To RAR or not to RAR

The other day I downloaded a whole season TV pack at bitmetv and downloaded the following season of the same show from TL. quality the same! but the time it took to unrar 24 episodes at TL compared to the season that was already unpacked and ready to go makes me think whats the point! for example say you download a movie 4 gigs and of course you want to seed but you also need to unrar it to watch it. so thats 8 gigs for one movie if not more.
it makes me wounder why the groups put out video files like this, and I'm sure there is some good explanations as to why but I have yet to find one. I read at another forum that release groups get the files pre packed and refuse to unpack because it is too time consuming but maybe there are others?

Let me know what you think!

well what if there is corrupt file
and what if ur file corrupt
you need dl it all but if it rar u can download just corrupt files again
where the option in poll we can say we want rar files

I voted I really don't mind it
but its should be in rar

it doesn't take me very long to unrar something, and i'll do it in the background, i won't sit and watch the percentage complete go up anyways..

It's good when using FTP and you can transfer 10 files at once going 250kb/s as opposed to one file at 250kb/s.

Yes the time takes to rar/unrar is tedious but without archived files it's really hard for users on a slow connection to partial seed and maintain a healthy ratio. Despite the "hardship" of WinRAR I still like to have scene releases in archived forms.

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Originally Posted by will17

It's good when using FTP and you can transfer 10 files at once going 250kb/s as opposed to one file at 250kb/s.

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Hmm...
never thought of that.

my HD hates RARs

but unpacked is a pain in the ass for uploaders

I don't like RARs at all. I've never had a problem with a file being corrupt on any of my hundreds of uncompressed downloads. I understand it is scene protocol, but torrents aren't "scene", so why require it all the time?

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Originally Posted by Dark Archon

Yes the time takes to rar/unrar is tedious but without archived files it's really hard for users on a slow connection to partial seed and maintain a healthy ratio. Despite the "hardship" of WinRAR I still like to have scene releases in archived forms.

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you can partial seed a non rared file too.. i never have done these stupid partial seeds though.. (its just wasted traffic :P) imo if you need to partial seed to get your ratio up, the tracker isnt for you.. although most people have much better upload speed than me..
to the topic.. rars dont make any sense in the torrent world..
and how do you reseed a dvd you have burned to disc?

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Originally Posted by sokrates

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Originally Posted by Dark Archon

Yes the time takes to rar/unrar is tedious but without archived files it's really hard for users on a slow connection to partial seed and maintain a healthy ratio. Despite the "hardship" of WinRAR I still like to have scene releases in archived forms.

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you can partial seed a non rared file too.. i never have done these stupid partial seeds though.. (its just wasted traffic :P) imo if you need to partial seed to get your ratio up, the tracker isnt for you.. although most people have much better upload speed than me..
to the topic.. rars dont make any sense in the torrent world..
and how do you reseed a dvd you have burned to disc?

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how do you partial seed on non-rared files? I don't have a magnificent internet connection mate

it's faster to race different rars to different drftpd slaves...

torrenters do not need rars :D

you are arguing about loosing time while unpacking... why should the uploader loose that time just to make you happy?

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Originally Posted by Gish

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Originally Posted by will17

It's good when using FTP and you can transfer 10 files at once going 250kb/s as opposed to one file at 250kb/s.

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Hmm...
never thought of that.

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Same with newgroups. Depending on your ISP depends on how many connections you can have open. Mine allows 3 for a total max speed of around 855 KB/s.

They are also packed that way for ease of use for the initial uploader, not the downloader. They couldn't care less how long it takes you you to unRAR or download a file. The person posting the file must spend a lot of time and effort to do so. Naturally, he wants the process to go as quickly as possible, and posting a 4.5 gigabyte DVD can take a while, right? Hence, the use of multiple RAR files to make his life easier.

In the event of a mishap, corrupted segment, etc., having multiple files allows the initial uploader to potentially re-upload only a small portion of the orginal file as all the other RAR parts may be just fine. All that saves everyone involved both time and bandwidth.

Hope that makes more sense to you now.

I hate it

Regardless of all the arguments for why trackers should or shouldn't have unrared files in their torrents instead of rared, I think that what plays the decisive role is ensuring that credits always goes to the people who created the release. Thus I think it's a good idea to keep the releases untouched through the distribution chains.. otherwise files can often be renamned along the way.

..and after all, is it really that inconvenient to unrar the files? it takes seconds or a couple of minutes if it is very large files.

Torrent - technology does not need rars by nature. The Scene - FTP, FXP - uses it. Torrent files have to be the same by definition (hashing). So You have to agree with BitmeTv on that.

The best thing about RAR's are that it proves that it's the original release. Someone might have tampered with for example the program that I'm downloading. RAR's prove that it's authentic.

I prefer No Rar.

100th Post!

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Originally Posted by Sekai

The best thing about RAR's are that it proves that it's the original release. Someone might have tampered with for example the program that I'm downloading. RAR's prove that it's authentic.

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No, no it doesn't. Someone could easily "tamper" with a file and then simply reRAR it.

Personally I dislike rar archives

-rars are not necessary to prevent corruption
-waste the user's time
-waste the user's drive space

but
-allow the uploader to replace corrupted rars instead of re-uploading the whole file
-are easier for the uploaders
-allow faster ftp transfers (apparently)

With Usenet Rars are good as long as Par files have been included in case of corruption and incomplete uploads which happen all the time on Usenet, but on Torrent trackers I have never seen this problem, so not sure if there is a real need for rar files unless someone is on a slow connection and just wants to grab a few at a time, or in case of a connection problem, so you don't have to start the download over again.