Movie Release Names Explained

[Jeffrie88]

Here is a List of the Words used in Movie Releases

CAM -

A cam is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. A mini tripod is sometimes used, but a lot of the time this won't be possible, so the camera may shake. Also seating placement isn't always ideal, and it might be filmed from an angle. If cropped properly, this is hard to tell unless there's text on the screen, but a lot of times these are left with triangular borders on the top and bottom of the screen. Sound is taken from the onboard microphone of the camera, and, especially in comedies, laughter can often be heard from the audience during the film. Due to these factors picture and sound quality are usually quite poor, but sometimes we're lucky, and the theater will be fairly empty and a fairly clear signal will be heard. If it's just a movie you're downloading on a whim, you can try it out, but if it's a movie you'd really been looking forward to, you should be patient & wait for a better quality release.

TELESYNC (TS) -

A telesync is the same spec as a CAM except it uses an external audio source (most likely an audio jack in the chair for hard of hearing people). However, a direct audio source does not always ensure good quality audio, as a lot of background noise can interfere. A lot of the times a telesync is filmed in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, giving a better picture quality. Quality ranges drastically, check the sample before downloading the full release if possible. A high percentage of Telesyncs are CAMs that have been mislabeled.

TELECINE (TC) -

A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and picture should be very good, but due to the equipment involved and cost telecines are fairly uncommon. Generally the film will be in correct aspect ratio, although 4:3 telecines have existed. TC should not be confused with TimeCode , which is a visible counter on screen throughout the film.

SCREENER (SCR) -

A pre VHS tape, sent to rental stores, and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a VHS tape, and is usually in a 4:3 (full screen) a/r, although letterboxed screeners are sometimes found. The main draw back is a "ticker" (a message that scrolls past at the bottom of the screen, with the copyright and anti-copy telephone number). Also, if the tape contains any serial numbers, or any other markings that could lead to the source of the tape, these will have to be blocked, usually with a black mark over the section. This is sometimes only for a few seconds, but unfortunately on some copies this will last for the entire film, and some can be quite big. Depending on the equipment used, screener quality can range from excellent if done from a MASTER copy, to very poor if done on an old VHS recorder through poor capture equipment on a copied tape. Most screeners are transferred to XviD/DivX.

DVD-SCREENER (DVDscr) -

Same premise as a screener, but transferred off a DVD. Usually letterbox , but without the extras that a DVD retail would contain. The ticker is not usually in the black bars, and will disrupt the viewing. If the ripper has any skill, a DVDscr should be very good. Usually transferred to XviD/DivX.

The R3 Line

Region 3 is from Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
The quality of R3 retail is very similar to dvdscr's.they must use a TS or a cam English audio rip because there high quality audio would only be in a Region 3 language.

The R5 Line

The R5 Line is a retail DVD from region 5. Region 5 consists of Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia. R5 releases differ from normal releases in that they are a direct Telecine transfer of the film without any of the image processing. They take the information from the DVD disc and sync it to an English version of the film, usually a previously released version.

DVDRip -

A copy of the final released DVD. If possible this is released PRE retail (for example, Star Wars episode 3), again, should be excellent quality. DVDrips are released in XviD/DivX.

VHSRip -

Transferred off a retail VHS, mainly skating/sports videos and XXX releases.

TVRip -

TV episode that is either from Network (capped using digital cable/satellite boxes are preferable) or PRE-AIR from satellite feeds sending the program around to networks a few days earlier (do not contain "dogs" but sometimes have flickers etc) Some programs such as WWF Raw Is War contain extra parts, and the "dark matches" and camera/commentary tests are included on the rips. When captured from a TV PCI card, it generally gives the best results, and groups tend to release in XviD/DivX for these, which are supported by the TV scene.

WORKPRINT (WP) -

A workprint is a copy of the film that has not been finished. It can be missing scenes, music, and quality can range from excellent to very poor. Some WPs are very different from the final print (Men In Black is missing all the aliens, and has actors in their places) and others can contain extra scenes (Jay and Silent Bob) . WPs can be nice additions to the collection once a good quality final has been obtained.

DivX Re-Enc -

A DivX re-enc is a film that has been taken from its original VCD source, and re-encoded into a small DivX file. Most commonly found on file sharers, these are usually labeled something like Film.Name.Group(1of2) etc. Common groups are SMR and TMD. These aren't really worth downloading, unless you're that unsure about a film & u only want a 200mb copy of it. Generally avoid them.

XviD / DivX -

XviD & DivX are the most commonly encoded movies. DivX used to be the most popular, until it went from open source to a corporation that bought the rights & started charging for it (although the crack can easily be obtained for the DivX encoder, most people have switched to XviD, not only because it is open source, but also because it is superior in many ways). In the last year or so, many stand-alone DVD players have been released that are capable of playing DivX/XviD movies (even on CDRs), which has made this the most popular form of encoding. The majority of XviD/DivX rips are taken from DVDs, and are generally in as good quality as possible that can fit on one 700MB CDR disc, which is why most XviD/DivX movies are almost exactly 700MB, so they can be burnt onto a CDR & played in these new DVD players (which can be purchased just about anywhere for as little as $30-$40 USD). Various codecs exist, the most popular at the moment being the new XviD 1.1 codec. DivX encoded movies will definitely play on these new DVD players, & it only takes a little simple tweaking by the ripper to ensure XviDs will play on them as well, but it is therefore not guaranteed. (If you want to learn more about XviD/DivX encoding so you can make your own DVDrips, see the link at the end of this post)

Regional Coding -

This was designed to stop people buying American DVDs and watching them earlier in other countries, or for older films where world distribution is handled by different companies. Even a novice video encoder can overcome this annoyance when encodeing their movies to XviD/DivX, so it really isn't a problem anymore.

RCE -

RCE (Regional Coding Enhancement) was designed to overcome "Multiregion" players, but it had a lot of faults and was overcome. Very few titles are RCE encoded now, and it was very unpopular.

Macrovision -

Macrovision is the copy protection employed on most commercial DVDs. Its a system that will display lines and darken the images of copies that are made by sending the VHS signals it can't understand. Nowadys, though, this protection is easy to remove by anyone with a little bit of skill.

NTSC/PAL -

NTSC and PAL are the two main standards used across the world. NTSC has a higher frame rate than pal (29.970fps compared to 25.00fps) but PAL has an increased resolution, and gives off a generally sharper picture. However, nowadays it is very easy to convert NTSC DVDs to a framerate of 23.976 while encoding to XviD, so most movies will will have a framerate of 25.00fps if it came from a PAL or 23.976fps if it came from an NTSC.

RARset -

The movies are all supplied in RAR form, whether its v2 (rar>.rxx) or v3 (part01.rar > partxx.rar) form.

BIN/CUE -

VCD and SVCD films will extract to give a BIN/CUE. Load the .CUE into notepad and make sure the first line contains only a filename, and no path information. Then load the cue into Nero/Daemon Tools/Alcohol 120%, etc and this will load the movie correctly. TV rips are usually released as XviD/DivX - .AVI

NFO -

An NFO file is sometimes supplied with a movie to promote the group, and give general iNFOmation about the release, such as format, source, size, and any notes that may be of use. They are also used to recruit members and acquire hardware for the group. If you never knew how to open these, an easy way is to just right-click it & select "open with Notepad", although they are best viewed with an NFO viewer like "Damn NFO Viewer" which can be downloaded here:

SFV -

Also sometimes supplied for each movie is an SFV file. These are mainly used on site level to check if each file has been uploaded correctly, but are also handy for people downloading to check if they have all the files, and the CRC is correct. A program such as WINrar will use these files.

PROPER -

Due to scene rules, whoever releases the first Telesync has won that race (for example). But if the quality of that release is fairly poor, if another group has another telesync (or the same source in higher quality) then the tag PROPER is added to the folder to avoid being duped. PROPER is the most subjective tag in the scene, and a lot of people will generally argue whether the PROPER is better than the original release. A lot of groups release PROPERS just out of desperation due to losing the race. A reason for the PROPER should always (hopefully) be included in the NFO.

SUBBED -

If a release is subbed, it usually means it has hardcoded subtitles burnt throughout the movie. These are generally in malaysian/chinese/thai etc, and sometimes there are two different languages, which can take up quite a large amount of the screen. SVCD supports switch able subtitles, so some DVDRips are released with switch able subs. This should be mentioned in the NFO file if included.

UNSUBBED -

When a film has had a subbed release in the past, an Unsubbed release may be released.

LIMITED -

A limited movie means it has had a limited theater run, generally opening in less than 250 theaters, generally smaller films (such as art house films) are released as limited.

INTERNAL -

An internal release is done for several reasons. Classic DVD groups do a lot of .INTERNAL. releases, as they wont be dupe'd on it. Also lower quality theater rips are done INTERNAL so not to lower the reputation of the group, or due to the amount of rips done already. An INTERNAL release is available as normal on the groups affiliate sites, but they can't (in theory) be traded to other sites without request from the site ops. Some INTERNAL releases still trickle down to IRC/Newsgroups/P2P/& Warez forums like this one, it usually depends on the title and the popularity. Earlier in the year people referred to Centropy going "internal". This meant the group were only releasing the movies to their members and site ops. This doesn't really mean much, as it only takes one person to "leak" the release.

STV -

Straight To Video. Was never released in theaters, just a movie sent directly to video stores.

DUPE -

Dupe is quite simply, if something exists already, then theres no reason for it to exist again without proper reason.

ASPECT RATIO TAGS -

These are *WS* for widescreen (letterbox) and *FS* for Fullscreen.

RECODE -

A recode is a previously released version, usually filtered through VirtualDub, Gordian Knot, or TMPGenc to remove subtitles, fix color etc. While they can look better, its not looked upon highly as groups are expected to obtain their own sources.

REPACK -

If a group releases a bad rip, they will release a Repack which will fix the problems.

NUKED -

A film can be nuked for various reasons. Individual sites will nuke for breaking their rules (such as "No Telesyncs") but if the film has something extremely wrong with it (no soundtrack for 20mins, CD2 is incorrect film, etc) then a global nuke will occur, and people trading it across sites will lose their credits. Nuked films can still reach other sources such as p2p/usenet & even here, but its a good idea to check why it was nuked in the first place.

NUKE REASONS -

Below are a List of reasons why a Release Could be nuked

BAD A/R -

Bad aspect ratio, ie people appear too fat/thin

BAD IVTC -

Bad inverse telecine. process of converting framerates was incorrect.

INTERLACED -

Black lines on movement as the field order is incorrect.