In the hunt for old TV show episodes, I have finally entered the world of torrents. I installed Opera and was able to download a TV show episode. Now for the dumb question - it downloaded a set of files of the form "showname.episode.hdtv.xvid-fqm. It seems to be some compressed format like RAR. What do I do to these files to make them a playable video. Thanks for answering my dumb question.
New to the world of torrents - dumb question
- Thread starter Homo Erectus
- Start date
Try a less complicated program with a small footprint, it extracts rar as well
http://www.extractnow.com/
http://www.extractnow.com/
You should be careful though. Since video (, and audio, and images) is usually already heavily compressed putting it in a RAR is often done to conceal a virus.
Whenever I'm DL'ing large files (or a bunch of smaller ones) I'll DL everything to one folder and before I open any file in that folder I'll scan the folder with my anti virus just to make sure that the files are "clean".
TRUE: If you get a RAR that unrars to give you executable files or ".inf" files and so on DELETE DELETE DELETE.
Having said that, it's only happened to me 1 or 2 times
On many trackers for a while it was standard policy to do something like this to help people manage their ratios
1. split up a show into 30 or 40 rar files
2. have people download 10 or 20 parts and seed until their ratio came up
3. get 10 or 20 more parts
4. seed
and so on.
This is why you come across torrents now that are one huge rar file, but when you get it, it's 100 or 200 smaller rar files.
Just make sure all the files are there otherwise it won't work. Usually there will be a text file attached, it won't end in .txt format (usually ending with ".nfo") but just open the basic text program in windows drag the file
from the RAR window into your text program and you'll have all the info you need regarding that particular torrent.
from the RAR window into your text program and you'll have all the info you need regarding that particular torrent.
Another option is to use a program called Sandbox or something similar to it. Comodo firewall has one built into its firewall and it's free (and does the job). The real good one is Sandboxie I believe, but it's not free. It basically runs anything you open in a safe environment on your computer without writing anything into your system.
www.sandboxie.com
You can do this, but you have to extract the compressed files first in order for the anti-virus software to detect hidden viruses. Otherwise, you are waisting your time. Oh, and becareful of programs that automatically begin installation when extracting them.
Here's where Linux comes to the rescue
Just got a rare A.C. Jobim album 'Terra Brazilis' from 1980 as a RAR file. The 20 tunes in that album were in a rar folder after DL. All that was needed was to click to open that rar folder, click on extract and unrar auto extracted and opened all them files in seconds.
It's a nice album and am enjoying it right now.....
Just got a rare A.C. Jobim album 'Terra Brazilis' from 1980 as a RAR file. The 20 tunes in that album were in a rar folder after DL. All that was needed was to click to open that rar folder, click on extract and unrar auto extracted and opened all them files in seconds.
It's a nice album and am enjoying it right now.....
nothing new or exciting there. i do the same thing in windows. use reputable sources and you don't worry about malicious things hidden in your rar files. i haven't had a virus since i used Win 95Just got a rare A.C. Jobim album 'Terra Brazilis' from 1980 as a RAR file. The 20 tunes in that album were in a rar folder after DL. All that was needed was to click to open that rar folder, click on extract and unrar auto extracted and opened all them files in seconds.
It's a nice album and am enjoying it right now.....
here is a nice collection of A.C Joblim in Flac format http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5621750/Antonio_Carlos_Jobim_-_Collection_(1959-2006)
Same here. Never got any virus attached to music files and I must have over 10,000.
That's a big FLAC file....lol.
Just watched that classic flick: (1959) Black Orpheus sunday night on TCM.
It hasn't been on in ages.....
01 - Generique
02 - A Felicidade
03 - Frevo
04 - O Nosso Amor
05 - O Nosso Amor 2
06 - Manha de Carnaval (Morning of the Carnival)
07 - Scene du Lever du Soleil
08 - Manha de Carnaval (Morning of the Carnival) 2
09 - Scenes de la Macumbe
10 - O Nosso Amor 3
11 - Manha de Carnaval (Morning of the Carnival) 3
12 - Samba de Orfeu
13 - Batterie de Cappela
14 - Bola Sete Medley: Manha de Carnaval
yes same for me, never a virus with a music or video file. you only need to be careful when it's something with an executable file.
Flac is uncompressed format so it's what the purists prefer, so yea the files are larger. but you can pick and choose no need to take it all
Actually FLAC is compressed ~50% but still viewed as superior to an mp3 file.
WAV is uncompressed.
From Wiki:
FWIW I've played around with FLAC files and can't tell them apart from a 320 bitrate mp3.
The thing with FLAC (and PNG for images) is that they're compressed, but not lossy. MP3 (and JPG for images) achieve much better compression by selectively modifying that source material. Most video does the same for both the audio and video tracks. If you'r an audiofile, real keen on photos, or need 100% blue ray quality, non-lossy formats are the only way to go. For the rest of us, it's just a question of how much quality you're willing to sacrifice. Storage is cheap, so it's always better to err on the side of (much) better quality, if not perfect quality-- I just had to re-download a whole series that looked fine on my monitor but looked like crap on a big Hi-Def TV. The resolution wasn't that different, but the size difference really showed off the compression artifacts (which are a sign of lossy compression).
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossy_compression
A good rule of thumb for compressed video is: 350 MB for 45 minutes (An hour show sans the commercials) on a small, low res, or CRT screen, 550 MB for 45 minutes for a big screen. Even bigger if you truly need excellent quality on a big screen.
