The point of archived(.rar) vids on torrent sites???

This has bothered me for a while now because i don't understand the purpose of archiving video files on torrent sites......

i have downloaded plenty of videos from torrent sites that are not archived and i have downloaded plenty that are archived....i just don't get what the point of it is other than being an extra annoying 5-20 minute step before you can actually watch the video....plus it just seems to be yet another thing that can get screwed up (you always see the "rar fix"es on sites)

can someone shed some light on this for me

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Originally Posted by frozenray

This has bothered me for a while now because i don't understand the purpose of archiving video files on torrent sites......

i have downloaded plenty of videos from torrent sites that are not archived and i have downloaded plenty that are archived....i just don't get what the point of it is other than being an extra annoying 5-20 minute step before you can actually watch the video....plus it just seems to be yet another thing that can get screwed up (you always see the "rar fix"es on sites)

can someone shed some light on this for me

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The point of archiving is to make the file smaller...hopfuly without too much loss of quality hence the use of rar for videos as it's best for media formats. basicly that means you download the file alot quicker which saves time in the end. besides it's not too hard to unrar usualy takes me between 10 and 30 seconds depending on the size of the file and what else my computer happens to be doing at that moment. what program do you use to unrar your files?? most people use winrar but I use filzip because I'm too cheap to buy anthing else and the pirate copy of winrar I had was always fucking up and reporting errors I haven't had that happen since I swaped about a year now...plus it does just about all formats in one little easy to use free program. :D

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The point of archiving is to make the file smaller...

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ummm you sure about that? i downloaded the pukka TC of the da vinci code which was 1.37 GB and after i exctracted it from the rars it was 1.36 GB

the same with the the finale of american idol....it was 710.99 MB to download and after i extracted it....it was 699 MB


so making it into a archive actually means you have more to download not less

It doesn't make the file any smaller.

RAR files are used in case any part of the file is corrupt. If you downloaded an avi file that was corrupted the file is no use to you...download totally wasted.

If you downloaded say 50 rar files and one was corrupt all the uploader has to do is up that rar file separately and you can replace the corrupt file with the good one.

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Originally Posted by ghurka

It doesn't make the file any smaller.

RAR files are used in case any part of the file is corrupt. If you downloaded an avi file that was corrupted the file is no use to you...download totally wasted.

If you downloaded say 50 rar files and one was corrupt all the uploader has to do is up that rar file separately and you can replace the corrupt file with the good one.

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thank you....i understand now.

fair enough I always assumed the whole point was to compress the file like a zip I checked it out on a few that I had and it only made a marginal difference maybe 2 or 3 meg so point taken...you learn somthing new every day :bag:

Often the file is compressed either so it can be password-protected (which is really lame) or because it was simply acquired in that format in the first place, such as rar-parts from newsgroups.

Also, isn't kind of a carry-over from the lower bandwidth/propogation days when people would need to be able to download it in pieces? I think it's pretty much obsolete, or maybe obs37173? I believe it makes one hardcore if they can figure out how to RAR something up into multiple files.

It gets really annoying when you download a single RAR file, which contains 100 ZIPs, each of which contains one of the (.000-.100) RAR pieces. It smacks of robbing a horse to call the kettle before they hatch.

or because someone created the torrent from a newsgroup download

Not only do archived files work better for retreiving corrupt rars, but it also helps the whole idea of bittorrent. You download a small section, then upload it to your peers. It also helps BT clients to identify percentage wise, who has what.

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Originally Posted by edbanky

Also, isn't kind of a carry-over from the lower bandwidth/propogation days when people would need to be able to download it in pieces? I think it's pretty much obsolete, or maybe obs37173? I believe it makes one hardcore if they can figure out how to RAR something up into multiple files.

It gets really annoying when you download a single RAR file, which contains 100 ZIPs, each of which contains one of the (.000-.100) RAR pieces. It smacks of robbing a horse to call the kettle before they hatch.

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RAR archives can also contain recovery data that was used to help with CRC errors. This has become obsolete due to PAR/PAR2 recovery systems.

The relevance of split archives such as RAR and ACE is still not in question. OK, in days gone by people on dialup would be spending al night downloading 100MB warez releases of the day but the increase in internet access speed has only recently begun to catch up with release sizes - I bet you'd be a little more than upset if a connection crapped out after 3GB of a single-file DVD5 release.

Personally, I use WinRAR for all archiving - it handles everything I've come across with the exception of a few early WinACE v2 archives.

you guys are bottom feeding the actual people who produce the releases, being so removed from the top - it might seem strange to you that releases are packaged in 15mb or 50mb rars.

The reason for this is, as stated above is partially because of corruption -- files are all parity checked in a .sfv file - and un-corrupting a release is as simple as redownloading a corrupt file.

But the main reason for rars is to aid in FTP transfers between release sites. Rars allow multiple people to upload a release to an FTP simultaneously, speeding the overall transmission and because of the SFV, preventing anyone from tieing up the FTP with a potentially corrupt transfer.

Additionally, a release in rars can travel down a chain of FTPs as fast as the first rar hits the first site, as there is no need to wait for the entire release to completed to start uploading it to other sites.

The people who produce these releases would rather people not talk about them broadly or even receive their releases, although the secrets of the release scene are still surprisingly well kept, the releases themselves aren't so much.

I always thought they where in rar files due to coming from newsgroups, and then just being uploaded to torrent sites witout being 'unrarred'