Rules - Read before posting

[spudthedestroyer]

Torrent Rules

IMPORTANT: The torrents, files or trackers listed here have nothing to do with this site. They aren't hosted here nor is the integrity, validity or content guaranteed in anyway. This site is primarily for ed2k hashes and thusly, these torrents aren't checked/verified by any mod/admin/etc. To this end, reseed requests, torrent requests, etc. should not be made on this site. The threads here are presented "as is" by the users. Reseed enquires, etc. should be directed to the thread originator.

If you choose to post, you should follow these rules:

• Public servers only. No registered trackers or forced click torrent hosting.
  The following are a list of trackers if you need a hand locating one:
  http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic.php?t=6685
• Relocate the torrent file to free servers if the site has frequent downtime. This is also a good idead because it saves bandwidth for the tracker and helps keep alternative links available. Make sure they support remote linking though!
• Stuff is going to die, its in the nature of torrent (one share, one window). Do not ask for reseeds in any other section (ie. reshare is only for ed2k). Once its gone try the thread, otherwise its gone buddy. You can resume in ed2k if you have got far and got the ed2k.
  http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic.php?t=2906
• If you are posting a torrent as a supporting link, or with emule as the main source, then please use the normal section and structure the emphasis on the ed2k link (providing the torrent by this link)

General Guidelines

• Releases only here please!
• The perfect title is something along the lines of:
  Movie Title (Year) (Source)
  If there's some important info you think needs mentioning in the topic, add it after the year.
• No need for REL: tags if you come from a board that does it
• In topic title don't use all upper case
• Remember to post an IMDB link, and if you can a little plot summary and poster from www.amazon.com neatens the posts up.
• This ones quite important, I think it might be worth mentioning whether something is cut or not. I know horror fans always look for the gorriest bloodbath they can get their hands on
• Please try and post the original filenames (best respect you can show to the ripper) and ensure that the rip your posting hasn't already been posted.
• No screeners please, lets keep it to rarities and retail.

IMDB:
Please include this at the very least. Many films, horror films especially, go under different names in different regions, therefore including an IMDB is a must to clarify your release/link. Please include this in every topic.
http://www.imdb.com

Rip information:
Very important information, so people know exactly what to expect.
The best tool to give you the information is called gspot, and is very simple to use. Download it using the following link
http://www.dead-donkey.com/modules.php? ... etit&lid=5

Posters:
Not needed, but makes your topic pleasing to the eye. Movie posters can normally be found on:
www.amazon.com
and some others can be found at:
www.amazon.co.uk

Screenshots say a thousand words
If you could provide screenshots of the rip, they say a lot of what is in store quality wise. With horror movies, and the rarity of rips it is always important to show people what to expect.

For those that don't know how to take screenshots, I'll post a short guide, for those that don't have any webspace, you can upload images to a temp. image store here:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/hhahscreens3/
or
http://members.lycos.co.uk/hhahscreens2/

You will need nandub, virtualdub or preferably virtualdubmod to take pictures, and some paint app (Paint shop pro is great for this). Load up your avi in the program. Use the navigation bar along the bottom and scroll to a random point, preferably some high motion points of the movie, then go to video>copy source frame to clipboard (this maybe under edit in virtualdubmod). Now load up your paint app and paste. Repeat two to six times so you have a range of shots. Save them as jpgs, naming them something like ripname1.jpg. Finally, navigate to:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/hhahscreens3/
or
http://members.lycos.co.uk/hhahscreens2/
Use the browse button and upload your files.

To post the images, use:

Code: Select all

[img]http://members.lycos.co.uk/hhahfiles2/uploads/ripname1.jpg[/img]

You can of course use your own webspace, provided it allows remote linking. Most freehosts don't.

Screens of how to take screenshots (This is in Nandub, in virtual dub mod, use the edit menu)

Remember, only verified movies go in this section. Please try post specs if you can. A simple and quick way of getting specs can be found in the FAQ here:
http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic.php?t=4

[spudthedestroyer]

I ask if at all possible to include screenshots of movies you rip, really helps everyone who's downloading know what quality to expect, that the release is verified and there won't be any nasty surprises along the way. You can see how to take screenshots above, and are free to upload screendumps here:
www.imageshack.us
or
www.photobucket.com

Define Quality retail DVD?

By this, I refer to a properally mastered DVD, meaning DVDs that are for sale in shops from any region, but have been 'professional' transfered to DVD. This does not always mean it has to be brilliant quality, most low budget films have hideous transfers, but it must be from a proper source, meaning tvtransfers, pirate DVDs and DVD screeners should not be posted in this section.

So what's Quality?

By this wordage, I'm trying to seperate the 'best possible copies' from releases that may not be the best the film is currently available in. For example, many regions get better mastered DVDs (ie. widescreen prints, etc.), some maybe sub-par or VHS quality and if that's the case, and the quality doesn't seem decent or perhaps as extreme as near unwatchable

Secondly, this also refers to quality of rips. The following are some common mistakes that mean that your rip may be moved to the lesser quality section.

Bad/Lack of proper De-interlacing.
What is Interlacing?

A video display technique in which the electron beam refreshes (updates) all odd-numbered scan lines in one sweep of the screen and all even-numbered scan lines in the next. Interlacing takes advantage of both the screen phosphor's ability to maintain an image for a short time before fading and the human eye's tendency to average subtle differences in light intensity. By refreshing alternate lines, interlacing halves the number of lines to update in one screen sweep.

Basically its a trick that doesn't show up on tvs to display an image by quickly flashing images on the screen. However, with more sophisticated viewing devices on PCs, this means interlaced sources are terrible to watch (see the following examples), or more accurately unwatchable. You *must* always apply a deinterlacing filter when ripping to avoid this symptom in interlaced sources. Other wise the following examples are what is shown when watching:



How do I de-interlace?
My recommendation is to apply decomb or another deinterlacing filter, use gknot to rip movies and follow the guide.

Bad Cropping
Why Crop?
It is vital to crop off all black boarders when encoding for many reasons. Firstly and most importantly, encoding with them on wastes the bitrate and mb of video data on useless blackspace that isn't needed. By leaving the boarders in top, you can not acheive quality that you should acheive as xvid is unable to determine between picture and blackspace and allocates the bits to represent the useless part of the picture. Secondly, and with the first at the front of your mind, the boarders server no purpose than to reduce the quality of the encode. They are there on DVDs to maintain an AR, but this is not needed with xvid codecs which will resize and render necessacary boarders on the fly.

How to avoid
You should always remove the black boarders that surround the video when ripping a movie. To do so they must be cropped off right up to the picture. You must also keep within the resolution constrains of the codec you are using (multiples of 32/16 for xvid or divx).



Once again my recommendation is to use gknot to rip movies and follow the guide. You simply press
the crop button (under crop), then select smart auto crop all. This also ensures you don't get a bad AR (aspect ratio, squashed heads or fat heads). Group releases are considered 'bad' if they have a AR error of greater than +/- 3%.

For these reasons, a release may be moved from this section, in addition to a partcularly poor video or audio source on the DVD. If its the latter this is unavoidable by the ripper, but unfortunately the distributor hasn't done the film justified dvd release.

[spudthedestroyer]

Why name topics Title (Year) (Source)?
Everything looks so much neater if the topic title is just something simple. Overloading the topic title with info just isn't needed and should be avoided. If you have some vital information, feel free to add it in () afterwards, but the topic title is just to inform people what is in the topic, not give out all the information contained in the topic

Please try to avoid copying the filename into the subject title, it looks really ugly and contains too much unnessecary information.

[spudthedestroyer]

Posting files already posted in the ed2k sections...
Feel free to post either new films, or dupes as long as a) the hash matches the ed2k release or b) the quality of the newer file is better than that which is already posted.