Poor Quality of Downloaded Video from File Share Programs

[geoffreyrcaplan]

I have my new external DVD burner, Sony digital camcorder, Phillips standalone DVD writer and a new Sony Vaio multimedia PC. All in all a decent setup. But I find downloaded video on P-to-P to be of very poor quality, not to mention the slow download (even on broadband) and noticeable slowing down of PC processes after a day or two of using P-to-P. When I run scan disk and defrag, the PC kind of gets back to normal. Think I will be using my DVD technology for non-download activity. Does anyone else have smilar poor experience with downloaded P-to-P video?

[browner]

What P2P r u using?
There are many great quality video files on almost all of them.
Dont give up so easy!!! Dont always go for the low file size, and after a while downloading, you will get to know the better quality names to go for.
Try a CENTROPY download and see what you think.

If you are downloading via broadband, your download may still be slow dependant on how many users are sharing the relavant file.

When I first started this game I thought TMD and SMR movies were great (since they are theatre rips) but now I rarely bother with these.

I'm sure people will back my opinions up, but then again are you expecting too much (120min film DVD quality from a very small file)???

[cheftaz]

I have downloaded a whole whack of movies from p2p and find that DVD rips are easily the best and also there is usually comments from others who have downloaded the same movie about the quality (best on net, screener,bad rip, not complete, etc). I will sometimes download 2 copies of same movie, find which one is best (and complete) then convert and burn. The poorer quality one is dumped. Also will sometimes preview while downloading. If it is poor I cancel and try another

[Nelson37]

I've had a couple of medium-quality short flicks, several poor or fakes and several failures after LONG downloads; ONE of pretty good quality (DVD rip of Monsters, Inc). check filesize and preview helps.

Is there a way to do Multiple-Source downloads of same file for speed on say, Kazaa, for instance?

[browner]

Kazaa has multiple source downloads.
just right click the file u r downloading and click 'find more sources for download'.

[Nelson37]

When I do that, it finds a better source or speeds up the on I am on, I want to DL the same file from 2-3 sources at the same time, in segments, for speed. It appears from monitoring the uploads that others are able to do this - many files completed at 50% and 33%.

[mikerios]

i find better quality speed and selection on newsgroups, as they carry dvd rips ect including the lousy cam screeners, as well as divx ect.. but seeing how you got all the hardware, going back to an old saying, if you want some thing done right you might as well do it your self.

[geoffreyrcaplan]

Mikerios, that's a great suggestion. Thanks. Maybe my experience with video downloads has been a just a run of bad luck.

[geoffreyrcaplan]

Cheftaz, I don't always see file quality comments on downloads and would love to be able to identify and only look for DVD rips, for example. Wonder if there is an easier way to do this.

[agzz]

i think DC is good p2p. if not the best.

[mrebman]

Geoffrey:
Get Kazaa Lite, it's the best & there is no Spyware or Adware & it won't slow your computer down. Just go to Kazaa's Search Button & click "Video" then type in "DVD-Rip" or "Divx" & you will get a LOT of results, just pick one that looks good & download it, convert & burn. This idn't really hard to do & you can find plenty of QUALITY DVD-Rips on Kazaa Lite or WinMX. I was going to buy a DVD Player & do my own Rips but why? when there are plenty that are already done.

P.S. - You will need Nero 5.5, TMPEnc 2.54 & Virtualdub.

-Good Luck-
Mick

[cheftaz]

Geoffrey I use Grokster and a lot (not all) will have some sort of comment. There is loads of dvd rips and divx of first class quality. I downloaded a rip of Shrek that is of unbelievable quality, among many others. The cydoor which is installed is easily removed and still allows grokster to operate by creating a fake reg file

[jledhead]

lets see, your looking for multisource downloads. being able to share a file before you have it complete so the # of sources increases. you also need a program that has a unique hash or ID for the files to curb fakes. it would also be a good idea to have a community back the program so that quality will be sought after and requested time and time again.

hhhhmmm, what program has all these qualities????

Kazaa??? NO
DC??? NO
Morpheous??? NO
Whatever else was mentioned??? BIG NO

the only program that can do the above can be found at www.edonkey2000.com and one community page in particular is www.sharereactor.com

to me the choice seems obvious. never use sub-standard P2P again.

[Devnull]

Using DivX as a source != good. If you want to get a good vcd or svcd you must use irc

[geoffreyrcaplan]

jledhead, I'll check that out!

mrebman, kazaa lite looks very good. Thanks for the great tip!

Devnull, is there an easy way to decode DIVXX? Once downloaded a divxx-encoded file and couldn't open it. Is there a special codec needed?

[mrebman]

Geoffrey:
Get the "Nimo Codec Pack" (Look to the left under tools, it's a free download) this has all the Codecs you'll need to do Divx Encoding.
TMPEnc will pull both the Video & Audio from Most Divx files but if you get funky audio, run the file thru Vurtualdub & it will pull out the Audio seperate & convert it to a .Wav file.
-Mick-

[banjazzer]

You get what you pay for. 8) Best source for video material is usenet IMO, and of course, you can find rubbish there as well. The reason it is the best is because the posters who know what they are doing provide detailed info and a sample of the avi, mpg etc, so you know the quality you will be downloading.

There is a site which, whilst not being exhaustive, shows a lot of what is actually around, and where to find it.
http://www.newzbin.com/

[geoffreyrcaplan]

Mick,

I did download the codec package you mentioned, and it worked great. I was finally able to open a DVD-divx-rip download from Kazaa Lite and the file quality was great, though a little dark. Need to figure out how to lighten it up before burning.

Anoter new problem: Want to get a portable DVD player to add to my DVD R+W Philips external DVD writer and Aleratec DVD external burner. Everything on the market right now seems to be DVD-R format for portable. So my choice is t burn VCDs for portable viewing or hope that portable DVD players that are compatible with DVD+RW are coming out. Not sure which way to go.

Thanks for the help. This forum is great.

[davewave]

If you are going to use Kazaalite, uninstall Kazaa first and remove the spyware using Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.de I have noticed a definite speed improvement over normal kazaa. There are people who rename old films with the title of the latest films too, so you may not download what you expect.

[KingJohn]

So let me get this right...

Wing Wong has taken the trouble to smuggle his Sony into the cinema to recorded the latest block buster movies, he was searched at the entrance, but managed to hide it in his potable wok. Then he sat in the more expensive seats to get a clear shot without the heads popping up all over the place....

He changed batteries half way in 5 ms, then rushed home to transfer it to hard drive and make it all available to everyone...

AND YOU COMPLAIN !!!

Give the guy a brake, if you don't want poor quality movies, don't Wing the Wong number....

[smokingweed3000]

Hey
I want to give newsgroups a try but ive been told that u need to know whats yr isp's newsgroup url address is. And my question is how do i find that out?
Thanks

[KingJohn]

Visit your ISP's web site...

In Outlook Express you may have "yourisp.com" as the email server like this pop.yourisp.com smtp.yourisp.com so your news group might be news.yourisp.com

[aliahmed]

I'm using Kazaa Lite and it works fine until i do something with an MPG. If i try to download an mpg it works except when i close Kazaa the Internet doesn't work and the computer freezes. Even after i've deleted it freezing still happens for 1 or 2 more days then stops.
Does anyone know what this problem is?

[banjazzer]

Hey
I want to give newsgroups a try but ive been told that u need to know whats yr isp's newsgroup url address is. And my question is how do i find that out?
Thanks

If you connect to your ISP's site, somehere should be all the settings you need. It's found in the same place where you get info about setting up any webspace, email etc. However, many ISPs' binary feeds are quite poor. Those of us who are serious about binary newsgroups subscribe to a commercial news server, such as Easynews or Giganews. This is a good starting place:

http://www.exit109.com/~jeremy/news/providers/

[Rigo]

I have my new external DVD burner, Sony digital camcorder, Phillips standalone DVD writer and a new Sony Vaio multimedia PC. All in all a decent setup. But I find downloaded video on P-to-P to be of very poor quality, not to mention the slow download (even on broadband) and noticeable slowing down of PC processes after a day or two of using P-to-P. When I run scan disk and defrag, the PC kind of gets back to normal. Think I will be using my DVD technology for non-download activity. Does anyone else have smilar poor experience with downloaded P-to-P video?

just buy the dvd movies man!!!! looks like you have a deep pocket

[wrestleantares]

A little P2P advice:

1. Look at the comments

2. If it is under 700 megs don't be surprised if it is poor quality

3. If it says DVD rip and the movie is in theatres, It's a fake, and is ussually some other movie. Recent ones I've seen are SUM OF ALL FEARS is VAN WILDER and SPIDERMAN is SWEET NOVEMBER.

4. Read the ETA's on the video.

5. The more popular the film, the faster the download. Stands to reason as there are more sources.

6. If you find a really fast DL then search more from same user. If he has more stuff you like, then you've found a DL bonanza.