By Phaelox - Divxstation
In alphabetical order:
1. Cam
2. DiVX;-)
3. Divx
4. DVD rip
5. Screener
6. SVCD
7. Telecine
8. Telesync
9. VCD
10. Workprint
11. R5
==[ CAM ]=====================================================
A "CAM" is a movie taped in the cinema, using a 500$ camcorder.Not to be confused
with "TELESYNC" - see below.
Sound is recorded using the mic on the camcorder which results in quite "hollow"
sound sometimes.
CAM´s are often referred to as "shit cam''''s". They are often re-encoded by the group
"ShadowRealm", downsized to about 300mb and mostly spread using filesharing programs like "kazaa", "morpheus", "Edonkey" and usenet. These are *not* DivX but SMR also known as "nAVI".
It´s not rare to see people walking in front of the camera or hearing them talk.
If i''''m not mistaking, a release of "The Phantom Menace" had some guys smoking a
bong in the row in front of where the CAM was positioned.
I don''''t think there´s ever a reason to watch a CAM as a TELESYNC will *often*
appear right after and the quality is *really* low.
It ofcourse depends on what your personal quality preferences are.
==[ DiVX ;-) ]==================================================
This is the DiVX format known to most. Not to be confused with the below mentioned
Circuit City Divx format.
DiVX:-) was at first based on a hacked microsoft mpeg4 AVI codec.
Version 3.11 is probably the best known and most used version. Ofcourse the people
behind the format has gotten greedy by time, and have now with their version 5.0 of
the product completely sold out to the scene they once were a part of and are now
also working with big scary cooperations in making hardware DiVX 5.0 players.
The 5.0 codec package was requiered to be either registered or filled with spyware
proggies.
Nothing much else to say about DiVX. Most of you already know about it :0)
==[ Divx ]=====================================================
Notice the spelling. I left out ;-) in the end, there''''s a perfectly good explanation
for that.
The DiVX;-) as we know it, is not the first video format to use that name.
Some years ago, a company called Circuit City invented a format called Divx, which
stood for Digital Video Express. The format was meant to be a "pay per view" format
where you had a player, much like a DVD player, with a built in modem. You could then
buy a movie on a disc, put it in the player and then it would call up a database via the
modem, which would enable the movie to be played a certain amount of times, or within a certain period of time.
Luckily the Divx format died very fast and the DVD disc took over the market.
Beware that a lot of people sell "Divx" players and movies on places like "Ebay". Those players will NOT play the DivX;-) we know and love but is made for the Circuit City Divx.
As all the databases that the player used for verification have been shut down, there is absolutely no reason to own one of their players, as it is impossible to watch a movie on it. Talk about a format that took a nosedive.
Read more about the obsolete format here:
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213637,00.html
==[DVD Rip]====================================================
Should anyone here not know what this is, i better exlain. I think the term itself
is rather self-explanatory, but here we go.
A DVD Rip is a movie where the AVI file (if it is DivX) has been sourced directly
from the VOB´s on the DVD. This ensures the highest quality possible and is the
standard of movie backup today.
==[ SCREENER ]=================================================
Screeners have evolved big time since "Swordfish" which was if I remember correctly
the first DVD Screener. They usually came on regular VHS tapes, often 3rd or 4th
generation but were still the best quality available.
Around the 2002 Academy awards, DVD screeners emerged and TCF´s "Lord of the rings", FastEmpires "Monsters INC" and other great titles were brought to the scene.
Those releases revolutionized the scene and brought *almost* DVD quality movies into our homes, movies that were still showing at the local cinema
==[ SVCD ]==================================================
SVCD is often, by people who dont know better, compared to VCD qualitywise.
That is about as far from the truth as you can come. SVCD is way superior to VCD and is basically a small DVD. Just like DVD, SVCD is also encoded in Mpeg2 but has
a slightly lower bitrate. The max. bitrate for a standard SVCD is 2600kbps. where DVD is 9400kbps. Resolution is 480x480 for ntsc and 480x576 for pal movies.
Quality is comparable to Laserdisc or digital broadcast television (not HDTV) which is somewhere around 2000kbps.
The average movie is split over 2 cd''s, sometimes 3, depending on the length of the movie.
Like DVD, SVCD also being Mpeg2, supports multipass VBR encoding. This results in a very effective use of the space available for the movie.
The SVCD standard was made by the Chinese VCD consortium (Philips-Sony-Matsushita-JVC), as an opponent to DVD. The chinese government wanted to make sure that the money made on the enourmous movie industry, were kept inside the country. Normal VCD''s had also been a standard in China for a very long time, and they did''nt think that people would pay for the expensive DVD discs.
The SVCD disc became quite a big success in the far east, but never really got its grip in the North American and European market. Probably because of the intense marketing of the DVD disc, and the fact that the SVCD movies were spread over several CD''s.
Read MUCH more about SVCD here:
http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/svcd/overview/
==[ TELECINE ]================================================
With a telecine machine, you can transfer straight from the reel to a digital device,
such as a labtop computer. Quality often resembles a VHS cassette or better.
TELECINE''''s are not seen very often probably because the telecine machine costs somewhere around 200.000$ which is an awful lot of money, even if you are an established pirate.
Read more about a telecine machine here:
http://www.innovation-tk.com/products/millennium/page.html
==[ TELESYNC ]=================================================
TELESYNC´s are kinda like CAM´s but with external audio source and often higher quality video.
The audio is sourced from audio plug''''s normally intended for the hearing impaired for
their headsets. Somewhat resembles to the plugs on a walkman.
The camera is placed on a tri-pod or in the projector booth to get the best image
available. Most are decent quality but there will often be a great amount of blurryness
or colorbleed and often a blue tint.
Up until a couple of years ago TELESYNC''''s were taped in 4:3 which resulted in horrible cropping of the image. Sometimes up to 50% was cut off. Luckily the people who make them try to do them in widescreen and then add black borders when they are sourced to VCD.
==[ VCD ]====================================================
VCD is probably the best known format for video piracy. Based on Mpeg1 technology the VCD format was developed in China in 1993. It became a huge success, China produced more than 2 million VCD players a year, just for the far east market.
The VCD standard never caught on to the European and American market. They already had several tape based video systems like BetaMax, Video2000 and the best known VHS. The real movie enthusiasts bought their movies on Laserdiscs.
The quality of a hardware professional encoded VCD is comparable to SVHS. The resolution is 352x240 and the bitrate is fixed on a whopping 1150kbps.
Countries like Malaysia, China and so on are flooded by pirated movies on VCD and they are sold on small markets for less than 1$US.
Read more about VCD here:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2496/vcdfaq.html
==[ WORKPRINT ]================================================
WORKPRINT`s are rarely seen these days. They are temporary transfers to VHS that are used for different pre-release screenings, like sound editing for example.
Quality varies, but is often resembling VHS screeners. Some sound is often missing, music tracks missing and they may contain scenes that are not in the final cut of the movie, which also makes them interesting for movie enthusiasts.
Reel changes sometimes occur, with a countdown in between.
The film often has "cigarette burns" and other type''''s of dirt on it, as it has''''nt been mastered yet.
==[ R5]================================================
R5 refers to a specific format of DVD released in DVD Region 5, the former Soviet Union, and bootlegged copies of these releases that are distributed on the Internet. The image quality of an R5 release is generally comparable to a DVD Screener release, except without the added scrolling text and black and white scenes that serve to distinguish screeners from commercial DVD releases. The quality is better than Telecine transfers produced by movie pirates because the transfer is performed using professional-grade film scanning equipment. The only possible drawback of an R5 is sometimes you will find it has weak audio.
==[Other Important Tags/Titles ]================================================
We have listed all the possible tags used to reference the quality of the rip. However you may see things like “VCD, SVCD, XVCD, XSVCD”. This just refers to how the video was actually encoded. Also you may see “DivX / Xvid, many others” which refer to which codec was used during the encoding process. All of this information is pretty much useless to you unless you DVD player can play certain kinds of codecs or you plan to recode the video yourself.
One last thing… You will notice names like “-Diamond, CAMERA, Sunspot” at the end of most titles. This refers to the “group” or “scene” of people who brought you the release.
(Parts of this article have been sourced from Tamnn.wordpress.com)
Url to this pages:
http://nade.dk/web/nade/site.nsf/FramesetHP?readform&wmain=files/VideoTermsDefined