codec users out there...

[sureshs]

Some questions about general codec users out there....

- do you rip movies or download/share to obtain? about how many ripping vs downloads per month?

- what program is popular for downloading/ sharing movies?

- how do you organize your movies on the PC (ie. genre, thumbnails, etc).. which are famous ones

- divx changes all the time... how often does it change. how often do you pickup changes in your collection? what do you do with old files when new one is out?

- anything else relevant to user experience..

thanks! this will help in my learning.. once i compile everything, i'll put a link up so you can all view it.

thanks
suresh

[bond]

doom9 is not the place to discuss potentially illegal activities

[DeathTheSheep]

Bond is right--talking of downloading movies/how to attain them is in direct violation to rule 6:
Asking for help/helping to process such [illegally obtained copyrighted] content in any way or form is not tolerated.

But you're new here, so I guess some other advice is fine, right?
1) We rip (just about everything) as far as I can speak for the majority here.... It's a ripping community after all, right? DVD backups, remember? ;)
2) The infamous P2P clients of yesteryear are both illegal and widely abused, if I recall. I don't use P2P. Don't use P2P or "bittorrent."
3) I organize by title. Because I encode them all in the same manner (with the same resulting quality), organization is done completely by title. Windows XP takes over the rest. :)
4) DivX? Well, DivX6 is reletively new and it doesn't look like its going to change for at least about another year (we had DivX 5 for a long time, right?) A new alpha is coming soon to DivX labs, or so I hear, but nothing "official." I usually just keep the old files unless I'm dissatisfied with thier quality. If I am, I reencode with a newer codec at the same bitrate. That's kinda how it goes--no recompressing of the entire collection for me (or for many other satisfied users). Of course, this depends on collection size/quality and how much of a quality maniac you are ;)
5) Try new codecs! If DivX works fine for you (as it does for a great many others, including myself), use it. There are some you might want to keep your eye on: NeroDigital, x264 and VP7 in particular. Give 'em a shot if you have some time on your hands :D

Have fun.

[Leak]

Don't use P2P or "bittorrent."
Gotta agree with P2P in general here, but BitTorrent is another matter. BitTorrent itself isn't a network where you can find all kinds of (il-/half-)legal stuff - you can run your own tracker for just a single and perfectly legal file.

So no need to pan it outright... :)

Perfectly legal example:

http://www.starwreck.com/download.php

The tracker linked to on that page serves exactly one 103 min movie in 3 flavours (XviD w/ subtitles, XviD w/o subtitles and an MPG version), which incidentally happens to be a lot of fun, too... :)

np: Aesop Rock - Number Nine (Fast Cars, Danger, Fire And Knives)

[Caroliano]

divx changes all the time... how often does it change. how often do you pickup changes in your collection? what do you do with old files when new one is out?
Divx is only a codec of the MPEG 4 ASP standart, like many others like Xvid or old versions of ND. The standart for it code don't change. Of course, divx's decoder can change as it improve, adding more possibilities given by the standart. But if you use Xvid or FFDShow that already incorpored almost all the standart, this will not afect you at all. And old files will always be compatible.

And don't think about transcode your old Divx file with an new version of the codec, you will aways loose quality. If you want to reencode, do it from the source.

Also: :readrule: :search: :readguid: :readfaq:

And welcome to Doom'9 forum.

[DeathTheSheep]

Oh yeah, forgot to say,
Welcome to Doom9's forum!

[dragongodz]

The infamous P2P clients of yesteryear are both illegal and widely abused, if I recall.
just to correct this statement. p2p client are NOT illegal. there was a recent case where a U.S.A. judge said owners/providers of such technology that promote it for illegal activities can be held accountable for said activities, and so sued. this does not make the clients or the technology behind them illegal.

BitTorrent is another matter. BitTorrent itself isn't a network where you can find all kinds of (il-/half-)legal stuff - you can run your own tracker for just a single and perfectly legal file.
also besides the legal example you gave SUSE linux and Knoppix Linux also have official bittorent links.

oh and no i dont use p2p either but am thinking of getting a bittorent client to see how it goes getting the latest knoppix. :)

sorry to go OT but thought it deserved a rebuttal. ;)

[celtic_druid]

@dragongodz, if your ISP is on pipe or similar then you can probably get it from a local mirror as fast or faster than you are ever going to get it via bittorrent.

http://mirror.pacific.net.au/knoppix/ <-- If you are on Vic pipe.

[Leak]

@dragongodz, if your ISP is on pipe or similar then you can probably get it from a local mirror as fast or faster than you are ever going to get it via bittorrent.
Weeell, I'm just downloading the current Knoppix CD image via BT, and it maxes out my 4Mbit/s cable modem just fine at ~468kB/s, which is where HTTP maxes out also... :)

[DeathTheSheep]

dragongodz, you are absolutely correct ;)

You have a good point--they themselves are not actually illegal, but I was just generalizing based on majority usage (abuse) of these clients to do the bad stuff. I know about 20 people who use P2P and bittorrent, and not a single one of them uses them for anything besides the "bad stuff."
Also, I heard some guy was sued for downloading a "Linux ISO"--the truth is, is wasn't actually a Linux ISO but Windows 2003 Media center. He didn't even know what he was downloading, but I believe he still had to pay a moderate fine.

The big statement here is:
you can run your own tracker for just a single and perfectly legal file.
Yup. But who does? :devil: sureshs was definately referring to the rather improper form of usage these clients typically experiance.

So this stuff can be shady.

Also, when I'm on my trusty 100mbps LAN connection, HTTP (certain mirrors) definately get up to 10 MB/sec (usually with download managers), and I can't use P2P at all on it. So it kinda defeats the purpose anyway for me.

[End OT]