rar files

i am new here. just wondering how come eztv doesn\'t supply the rar version of
the files. like primeval s02e07 which was available a while ago. why do they
only supply avi files.

probably because they have someone extract it, or wait for someone to extract it
before putting it up.

eztv distributes high quality torrents, and since .rar files are not high
quality (due to the hoops you must jump through the get a watchable episode),
the don't supply them.

please tell me you aren't complaining about that?

no i\'m not complaining. just saw this episode of primeval on bt-chat a while
ago. thats what made me bring it up.

yeah completely pointless and torrents automatically split up the file into
hundreds of a thousands parts and efficiently distributes it, reconstructions it
and hash checks it to make sure you got everything

also on public trackers, more people would be hit and running (not seeding
afterwards while uploading barely anything when downloading) if they had to keep
the .rar's to seed.

the reason why primeval s02e07 was late had nothing to do with .rar stuff (only
takes seconds to extract) but because it had a few problems so they were waiting
for a repack or proper and nothing came so they finally decided to just release
the rip with a few glitches in the begining

i think the primary reason for eschewing .rar'ed or .zip'ed media files is
that the codecs (a concatenation of compression-decompression) already squeeze
every bit of fluff out of the video and/or audio stream - and often with a more
current or more specifically designed algorithm, for the data type. so there's
no practical advantage to sending a single, large .avi or .mpg through a second
compression process - there's simply no more to be squoze out.

and the "cost" is, as dmfaust points out, potentially harmful. in my
experience, a .rar of an .avi file is only a .rar so the uploader can hide two
files in a single container: another .rar, and "password.html." never mind
that, if the ultimate nutmeat of the file is the actual, desired .avi; it's
been pointlessly triple-processed. password.html is just a link to a site that
requires a nasty download and never yields a viable password, anyway. (tip: if
there is a viable password to a protected .rar, someone'll probably have posted
it in the comments.)

another value to .avi files, as a transport format, is (as death734 points out)
that torrents are broken into thousands of packets, and re-assembled on your
hard drive. if one of those packets does get corrupted, the .avi will usually
play, but with a glitch at the bad spot. an archive format, on the other
hand, requires absolute fidelity in order to extract it's contents. a single
corrupt packet will cause a check-sum crash, and the whole file (and your
bandwidth) is wasted.

those considerations aside, archive formats do have their appreciable places in
torrent distribution; such as when the desired content is a collection of small
files. it makes sense to zip an entire folder of "the most complete
collection of marilyn monroe pictures ever in the history of the world," rather
than distribute it as a thousand individual 5k - 100k .jpg's. the torrent will
transact in multiple-file packets (there may be 25 5k images in a single 128k
torrent "piece"), but they'll be written to your hard drive as individual
files.

incidentally, i had to download that one because: 1) i have a friend who's a
huge m.m. fan; and, 2) that was the actual filename - and who could resist that?

welcome to the community; and safe & happy torrenting. keep up the good share
ratio.

and one other tip: if you're only interested in reliable entertainment, eztv
is your place! i used to pore over seemingly endless lists of videos at "we
have everything" sites, till i discovered eztv. it was like a supermagnet
that just sucked all the needles out of the haystack, and pointed me to where i
could find them. and if i don't know if i'd be interested in a particular
show, the comments are invaluable. (rule of thumb: if f.m. pans it, it's
probably gold.)

yeah, because after you're dead, how's the dog gonna get out for "walkies?"
why would you go through all that preparation, only to screw up the whole plan
by locking the door? even if the doberman could reach the key you put on its
collar, it couldn't turn the slippery doorknob because you didn't wash your
hands after slathering yourself.

and, between your empty carcass and the full doberman locked in the room,
somebody's gonna have to do some serious recarpeting & repainting if your
estate's ever gonna sell that property. are you kidding? in this housing
market? nothing turns away the newly-wed, looking-to-start-a-family, first-
time homebuyers faster than the stench of death and feces. ("oh, look, honey!
if we just papered over those fingernail clawmarks in that wall, this would
make a lovely nursery!" "i hope we have a girl, dear, the room's already
pink!") i think not.

in short, malarkey, stick with waiting till .avi files of programs are
available. otherwise, as dm wisely points out, you risk having your heirs
grumble at your funeral about how you totally tanked the property value of
their inheritance, with your stupidity, and they hope you rot in hell.

but, as they say, we were all newbies once. if i had but asked a simple
question, all those years ago, i'd have started researching canine-accessable
panic-bars the day dad brought that puppy home. or, the moment he punched it
in the face, i'd have known: "there goes the electric sunroof on my future new
lexus."

it's been a while for me here, but i thought i'd chime in on this one.

as a usenet user it's great to have split archives, as if one archive becomes
corrupt i can quickly fix it with the respective parity files.

also, using a number of private trackers, i can help seed the file by only
downloading 1 archive (15mb) and seeding that back, it helps me with my ratio
too and it saves me downloading a 350mb file which at the time of completion may
be a dead torrent.

but yes, for public torrents and for torrents in general, it's not such a good
idea. there's methods in place for error-detection/prevention in the bittorrent
protocol, that aren't there for eff-tee-pee, irc or usenet. one of the
bigger issues at
hand is the user-base. there's enough topics in here of people having trouble
with the simplist of problems (which could be sorted by reading the provided
help, but that's another story), imagine the fuss that would have to be dealt
with if the files were archived.

im not sure if this has been said before, so here is my 2c worth..

ive been torrenting since dialup and i have to say rar's do have their place.
with the ever increasing speed of broadband the use of rar is becomibng less
important. with dial up you sometimes just dont get all the pieces the way you
should and even if your have a 24mbs connection downdloading huge hd bluerays
rars would come in handy, if you fail to get just one or two pieces youre in
for a few problems. i dont have blueray yet but i believe the files are still
kept at a 1024 meg objects like dvd's so rars will no doubt be oevrkill in a
few years to come. as a rule of thumb if im getting a single image over 2/4/8
gig bin/cue file type, rars would be my choice, and for xvid 350/700 meg eztv?
you can stick ya rars where the sun dont shine!

wha? i remember walking with wooly mamoths (386's) and sabre tooth tigers
(286s) but i'm not that old. no my internet savy was slow on the up take
but
ive been using pc's for about 12 years. i think thay had 33kbs modems back
then. the net was too slow to keep my eyes open....

btw what does ddd mean. dead death dieing technology. :d

dalton disk disintegrator.

did that company get owned by symantec in the end? sounds like it.

maybe! no! ummm, is it that bad?

dis`in

look if i have any issues with people i will be more than obliged to change it
to normal chars. i just remembered not everyone can read those chars. my bad.

yea can you change it to normal chars.. pleaaaaase :d

just for you numaris :d just for you.... i think i like you.













in a non gay way that is.

:p

by `archived` he means compressed and split up into parts by winrar.

i.e. as well as all the questions about how torrents work we'd also be swamped
by questions about how rar/zip/whatever compression works.

e.g. "why woent m$ meedja playar shoew me n e pickshurs wen i clik on
example.showname.s01e01.hdtv-xvid.group.rar ??11?1?wtf?lol?!bbq"