vcdupper | 157 points | Aug 31 2017 13:58:42

[META] Release Tags & Their Meanings

About releases:
Tags:

The tag is the name of the release. These often already give you a lot of information about the release. More detailed information is written in the nfo file. Often these tags contain a lot of words and definitions which you may not understand. Below you can find what certain words in the tags mean.

First possible sources for movies / dvd's. They are ordered according to which is released first:
CAM (Camera):
A cam is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. A mini tripod is sometimes used, but a lot of the time this wont be possible, so the camera make shake. Also seating placement isn't always idle, and it might be filmed from an angle. If cropped properly, this is hard to tell unless there's text on the screen, but a lot of times these are left with triangular borders on the top and bottom of the screen. Sound is taken from the onboard microphone of the camera, and especially in comedies, laughter can often be heard during the film. Due to these factors picture and sound quality are usually quite poor, but sometimes we're lucky, and the theater will be fairly empty and a fairly clear signal will be heard.

TS (Telesync):
A telesync is the same spec as a CAM except it uses an external audio source (most likely an audio jack in the chair for hard of hearing people). A direct audio source does not ensure a good quality audio source, as a lot of background noise can interfere. A lot of the times a telesync is filmed in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, giving a better picture quality. Quality ranges drastically, check the sample before downloading the full release. A high percentage of Telesyncs are CAMs that have been mislabeled.

HD-TS: Same as TS but with the use of an HD CAM.

TC (Telecine):
A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and picture should be very good, but due to the equipment involved and cost telecines are fairly uncommon. Generally the film will be in correct aspect ratio, although 4:3 telecines have existed. TC should not be confused with TimeCode , which is a visible counter on screen throughout the film. Click here to read more about telecine.

SCR (Screener):
A pre VHS tape, sent to rental stores, and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a VHS tape, and is usually in a 4:3 (full screen) a/r, although letterboxed screeners are sometimes found. The main draw back is a "ticker" (a message that scrolls past at the bottom of the screen, with the copyright and anti-copy telephone number). Also, if the tape contains any serial numbers, or any other markings that could lead to the source of the tape, these will have to be blocked, usually with a black mark over the section. This is sometimes only for a few seconds, but unfortunately on some copies this will last for the entire film, and some can be quite big. Depending on the equipment used, screener quality can range from excellent if done from a MASTER copy, to very poor if done on an old VHS recorder thru poor capture equipment on a copied tape. Most screeners are transferred to VCD, but a few attempts at SVCD have occurred, some looking better than others.

DVDSCR (DVD Screener):
Same premise as a screener, but transferred off a DVD. Usually letterbox , but without the extras that a DVD retail would contain. The ticker is not usually in the black bars, and will disrupt the viewing. If the ripper has any skill, a DVDscr should be very good. Usually transferred to SVCD or DivX/XviD.

WP (Workprint):
A workprint is a copy of the film that has not been finished. It can be missing scenes, music, and quality can range from excellent to very poor. Some WPs are very different from the final print (Men In Black is missing all the aliens, and has actors in their places) and others can contain extra scenes (Jay and Silent Bob) . WPs can be nice additions to the collection once a good quality final has been obtained.

Retail DVD:
DVD's which are available in shops.

PAL / NTSC:
PAL and NTSC are two different video standards, the former being European, and the latter being American. PAL has a slightly taller screen (256 lines non-interlaced, non-overscanned) as opposed to NTSC (200 lines), so if you see the bottom portion of a program's screen getting cut off on your American machine, chances are the program was written for PAL, and is running on your shorter NTSC screen. PAL and NTSC differences are somewhat less important to European users; since their machines default to PAL, running an NTSC program is no more than a minor annoyance having the screen only appear in the top portion of the display.

Other important tags for movies / dvd's:

COMPLETE:
A release is COMPLETE when it's a DVD5, so it didn't need any adjustments and therefore is untouched.
Most dvd's though are DVD9, so they need to be compressed to DVD5. DVD5 is much more wanted since all dvd player can read these dvd's, and almost every dvd burner can burn them. DVD9 discs are less popular, they are more expensive and not many people can burn a DVD9. When a release is DVD9 and not compressed, DVD9 is added to the release title. When it's a DVD9 and it's compressed nothing is added to the release title.

LiMiTED:
A movie is LiMiTED when it has a limited theater run. Generally smaller films (such as art house films) are released as limited. The scene considers a movie limited when it has a generally opening in less than 300 UK theaters, or in less than 500 USA theaters. In the scene jargon, it's ussually called 300 UK screens, or 500 USA screens. Officially, it's not the opening weekend's number of theaters that counts, but the peak of the number of theaters. For example; when a movie has 275 UK screens in the opening weekend, and 1 week later it has 325 screens, it's not limited.

iNTERNAL:
An internal release is done for several reasons. The most common reason is because it has already been release before, and with iNTERNAL in title, the release won't be nuked. I happens quite often with DVD's. Also lower quality theater rips are done iNTERNAL so not to lower the reputation of the group. An iNTERNAL release is available as normal on the groups affiliate sites, but they can't be traded to other sites without request from the site ops. Although some releases are iNTERNAL, they still can be very popular. Apart from DVD's also other types of warez are done internal. For mp3's the tag is different concerning internal. For mp3 releases it's releasetitle-year-Group_iNT. That way the internal release won't be calculated into the group's stats. This avoids mp3 groups from doing a lot of internal releases, since they would just do that to get better stats. Some groups rename iNTERNAL to iNT, since this much shorter.

Subbed:
In the case of a VCD, if a release is subbed, it usually means it has hard encoded subtitles burnt throughout the movie. These are generally in malaysian/chinese/thai etc, and sometimes there are two different languages, which can take up quite a large amount of the screen. SVCD supports switch able subtitles, so some DVDRips are released with switch able subs. This will be mentioned in the NFO file if included.

Unsubbed:
When a movie has been release subbed before, an unsubbed release may be released.

Custom.Subbed:
A release can also be custom subbed. Movies often are released earlier in the USA then they are released in Europe. These movies mostly contain a few subtitles, the ones that are spoken in the USA. European groups can create custom subtitles and add these to the dvd. For example, when Dutch subtitles were added to a NTSC DVDr: Madagascar.2005.Custom.NL.Subbed.NTSC.DVDr-Group. Offcourse, it's not just European, also Japaneese movies can be subbed english for example.

Dubbed:
If a film is dubbed, it is a special version where the actors' voices are in another language. Dubbed versions of English-language films are for people who don't understand English.

STV:
STV stands for Straight To Video. These movies were never released in theaters, but they were immediately released on video/dvd. Therefore, a lot of sites do not allow these movies.

SE:
SE stands for Special Edition. Like the name says, it's a special dvd edition of a movie. Often special editions contain extra material like trailers, interviews, making-of.

DC:
DC stands for Director's Cut. A director's cut is a specially edited version of a movie that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit of the movie. It is often released some time after the original release of the film, where the original release was released in a version different from the director's approved edit. 'Cut' is synonymous with 'edit' in this context.

DL:
DL stands for Dual-Language, meaning the dvd contains more than one audio language. Synonym: ML.

FS / WS (Aspect Ratio Tags): These are FS for FullScreen and WS for WideScreen (letterbox).

Language Codes:
The language of the movie and the language of the subtitles can also be mentioned in the release name. Sometimes the language is fully mentioned in the release name, such as DUTCH, NORDiC, GERMAN and iTALiAN. Sometimes it's shortened, then the ISO standard country abbreviations are used, those are the same which are used for www-domains, for example: NL (Dutch), NO (Nordic), DE (Germany), IT (Italian). For the full list of country abbreviations, click here. When there are multiple languages or subtitles, MULTi or MULTiSUBS is mentioned.

Extended:
Sometimes movies are released again on DVD because now the movie is extended. They have put back deleted scenes. For example, E.T. was produced first in 1982 and years later it was brought on DVD again, but now digitally remastered and extended.

Digitally Remastered:
Digitally remastered means that an older not-digital movie has been re-editted, remastered and is released on DVD. Some really old movies look very bad compared to the new digital movies. Then they remaster it to make it look better, edit it, recolor it etcetera. Remastering generally implies some sort of upgrade to a previous existing product, frequently designed to encourage people to buy a new version of something they already own.

Rated/Unrated:
Rated means a movie is censored, unrated logically means uncensored.

Recode:
A recode is a previously released version, usually filtered through TMPGenc to remove subtitles, fix color etc. Whilst they can look better, its not looked upon highly as groups are expected to obtain their own sources.

R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6 (Region Code):
A DVD gets released in a certain geographical area, or region. This was designed to stop people buying American DVDs and watching them earlier in other countries, or for older films where world distribution is handled by different companies. A lot of players can either be hacked with a chip, or via a remote to disable this. The regions are:
Region 1 - U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
Region 2 - Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
Region 3 - Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
Region 5 - Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
Region 6 - Peoples Republic of China

More general important tags:

PROPER:
Due to scene rules, whoever releases a certain release the first, has won that race. For example, when a group releases the CAM version of Titanic the first. If there is something "wrong" with the release (poor quality, out-of-sync, audio errors etc.) and another group has a better/correct version, it can release it and add PROPER to the release title to avoid being nuked. However, the source must be the same as the original release. For example: A poor quality CAM release by group A and group B releases their CAM release PROPER. A Telesync release doesn't PROPER a CAM release, because the source is different. PROPER is the most subjective tag in the scene, and a lot of people will generally argue whether the PROPER is better than the original release. The reason for the PROPER should always be included in the NFO.

Repack:
If a group releases a bad rip, they will release a Repack which will fix the problems. It's similar to PROPER but then done by the same group.

Rerip:
A previous rip was bad, now it's ripped again properly.

READNFO:
When something important is mentioned in the NFO or as a replacement for PROPER, READNFO can be added into the tag directory.

Important tags for mp3 releases:

TV: Audio from television material
Radio: Audio from radio material
WEB: Audio downloaded from an online music store
VLS: Vinyl Single (1-2 tracks)
EP: Vinyl Maxi-single (2-5 tracks)
LP: Vinyl Full-length Album
CDS: CD Single (1-2 tracks)
CDM: CD Maxi-single (2-5 tracks)
CDR: CD-Recordable (CD-R)
DVD: Audio from a DVD. Often cabaret shows or concert/music dvd's.
DVDA: Audio tracks which come on a DVD as a bonus. The DVDA part can't be played by normal DVD players.
MD: Audio from a MiniDisk
TAPE: Music from a tape
Promo: Promotional
XX: Imported
RETAiL: Retail
Liveset: A record of a DJ mixing live. Mostly recorded using:
- DAB: Digital Audio Broadcasting is a system used to broadcast radio programmes.
- SAT: Music broadcasted via satellite channels.
- CABLE: Music broadcasted by radio channels via cable radio.
Bootleg: Illegally recorded and pressed record. Often live recordings, sometimes studio out-takes. The name comes from people who hid a microphone in their boots!

Labelcode/Catnumber:
This is a code which is like a unique code for every music cd/vinyl/etc. The code isn't just some number, but it contains values which are recognisable. For example: Catnumber: WNRD2371 is a cd from WieNerwoRlD Ltd.

Clean: The music is censored. Generally sexual or violent words, which are replaced by 'bleeps' or stripped.
Explicit: The music is not censored.

Now some tags just for movies/tv rips:

Sources:
DVDrip: A copy of the final released DVD. If possible this is released PRE retail (for example, Star Wars episode 2) again, should be excellent quality. DVDrips are released in SVCD and DivX/XviD.
VHSRip: Transferred off a retail VHS, mainly skating/sports videos and XXX releases.
TVRip: TV episode that is either from Network (capped using digital cable/satellite boxes are preferable) or PRE-AIR from satellite feeds sending the program around to networks a few days earlier (do not contain "dogs" but sometimes have flickers etc). PDTV is capped from a digital TV PCI card, generally giving the best results, and groups tend to release in SVCD for these. VCD/SVCD/DivX/XviD rips are all supported by the TV scene.

Formats:
VCD (VideoCD):
VCD is a mpeg1 based format, with a constant bitrate of 1150kbit at a resolution of 352x240 (NTSC). VCDs are generally used for lower quality transfers (CAM/TS/TC/Screener(VHS)/TVrip(analogue) in order to make smaller file sizes, and fit as much on a single disc as possible. Both VCDs and SVCDs are timed in minutes, rather than MB, so when looking at an mpeg, it may appear larger than the disc capacity, and in reality u can fit 74min on a CDR74.

SCVD (SuperVideoCD):
SVCD is a mpeg2 based (same as DVD) video format which allows variable bit-rates of up to 2500kbits at a resolution of 480x480 (NTSC) which is then decompressed into a 4:3 aspect ratio when played back. Due to the variable bit-rate, the length you can fit on a single CDR is not fixed, but generally between 35-60 Mins are the most common. To get a better SVCD encode using variable bit-rates, it is important to use multiple "passes". this takes a lot longer, but the results are far clearer.

XVCD/XSVCD:
These are basically VCD/SVCD that don't obey the "rules". They are both capable of much higher resolutions and bit-rates, but it all depends on the player to whether the disc can be played. X(S)VCD are total non-standards, and are usually for home-ripping by people who don't intend to release them.

XViD/DivX (Digital Video Express):
DivX is a format designed for multimedia platforms. It uses two codecs, one low motion, one high motion. most older films were encoded in low motion only, and they have problems with high motion too. A method known as SBC (Smart Bit-rate Control) was developed which switches codecs at the encoding stage, making a much better print. The format is Ana orphic and the bit-rate/resolution are interchangeable. Due to the higher processing power required, and the different codecs for playback, its unlikely we'll see a DVD player capable of play DivX for quite a while, if at all. There have been players in development which are supposedly capable, but nothing has ever arisen. The majority of PROPER DivX rips (not Re-Encs) are taken from DVDs, and generally up to 2hours in good quality is possible per disc. Various codecs exist, most popular being the original Divx3.11a and the new XviD codecs.

CVD:
CVD is a combination of VCD and SVCD formats, and is generally supported by a majority of DVD players. It supports MPEG2 bit-rates of SVCD, but uses a resolution of 352x480(ntsc) as the horizontal resolution is generally less important. Currently no groups release in CVD.

Additional source info for TV Rips:

HDTV (High Definition Televison):
Digital recording from a source stream at either 1080i or 720p at a bitrate from 19,39mbps or higher.

PDTV (Pure Digital Television):
Other resolution digital recordings from source streams at a bitrate of 10+mbps or higher. It is a label given to files that were ripped directly from a purely digital source, having less resolution than HDTV. This is accomplished by using a TV tuner card capable of receiving Digital Video Broadcasts or C-Band.

SDTV (Standard Digital Television):
Digital recording or capture from a source stream at any resolution with bitrate under 10mbps.This includes DirecTiVo but also captures from digisat or digicable with analog capture cards.

TVRip (Analoge TV Rip):
Recorded from analog TV, lowest quality of all TV rips.
More TV info:

Season/Episode code:
A code which shows the season and episode of a tv show.
For example: S01E12 is season 1 episode number 12.

DSR (Digital Stream Rip):
Digital stream rip is a rip that is captured from a digital source stream, such as a HDTV or DVB transmission.

DVB (Digital Video Broadcast):
The standard for direct broadcast television in Europe and the US Based on MPEG2 Compression.

DSR (Digital Satellite Rip):
Recorded from Digital Satellite, quality is similar to PDTV.

PPV (Pay Per View television):
Pay television programming for which viewers pay a separate fee for each program ordered.

WEB-DL - Direct download of a file

WEBRip - Screen capture

REMUX - untouched video from bluray

Remastered - 4k scan remastered

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