what you should be looking for on BitTorrent sites, with only slight variations, but the Release Group name will always be included as well.

You may be wondering why there’s only eight or so movie releases listed on VCD Quality for any given day, yet there are hundreds of new movies listed each day on most BitTorrent sites. Because in the real world, only a handful of movies actually get released in a day so it’s an honest reflection of what’s really going on.

Know Your ‘Tags’.

Learn the tags and what they mean. Proper movie releases can always be vindicated by the proper tags in the release title. Click here for the explanation of the tags. Don’t download “Balls Of Fury.CAM.XVID” and wonder why the audio/video quality was so terrible. Or worse yet; “Balls Of Fury.CAM.GER.XVID” and wonder why you couldn’t understand the language AND the picture sucked. Also try to watch for non-standard lower case letters in the tags. Tags are usually all capital letters.

Stick with the main ‘Release Groups’.

There are RELEASE GROUPS and then there are pretenders and scammers (well, there are MPAA decoys too!). Who ever thought you RG guys would be competing with the MPAA for our attention?!? When you start to get to know the release groups, you avoid everything else like the bubonic plague. Proper release groups tend to follow a very specific format. One recommendation (especially on BitTorrent sites) is to search for movies by release group in the search. So search for “VoMiT” instead of searching for “Species The Awakening”. This tip allows you to find all the results by a reputable group: and then you can filter your results by ‘release title’ or more importantly, by seed/peer ratios to show the most popular ones. A list of ‘Known’ release groups can be found here.

Follow the flow.

Stick with the files or torrents that have lots of seeds and peers. With P2P programs such as Limewire/Bearshare, a search result is automatically sorted with the most users being at the top of the list; hence, this is probably the most reliable source. But on BitTorrent websites, the results don’t automatically default to the most popular ones in terms of seeds/peers, and results are usually arranged by ‘date added’. However, most sites allow you to filter your search results by the ‘number of seeds’ by clicking the “S” button in the column at the top of the page.

Size Matters.

Movies (DVDRip and Retail) always come in the same size format: 700MB for a 1CD release or 700MB X 2 (1400MB or 1.36GB) for a 2CD release. Some Elite release groups will occasionally put out an 800 or even 900MB 1CD release for an especially long movie instead of doing the 2CD format. Who are we to argue?

Sometimes just the size of the release will reveal the most information. For example, a release that is 650MB probably wasn’t done with the right codecs, or it’ll be inferior DivX 3.11 which you should try to avoid.

When I see a movie torrent that is between 675 - 695 megabytes, I usually snub my nose at it. “Why, when it’s so close to 700?” you might ask. Because proper release groups use ripping software that allows an output feature to stipulate what size the end target will be, and they’re highly accurate. That’s why proper releases are almost always at 700, within a megabyte or two. Don’t forget to include a few more Megs for the sample and subtitles too, if applicable. The golden rule for one-CD releases: Between 700MB and 720MB is the optimal size. For 2CD releases: 1.36 - 1.39GB.

NOTE: With the emergence of newer video formats like x264, HDDVD, .mkv and others, it is becoming increasingly difficult to judge whether the release is viable or not through this ’size’ characteristic. The use of proper tags should be the definitive search criteria, regardless of size.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

This is just a mixed bag of Do’s and Don’ts. Follow these rules for happy movie P2P’ing!

The Good…

Look for releases with the *.NFO (info) file; it contains information about the release and the movie itself. Information in an .NFO file often include:

— The IMDb.com movie title link - i.e. “tt0795368″.
— Audio/Video Codecs used in creation.
— Resolution (in pixels), size of video files, source of file (NTSC DVD-9).
— Language, release date (store date), running time (in hours/minutes).
— Additional info pertinent to the movie itself (plot, starring, genre, etc.).

Look for releases that have “SAMPLES” and/or “SUBS” folders included in the main directory. Proper releases will almost always have ’samples’ (subs are optional when not needed).

Get *.RAR files wherever possible (as opposed to just an *.AVI). “RAR sets” for a 1CD release will be either 49 or 50 *.RAR files, no more, no less (with each RAR file being 14.3MB in size). Not all release groups archive (or RAR) their releases, but most do. Also avoid movies that are *.ZIP files - RGs never ‘ZIP’ their releases, they RAR them. Here’s a look at a folder with a proper RAR set and an included ’samples’ folder as well:

If the files are *.RAR files, check for the *.SFV file (’Simple File Verification’ file) to accompany it. RGs will usually include that file to show that the archive was tested after it was created - thus guaranteeing a clean extraction.

Look for ‘2-CD’ (1.36-1.39GB) and DVDr (full DVD - 4.37GB) releases. Most scammers and spoofers haven’t tried to trick us up with these formats yet.

In P2P terms, a ‘scammer‘ is someone who exploits a user into visiting websites to click banner ads, links, etc. to obtain access to a file (usually through password-protected *.ZIP archives or links to “special” otherwise-needless software, like ‘compilers’). Even after jumping through these unsavory hoops & hurdles, the end product is never a guarantee. The motives are purely financial.

A ‘spoofer‘ is someone who releases a ‘decoy’ file, in order to distract users away from the real thing, or for the purpose of logging IP addresses etc. Decoy files either won’t connect/finish (or be extremely slow) or the file won’t play (or it is not what it should be). It is well established that Anti-piracy groups - employed by the MPAA and RIAA (and others) - are responsible for most of the spoofing. The motives are to frustrate unsavvy users into giving up on illegal searching.

The Bad…

Try to avoid torrents that have only the *.AVI file in it (and no proper *.NFO file or at least a simple Readme.txt). This can usually be recognized in the title of the torrent - where it will end in “.avi” - such releases are not proper ‘release group’ posts (and contains no ‘tags’ to identify its characteristics). So there could be a number of problems with it, including one or more of these:

— It may not play in a DIVX-compatible home DVD player (common).

— It may not be a ‘DVDRip’ and could be a CAM, TS or DVDScr.

— The wrong (ie. ‘inferior’) video codec was used to create it (DivX 3.11).

— It may not be in English, or have an English audio track (common).

— The audio/video may not be synchronized.

— It may not play at all.

With P2P programs like Limewire, the movie file (.avi) is sometimes the only result in the search, so naturally this rule doesn’t apply.

Stay away from things that seem to come out a little too early. For instance, when you see “Grindhouse.DVDRip” two days after it came out in theatres, well…need I say more? Have patience when it comes to new releases. Wait for a reliable RG to come out with it first, no matter how tempting. You’ll just end up with a ‘CAM’ or ‘TS’ where it said DVDRip anyways, or you’ll get a bad torrent that won’t connect/finish or a file that won’t play.

Avoid anything containing the word “QUALITY” such as “Good Quality”, “Superb Quality” or “Excellent Quality”. You can be assured these will have as much quality as a Ford Pinto. Release groups do not include this word in the title of a release: the quality is ordained by the tags, not the tagwords.

Torrents with the word “PPNOW” or “ppnow” in them are always password-protected RAR files. Good luck finding the password, although some bittorrent sites and P2P forums have listings for ppnow, such as at youceff.com. Typically found in older torrents that are still healthy. (TIP: do a Google search for “ppnow password” to get some good sources).

Avoid torrents that appear different in name but are all the exact same size, and close to each other (in timeframe), as seen here. These are spoofs/decoys. The spoofer was even too lazy to change the sizes for each one. This is a fairly common decoy tactic found on popular public BitTorrent websites.

Try to avoid anything with the word ‘reseed’ in the title of a release. Most of the time this is just redundancy, and the original ’seeded’ torrent likely still exists (and is active, too!). Do a search for the movie to find the real (aka ‘original’) torrent. This is a common tactic of spoofing - the keyword “reseed” somehow seems to hook people into downloading it.

Avoid anything with the words “unpacked” (such as **UNPACKED** or UNPACKED). Here’s why: When someone (or a malicious group) unpacks a previously released movie and takes it out of the *.RAR files, they can now edit or tamper with the film in a variety of ways (movie will now jump or skip or stop in the middle, unsynched audio in portions, etc.). The worst case scenario is that the MPAA cronies are behind this - in a feeble attempt to sabotage the movie and torrent. Not only will you get an inferior end product, you’ll likely be tracked when using that torrent. This tactic is obviously targeted at noobs who look at this as an easier way to access the release or don’t know how to open *.RAR files.

And The Ugly…

Avoid all movies that come in one *.rar or one *.zip file; it’s probably password-protected and just a spoof/decoy anyways, making you go to some bogus website to click ad banners to eventually get to a password location for the .RAR file (which even then will not guarantee a working movie)…and if you DO happen to get one of those password-protected ZIPs (hey, it’s happened to us all) don’t be tempted to visit the website. Just delete it and forget about it. Most often the same proper torrent can be found (by a proper release group) on the same site.

When you see a .URL/*.HTML/*.TXT file that links to a website that has the word PASSWORD or PASSCODE in it, then it’s probably a scammer’s post - they’ll make you click a series of ad-banners that generate revenue to their site. These are harder to identify because the file is located inside the torrent directory, and thus the contents of the torrent must be viewed in order to catch it, but if you avoid all single RAR and single ZIP releases (see above), you shouldn’t have a problem. Here’s an example of the files listed in a torrent, (with a .RAR file and a .TXT file containing a bad LINK - see right):

Avoid any release that contains a ‘COMPILER.RAR’ file, ‘DOMplayer’, ‘3wPlayer‘ file or link - these are scams (see PASSWORD example above). You’ll just end up jumping through hoops and hurdles - the intended AVI file is rarely the desired video file - while picking up a little malware along the way.

Watch out for bad aXXo movie releases. Scammers have been capitalizing on the success of aXXo by releasing modified movies that eventually lead the downloader to dubious websites, in search of an aXXo compiler or aXXo driver for playback. ‘Proper’ aXXo releases will require none of these, and are compatible with just about any software or DVD player, as-is. The latest scam to surface is new movies that look exactly like real aXXo releases - right down to a specially modified *.NFO file. Either way, aXXo is gone and not coming back. If you want to see a proper listing of all of aXXo’s torrents (and be able to download them), visit www.mininova.org/user/axxo.

Above all else, use plain old intuition and common sense. There’s something about technology that makes people drop their normally keen defenses.

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