list your favourite HD release group

[Skyy]

My vote goes to CtrlHD.

[kyuuchi]

HDBits has some good internal encoders, thats what makes the site the best for HD content.

[GoldStoNe]

Daniel,
OMG I just realized it now. My nick is the same as "GoLDSToNE", one of the HD release group! Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not part of the group nor will I profess to be. I'm not worthy. Hail to the HD masters.

[athenaesword]

Word, especially CtrlHD is releasing at a crazy pace for the moment (5-10 releases per day). But I'd mention Goldstone as well, because if you are the one who did the Smallville hddvd seasons, I love you for it

To be honest, there are quite a few single people or smaller and less popular groups over at HDBits who get the idea of quality rips and follow up with amazing results. Names? How about MMI, H2, HDL, NWO and more. Lets not forget ALANiS who are non-scene as far as I know but do the most amazing 720p rips.

While there are only very few non-scene groups known well enough (most of which release exclusively at HDBits), the concept of a highdef community works because a whole group of people is working together to maintain it and offer new stuff.

so according to you, is CtrlHD releases of good quality? keep all my HD movies so i'm looking for the best quality available really. i'm not signed up at hdbits now, though i'd like to be, and it's a pity that these great release groups you've mentioned release there exclusively.

ps. i'm taking note of all the groups you've mentioned =] when i do eventually get on there i'll be grabbing all of it. thanks for the information!

[Daniel]

athenaesword, non-scene groups/releasers are generally quality-conscious because they have other goals (or limitations) than scene groups.

The 720p scene rules state that standard length tv episodes (37-59 minutes) should be 1100mb in size and that doesn't cut it most of the time (the possible video bitrates of scene releases are as low as 3200kbps). Non-scene releases are typically 1500mb or 2200mb (1/3 or 1/2 dvd size) which allows ~4000kbps or ~ 6500kbps and a visible improvement in most cases.

Much of the same is true for movies because most scene released movies are made to fit on a single dvd (~4.4gb) as this is encouraged by the current scene release standards (dvd9 should be used only in cases of long movies, or high action movies). Another rule to favor the non-scene alternatives is the lack of quality control of scene releases because qualitative issues are no valid reason for a proper. What this means? Some group can hurry the process along and make a bad release of a movie and as long as there are no technical issues, this bad release is most likely the only scene release you'll ever get to see. Non-scene movies are usually a bit larger (by 1/3rd in most cases) but like with tv episodes it ensures a standard of quality that is higher than the casual viewer will ever want for.

To answer your question: yes I believe CtrlHD and ESiR are the two most competent p2p release groups and I've only had to re-download one movie in all my time at HDBits. I'm talking about the latest Bourne movie where CtrlHD (or was it ESiR?) fucked up the non-English/Russian subtitles which should have been hard-coded or included at least.

ammendmend #1: you don't need an account at HDBits necessarily. Try hd-bits.ro and search for those groups, I know of at least a couple of CtrlHD and ESiR movies over there and some of them are free leech. If you have some Usenet access try the same search too, you'll wonder how much stuff is available there The latest I just downloaded is the complete bluray rip of the 3rd Lost season in 720p (~53GB in 23 episodes, minus par files).

ammendmend #2: GoldStoNe, I obviously didn't read your username careful enough or I might have noticed the difference myself You're right about the hail to all hd-masters though, most of my current traffic is for highdef content!

[athenaesword]

athenaesword, non-scene groups/releasers are generally quality-conscious because they have other goals (or limitations) than scene groups.

The 720p scene rules state that standard length tv episodes (37-59 minutes) should be 1100mb in size and that doesn't cut it most of the time (the possible video bitrates of scene releases are as low as 3200kbps). Non-scene releases are typically 1500mb or 2200mb (1/3 or 1/2 dvd size) which allows ~4000kbps or ~ 6500kbps and a visible improvement in most cases.

Much of the same is true for movies because most scene released movies are made to fit on a single dvd (~4.4gb) as this is encouraged by the current scene release standards (dvd9 should be used only in cases of long movies, or high action movies). Another rule to favor the non-scene alternatives is the lack of quality control of scene releases because qualitative issues are no valid reason for a proper. What this means? Some group can hurry the process along and make a bad release of a movie and as long as there are no technical issues, this bad release is most likely the only scene release you'll ever get to see. Non-scene movies are usually a bit larger (by 1/3rd in most cases) but like with tv episodes it ensures a standard of quality that is higher than the casual viewer will ever want for.

To answer your question: yes I believe CtrlHD and ESiR are the two most competent p2p release groups and I've only had to re-download one movie in all my time at HDBits. I'm talking about the latest Bourne movie where CtrlHD (or was it ESiR?) fucked up the non-English/Russian subtitles which should have been hard-coded or included at least.

ammendmend #1: you don't need an account at HDBits necessarily. Try hd-bits.ro and search for those groups, I know of at least a couple of CtrlHD and ESiR movies over there and some of them are free leech. If you have some Usenet access try the same search too, you'll wonder how much stuff is available there The latest I just downloaded is the complete bluray rip of the 3rd Lost season in 720p (~53GB in 23 episodes, minus par files).

ammendmend #2: GoldStoNe, I obviously didn't read your username careful enough or I might have noticed the difference myself You're right about the hail to all hd-masters though, most of my current traffic is for highdef content!

thanks for the informative writeup mate ^^ i'm currently using hd-bits.ro and scenehd as my main sources of HD content for now, and i'm beating myself up for not discovering HD earlier. i have literally hundreds of dvdrips and am now starting the painful process of redownloading bit by bit.

may i ask what does proper mean? sorry if it's a noob question

from what you say, these better rips from nonscene groups are accompanied by a significant increase in size, which is of course understandable and not that much of a problem for me, but is size a good gauge of the quality of the rip? it's certainly not indicative for dvds but i'm still relatively new with HD.

also, if you burn these HD movies onto DVD as data DVDs, you would need a HDDVD or bluray player to play it right? (also another seemingly redundant question but i recently burnt a HD movie onto dvd and it played on my dvd player except the quality was pretty bad)

and here's thanks to all who've contributed to the thread =]

[dunson]

I seem to want SEPTIC releases the most.

[athenaesword]

I seem to want SEPTIC releases the most.

really? someone said they're really poor

[Daniel]

may i ask what does proper mean? sorry if it's a noob question

Proper is a term from the scene and it means that someone released a better/working version of it. It can mean that the previous release had for example an invalid serial number or a crack that wasn't working or it means an error was made in the process of encoding music, movies or tv.

from what you say, these better rips from nonscene groups are accompanied by a significant increase in size, which is of course understandable and not that much of a problem for me, but is size a good gauge of the quality of the rip? it's certainly not indicative for dvds but i'm still relatively new with HD.

Size is no good indicator on its own but it's an important part in the calculation. What's basically important is the bandwidth available for the video and with fixed size limits, the scene releases have to take some hits here. Some animated movies can produce amazing results with relatively small sizes of 2-3GB in 720p so there are always exceptions. My personal "rule" is that 720p content below 4000kbps is not enough to satisfy me and I've seen plenty of CTU/NBS tv-rips to confirm that.

also, if you burn these HD movies onto DVD as data DVDs, you would need a HDDVD or bluray player to play it right? (also another seemingly redundant question but i recently burnt a HD movie onto dvd and it played on my dvd player except the quality was pretty bad)

It's not that easy, unfortunately. There aren't really any hardware players to support mkv files on a dvd, so you will need to find other methods of watching this stuff on your tv. When you burned the hd movie on a dvd, you most likely did a downconvert to the respective pal/ntsc resolution and reencoded the movie in the proper mpeg stream. That's a sure way of wasting quality.
There are quite a few ways out there to properly watch highdef content on your hdtv and none of that include burning on any medium (yet) and using a hardware solution for playback. Okay, that's not quite true, because there are ways to do this, take the xbox or playstation 3 for example, generally streaming is the best way to go for the moment. Other hardware players capable of mkv-hd-content are slowly starting out (see the Popcornhour Networked Media Tank for an example) but they are not perfect yet.

edit: about SEPTiC .. they have a horrible reputation among hd enthusiasts and if you compare some screens between theirs and non-scene rips you'll see the difference. Any hd movie will be better to watch than the dvd-rip in comparison but why settle for a 'cheap scene rip' if there are better alternatives out there? I don't see any reason to bitch about scene groups because they also deserve their respect for what they do - but truly, the only reason to download a scene-hd-rip is to watch it a couple of days earlier, before CtrlHD/ESiR or someone else does an encode. Because of my Usenet access I am downloading scene releases and they're fine to watch most of the time, whenever I want to 'archive' a movie though I try for a better alternative.

[bloody yonut23]

SEPTIC releases are the best in my opinion!!