Check The Quality Of Pirate Media With The All New VCDQ

Written by enigmax
From: http://torrentfreak.com/

There are many thousands of videos on the Internet and while it’s possible to just go blindly to any one of dozens of torrent sites and search for movies or TV shows, there is no guarantee that the quality will be good. For the last decade that information has been available from VCDQuality.com and shortly the site will be relaunching with a new owner, a full makeover and fresh support for BitTorrent users.

Most readers will be familiar with The Scene, the ‘place’ where most pirate movies, music, TV shows, software and games first hit cyberspace. Although members of this intensively private community would prefer to maintain their privacy, it is from their servers that media leaks out to the wider Internet community. According to the MPAA, The Scene sits at the top of the “Piracy Pyramid”.

Although The Scene has its own unique set of quality-control standards, this doesn’t necessarily mean that their output is always of a high quality. Although the most serious offenders will be ‘nuked’ (Scene talk for “something is wrong, don’t bother with this release”) in the case of movies, for example, Scene rules allow CAM releases which may be virtually unwatchable.

Furthermore, a release receiving a ‘nuke’ doesn’t necessarily mean that its unwatchable, it might just mean that it has breached any one of The Scene’s often bewildering and sometimes downright archaic in-house rules.

Of course, none of this would matter to ‘outsiders’ if Scene releases stayed locked away as intended for the use of the few, but they don’t. So wouldn’t it be great if there was a central source, a database of releases where the average Internet user could go for information on what’s hot and what’s not in the world of piracy?

Some might be surprised to learn that VCDQuality.com has been providing such a service for almost a decade. Founded in 2001, VCDQ quickly became the best place for the average non-Scener to find out quickly if a new movie had hit the Internet yet and in what quality. If it had, it would appear pretty quickly at the top of the list on the main page.

Along with the name of the release, the format of the source is indicated – DVDRIP, CAM, DVD Screener, R5 (Region 5) for example. This information is supported by links to screenshots of the release in question, its NFO (a small descriptive text file distributed by the Scene group responsible), the name of the release group and a link to the movie on IMDb.

Perhaps the most useful link moves off to the comment section. Here those that have actually downloaded and watched a particular release discuss what they have seen, specifically whether the video and sound of the release are up to scratch and worth the effort of finding and downloading.

Unfortunately, due to the site’s policy of shunning most advertising, it has lacked investment in recent times. A hard drive disaster last year caused quite a lot of pain and 8 weeks ago their server died altogether. It was time for a new beginning.

With the assistance of a new owner, behind the scenes the site has been receiving its first proper update in a decade. If all is going to plan, as you read this article or in the coming hours the new VCDQ will be launching with a fresh new look and a host of new features.

Along with a rock-solid server and hosting, the site will be expanding its databases. While traditionally VCDQ has reported only on Scene releases, with the rise of BitTorrent release groups, P2P releases will be reported on too

“We’ve decided to add P2P sources due to the rise of Torrent sites in recent years,” Admin Neversoft told TorrentFreak. “While the scene still produces more releases and better quality we cannot ignore the fact that your average Torrent user doesn’t care about group affiliations or rules, they just want the best quality available.”

Scene purists (and there are a lot of those reading and resident at VCDQ) will be pleased to learn that P2P releases can be filtered out from the site, but the rise of P2P and BitTorrent in particular as a force to be reckoned with can’t be denied.

“By ignoring P2P we would be ignoring a large percentage of what people are downloading out there,” Neversoft explains. “This was a difficult decision for us, we’ve always shunned the P2P scene and to a certain extent derided it but as they say… ‘If you can’t beat em, join ‘em’ and we think we can provide the same excellent service for P2P releases as well. Having said that, it will be select releases – we’re not about to become a dumping ground for every reencode out there.”

In addition the site will add movie/TV HD formats, PC, Xbox360 and Wii sections and will improve its databases with information from multiple sources. Importantly, the site will update quicker to provide news on the latest releases, faster.

That news will be delivered in a number of ways. From the nicely presented release pages, fully customizable RSS feeds, Twitter updates, improved forum and staff blogs, the new VCDQ already looks very promising indeed. Neversoft told TorrentFreak that there’s even more to come.

“In time we’ll be improving the rating/review system as well and we’re still tweaking and will be for some time but we’re going live because the site already seriously out-performs the old VCDQ so it seems silly to just keep tweaking in beta when we already have something better’ that we can deploy now,” he explains.

Moving forward, Neversoft hopes that VCDQuality can become the iMDB of the warez scene while also providing useful services to BitTorrent and Usenet sites. While user comments on torrent sites are useful for determining if a torrent is ‘fake’ or not, often the quality of the release is a neglected topic of conversation, a gap that Neversoft feels VCDQ can fill.

“What’s the point of Torrent and NZB sites having the odd comment on releases on their site when they can link to a whole smorgasbord of comments, reviews and screenshots free of charge?”

Continuing on the P2P/BitTorrent theme, VCDQ will also allow users to submit P2P release information. So, if anyone believes the site has missed an important P2P release, all they have to do is collate the NFO along with samples if they have them and submit them to the moderation team for consideration.

All in all, this is a very welcome update to a much-valued resource. Furthermore, unlike other sources that have tried to replicate the VCDQuality experience but with tacked on download links, VCDQ remains entirely legal and as such can look forward to a stable and promising future.

The new site (blue theme, as opposed to the old red) should be available within a couple of hours at the usual URL.

How to Download Embedded Flash Files using your Browser

By Saikat Basu

Today, Flash is everywhere. Animations, music, games, advertisements or even streaming presentations. Speaking of games, here’s a list of site with the best flash games.

The use of Flash plug-ins in browsers is now almost obligatory. Yes, it’s easy to view and enjoy the rich media content delivered by interactive Flash embedded pages. But what if I want to download some of these files as keepsakes? The greatest benefit – I can watch them offline in my own jolly time. Convert them to a format of my choice. Or embed them again in a PowerPoint presentation. Or even transfer them to my mobile phone.

Flash animation files are embedded as SWF (Small Web Format) files in webpages. Rather than depending on any software or a third-party website, downloading Flash content is dead simple. The only tool required is a browser and a bit of patience to do the rummaging around.

Just one note: As we will be heading into the internet cache folders of the respective browsers, it pays to clear it of all old files before navigating to the desired page. It makes the Flash file search a lot easier.

So, here’s how to do it in three of our popular browsers.

Download SWF files using Firefox

1. Fire up Firefox and browse to the page which contains the embedded SWF Flash file that you are eyeing to download. Let the SWF file stream through once completely.
2. On any empty part of the page, right-click and select the Page Info context menu option. Or alternatively, go to Tools – Page Info.

   

3. Select the Media tab. The Media tab lists all image formats, icons, style sheets and flash files that were rendered by the webpage.

   

4. Look amongst the items to find the particular file with the SWF extension. The type column will show up with an Embed filetype. Highlight the file and click Save as to save the file on your hard drive.

Download SWF files using Internet Explorer

In IE8, we have to head to the Temporary Internet Files folder which stores all rendered files during a browsing session. (It can be directly accessed from here in Windows XP - C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files.)

1. Go to the IE Menu bar. Click on Tools – Internet Options.
2. On the General tab, click on Settings under Browsing History.
3. The Temporary Internet Files and Browsing History box opens up.

   

4. Click on View Files. You will get all the rendered webpage elements in this folder.
5. To rummage about effectively amidst the mass of files, choose View – Arrange by Type from the menu. Also go to Tools – Folder Options, and uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types option.
6. Seek out your SWF files, copy and then paste it to your preferred location.

   

Download SWF files using Opera

In Opera, downloaded SWF files can be accessed in two simple ways –

• Type opera:cache in the address bar.
• Go to Tools – Advanced – Cache from the toolbar.

Either way, a huge list of downloaded page elements opens up with their URLs. Search for a file with the .swf extension. Alternatively, you could search (Ctrl+F ) and hunt it down, with swf as the search query.

Right-click on the particular file and choose either Saved Linked Content As or Save to Download Folder to save the SWF file on the hard disk.

After downloading the SWF file, one can use the Adobe Flash Player to view the Flash file or a supported media player like Media Player Classic. Or, an easier way would be to just open it in a browser by right-clicking it and selecting the browser of choice.

These are the ways we can use to single out the Flash files from a webpage. In my experience, I personally have been more comfortable with Firefox than the other two. I am still searching a way perform this in Chrome but it is proving impossible without third-party support. Numerous third-party tools can do the same job better by converting it to a format of your choice. But it always pays to know that you can fall back on a browser alone.

Aibek had the same idea about offline Flash files when he covered How To Download and Play Flash Games Offline in a previous post. That post extends the possibilities of the fun we can have with Flash files.

What about you? Do you let it play on the webpage or do you dig under and take a Flash file offline?

UBitMenu Brings the Microsoft Office 2003 Menu Back to Office 2007

By Adam Pash

Windows only: We love Office 2007's ribbon for its impressive keyboard shortcut integration, but for those of you who miss the Microsoft Office 2003 menu that's entrenched in your muscle memory, UBitMenu can help.

This plug-in adds a new Menu entry to the Office 2007 ribbon (specifically in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). When clicked, your ribbon displays the classic Office 2003 menu, complete with the buttons and file menus you're used to from your old Office 2003 install. As Samer from FreewareGenius points out, not every single bit of functionality remains in the UBitMenu toolbar as is available in Office 2003—due mostly to changes in Office—but most of the features you're used to remain in all their glory.

Even if you're keen on the Office 2007 ribbon, UBitMenu is a nice tool to ease the transition from 2003 to 2007 while you're polishing your new Office mojo. UBitMenu is a free download for non-commercial use.

UbitMenu [via FreewareGenius]