Alt.Binaries.Multimedia Usage Guidelines and FAQ
Document Revision 0.2f
NOTE: I am preparing to finally update this page after a VERY long hiatus. Within a week, there should finally be some new content.
Section 1 - Purpose of this Document
Section 2 - Basic Information on File Formats
Section 3 - Video Hardware
Section 4 - Video Capture
Section 5 - Video Editing
Section 6 - Video Compression and Codecs
Section 7 - Posting Techniques
Section 8 - Reposting Guidelines
Section 9 - Repost Request Guidelines
Section 10 - Dealing with RAR
Section 11 - Frequently Asked Questions
Section 12 - Conclusion
Section 1 - Purpose of this Document
This text is meant to provide you with information that may improve your experience with alt.binaries.multimedia. It is by no means "the law", but by following these guidelines, you will be contributing to the overall health of the group.
If you are considering creating your own videos, or just want to know how it is done, this document should prove quite educational as well. If after reading this document, you should have any additional questions, by all means post your question to the discussion group, alt.binaries.multimedia.d
Section 2 - Basic Information on File Formats
Most of the material in the group is posted by those who digitized it. There really is no standard format for video files, and you are likely to encounter many different file types in your travails. Here are some of them, and what you will need in order to view them:
All of these formats have their strengths and weaknesses. Most of them offer cross-platform compatibility. Some do not. Your operating system may not be able to play all the files described above.
Section 3 - Video Hardware
Since the focus of this document is multimedia, this will cover hardware capable of capturing video sequences on your computer.
This topic is covered in great detail in the group rec.video.desktop, and that group is certainly worth your time before investing in ANY video capture equipment. This section will cover general details only. Most new video capture products perform quite well, and for hobbyist level work they are more than adequate. You can spend anywhere from $100 to $200 USD for hardware capable of performing at this level. Ideally, the product you choose will be able to capture frames that are 320 by 240 pixels in size, at 30 frames per second.
Consider also that the performance of any video capture device is heavily dependant on the capabilities of the computer you are using. Faster is better. A good amount of contiguous (defragmented) free hard drive space helps as well.
Section 4 - Video Capture
Provided you have your capture equipment set up properly, here are some tips to help improve your captures. This is the most critical part of the process, and it is certainly deserving of consideration. The less your machine is doing at the time of capture the better. Ideally, it would be the only process running on your machine at the time.
Defragmenting the hard drive to which you are going to capture the video is a very good idea. If while capturing video, it becomes necessary to fragment the stream, there will be a slight pause as the drive's FAT table is accessed in search of the next block of space. This pause could cause problems such as dropped frames or out-of-sync audio. Your video capture software will not need to fragment the stream when writing to a drive that has one large area of contiguous free space.
Choose your capture settings wisely. You cannot fix a mistake made here with editing software later. With audio, choose as generous a sampling rate as you can afford. 22 kHz/16-bit is fine for most video, but if it is music intensive and/or you have a high quality source, consider 44Khz/16-bit. Only choose stereo if the source is in stereo, and you want to make a stereo recording. Choosing stereo doubles the required hard drive space to store the captured audio. Your video capture equipment likely has the ability to capture in different sizes. 240x180, 320x240, NTSC, PAL, among others. Here you should select the frame size you want to use for the final product. Changing frame size during further processing is not recommended. Frame rate is also something you can probably select as well. It is desirable to match the frame rate of the source material. American television is broadcast at 30 frames per second. This is also the speed at which a VCR or camcorder will play back video. In Europe, PAL is the standard used, and it is 25 frames per second. You can capture at a lower frame rate than the source material, and in doing so you will require less hard drive space to store the captured video. Be aware that too low a frame rate will make the resulting video look choppy. Capturing at a higher frame rate than the source serves no benefit.
Experiment with frame rate until you get the desired result. In the end, the closer you are to the source rate, the better, but you may have other factors that influence your choice. As an example, your computer may not be able to keep up with the capture process, and you will drop frames as a result. Dropped frames will cause a significant degradation in quality.
Apply as little compression at capture as possible. Unless you have no plans to do any other processing to the video clip, you will want to defer compression until the very last step. This is also a subject on which you may want to consult your capture device's documentation. Just as with frame rate, this will entail some trial and error. You will want to use the lightest compression your computer can handle. Your hardware may have the ability to capture direct to MPEG or M-JPEG. These will also work well, provided you intend to make MPEG video, and have editing software that can work with the resulting file. Chances are there was something in the box with your capture card that should work.
Section 5 - Video Editing
This will be rather brief. If the video editing software you are using has the capability to produce the final product completely on its own, then these notes do not apply to you. If you are going to use a separate program to compress/convert the edited video into the final product, when editing try and use the same codec (see section on Codecs) you used when capturing the video. This will reduce as much as possible any recompression of the video during the editing process. This is important.
Section 6 - Video Compression and Codecs
CODEC is an acronym for COder/DECoder, and applies to the algorithms that enCOde the
video to the video file, and DECode it for playback.
Many formats mentioned in the introduction use a subset of codecs. If you intend to share
your work with the group, you should pay careful attention to your selection. If the CODEC
you use is something unique to your capture card (as in ATI's VCR2 format) not everyone
will have the ability to play back those clips. In many cases, the format alone will limit
the scope of your potential audience. As an example, if I encoded an AVI with a PC only
codec, the audience is now limited to Windows machines. By far the most compatible format
to use is MPEG.
With the Vivo and RealMedia formats, newer versions of the encoder engine will produce clips that cannot be played back on older versions of the player. This is not really a concern since the latest players are available for free. As of this writing, RealPlayer G2 was available only for Windows machines and as a beta for the Mac OS 8.0+, VivoPlayer is supported on Windows 3.1x, Windows 9x and Mac OS / PowerMac machines.
To make RealMedia and VivoActive clips, you will need special encoding software. For RealMedia, download the free RealProducer G2 from: http://proforma.real.com/mario/tools/producer.html?wp=399tools If there is a free encoder for Vivo video, I couldn't find it. With AVI format, there are many CODECs available, the following excerpt from the a.b.m.e FAQ should help you in tracking them down (The entire FAQ is available from: http://extra.newsguy.com/~theprof ):
[Please note: Intel has an announcement on their Codec page that its contents will soon be combined with their Indeo Video 5.0 Driver page. If any of the Intel links below don't work, do a site search for Indeo Video or get a more recent copy of this FAQ.]
All Operating Systems
Some older videos in circulation require IR21 which is no longer available from Intel, but you can get it from Don Juan's page, https://members.tripod.com/~grok/video.htm.
Windows 95 and NT
Pentium owners can get the latest Indeo codecs (IR32, IR43, IR50, etc.) as a developer pack, iv5devl.exe, from http://developer.intel.com/ial/indeo/video/driver.htm.
486 and older CPUs won't be able to use IR43 or IR50. Download "Indeo Video 4.1 and Indeo Video 3.2" from http://www.intel.com/pc-supp/multimed/indeo/codec.htm.
For Pentium class and 486DX systemsGo to http://members.aol.com/SlavTrainr/STsPage.html to get the I.263 codec with IMC audio. This version, which is distributed to cappers with the Intel Capture Utility, is not available separately from Intel. In spite of having the same filename, the one at Intel's site is video only. There's no harm in installing both but, because of the same filename, be careful not to let one installation program file overwrite the other. Intel's download page is http://support.intel.com/support/createshare/camerapack/codinstl.htm.
Windows 3.1Download "Indeo Video 4.1 and Indeo Video 3.2" from http://www.intel.com/pc-supp/multimed/indeo/codec.htm. Sorry, Intel has not made IR50, IR43 or I.263 available for Win3.1.
Macintosh
Indeo Video 3.2 should have been installed on your system with the QuickTime Movie Player, or download it from http://www.intel.com/pc-supp/multimed/indeo/codec.htm Sorry, Intel has not made IV4*, IV5* or I.263 available for Macintosh.
MPEG is pretty straightforward. There is MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. That's it. Most modern encoders can handle both. Not all players can handle both. All of them support as a minimum MPEG-1. MPEG decoders are available for a very wide range of platforms.
Section 7 - Posting Techniques
Since most multimedia posts are considered large posts, this section will focus on posting a large binary file to the group.
If you are new to the group, you should "hang around" for a little while before you post anything. Give yourself some time to familiarize yourself with the general tone of the group. See how others are doing things, and the reactions they get. There is no better way to identify "who's who" around the group than to just read and watch.
As in real life, you wouldn't walk into a crowded room and just start doing whatever you wanted to do without first checking out the place. So lurk in the groups for a week or two, and you'll get a handle on how this place operates, and how you can best contribute.
It is a good idea before any large post to write a small note in the discussion group detailing what you are about to post and how you are going to post it. For example: "I have several Simpson's episodes, They are broken up into several MPEG files, and total about 150 megs per episode. I'll post them as is, one episode a day."
This serves several useful purposes. First, your potential audience is now on the lookout for your posts. Second, it opens the door for suggested improvements, such as "could you post a description of each episode?" Finally, in the event that two or more people were planning to post the same thing, this allows an opportunity to prevent that from happening.
Please don't post an executable file. Even if you are 100% certain that the file contains no virus or other anomaly, others may not take your word for it. You are also limiting your audience to those that can run your executable file at all. This includes self-extracting archives and self-contained animations.
If you decide to use a compression program or other utility to break up your video into parts before posting, you should keep the individual pieces no more than 5 megabytes each. Anything larger defeats the purpose of sectioning the video in the first place. Also keep in mind that if you do break a file up with some utility, then anyone who cannot run that utility will not be able to reassemble the original video.
A good reason to spread very large posts out over a couple of days is so that those with 56K modems (the majority of visitors here) will have a better chance of keeping up. At the fastest legal 56K connection (53,333 BPS), a modem can theoretically download 488.278 megabytes per day. When you account for unavoidable overhead and encoding bloat, that number is a lot closer to 200 megabytes per day. It is therefore highly recommended that you keep your posts significantly below that amount if you would like to reach the largest audience, and encourage fewer repost requests. As a guide, 100 megabytes per day should allow the largest audience to download your post without having to ask for a repost.
When posting anything, set your news reader to post in 7500 line parts. Anything
higher, and you run the risk of some news servers dropping the
article before it gets a chance to fully propagate Usenet, causing some news servers to
simply not get them.
If this is the first time you are attempting a post or you are trying something different, please TEST your settings first by posting your video to alt.binaries.test before you send it to the multimedia group.
Finally, do not post something that is readily available via an existing resource. You would be better served to simply tell people how to get it themselves. If you want to post some videos you downloaded from the Web, tell the group where it is, and they can download it from the same source.
Of course, there are always exceptions. Use your judgement. If it is a personal site, or other rather limited resource, and you had a real hard time downloading it, it is a safe bet that others will also have the same problem. In a case like this, posting it to the group is OK. If the video is available for easy download elsewhere, posting it here as well would be wasteful.
Section 8 - Reposting Guidelines
You should always repost something the same way it was originally posted. In other
words, if it was a multi-sectioned RAR file, you should repost
the same, unmodified RAR files. If it was a single MPEG, you should repost the single
MPEG. It is especially important that you not change any file's name. If you downloaded
coolvideo.mpg and it ended up as something different (i.e. coolvi~1.mpg) on your hard
drive, make sure you restore the name to the original before reposting.
No matter how many people ask, you should never repost a file earlier than three days after the original post or the last repost. You will flood the group, cause other articles to expire prematurely, and make more than a few people angry.
Self-imposed per-day and per-week limits should be employed when reposting just as they are when posting original material. See Section 7 for details.
Section 9 - Repost Request Guidelines
You can ask for a repost of anything anytime you want. You shouldn't expect one for at least three days after the original post, or however long the original poster mandated. Posting what you do have of a series, then asking for fills is not something looked upon favorably. This is known as a "Here's what I have, now here's what I need" post. Doing that will not get your request filled. It will definitely upset those very people who may have been willing to help you.
Do not ask for a video to be reposted in a different format than it was originally posted. This is not only considered rude, it is counterproductive. If you couldn't view something someone posted, kindly ask them to perhaps consider your requirements in their next post. Live without this one, and hope the poster is sympathetic when making future clips.
Section 10 - Dealing with RAR files
This section should help you understand what RAR is, and how to best deal with files compressed and sectioned with the RAR archive software.
First things first, you can't do anything with them until you get the RAR program. There are versions for MAC, DOS/Windows 3.x/9x, NT and Linux. Try http://www.rarsoft.com
For the purpose of posting to alt.binaries.multimedia, RAR is used to break a large video file into smaller pieces. You will need all the pieces to successfully reassemble the video. Rar files are named as follows:
Typical
*.RAR
*.R00
*.R01
etc.
Sometimes, they can appear in the form
*.001
*.002
*.003
etc.
In either case, here is what you need to do:
Here is where you will be asking yourself why you bothered to download all those files
in the first place if you end up with nothing. Relax. It's not as bad as you think, as
long as you can figure out where the problem is. Provided the person who RARed it in the
first place elected to include a recovery record, you can usually repair the bad part.
Apply the repair function to every piece of the archive, and eventually you will find the
one that needs repair. I can't speak for other versions of RAR, but WinRAR will only tell
you about the error after it tried to decode the entire file. In other words, do not
believe that the error only exists in the last piece, as the error message would lead you
to believe. What it is telling you was that it didn't notice a CRC error until it
completed decoding the one big file.
Having found (and presumably repaired) the bad archive, try again. If that fails, or the part could not be repaired, you now know specifically what to ask for as a repost.
If the original poster did NOT include recovery records, tracking down the bad part can be rather tricky. One fairly simple (but not always effective) method is to compare file sizes of all the parts. ALL parts except the last one should be exactly the same size. If one is a different size than the others, chances are you found the bad one.
Other than that, you can ask the poster to provide CRC values for the files he or she posted. Sometimes they even include those with the original post. It is beyond the scope of this document to explain how to extract CRC values for what you do have, but there are several programs out there that will do it. Most common is McAfee's VirusScan package, which comes with a dos program called Validate.exe. Consult your software documentation for guidance on how to use it.
Section 11 - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is ASF? ASF stands for Advanced Streaming Format. It is a Microsoft format. You will need the latest Microsoft Media Player to view it. Microsoft has it available for free download.
It looks like people are getting upset about the flood of full-length movies in this group. Don't people want them? Yes, people want full-length movies, but to understand why people are upset about the flood, you need to know a little about how newsgroups work. Since ISP's generally do not make money off of Usenet, they don't bother putting too much money into the hardware needed to keep messages. In most cases, all the binary groups are allotted a certain total amount of disk space. When that space fills up, the older messages are deleted from the server.
As you can imagine, if a bunch of people start sending gigs of data to the newsgroups, the older messages will be deleted. This can result in a message being deleted from the server the same day it is posted, resulting in nobody being able to get the entire post. Not only does that upset a lot of people who can't enjoy the post you tried to give them, but it means that you just wasted your time uploading it, since nobody can download it.
The best thing to do is to split a huge file into several pieces, then spread the upload over a few days. This will give everybody a chance to download it.
I didn't get all the pieces of a file the somebody just uploaded. Should I ask for a repost? You usually should wait a few days before asking for a repost. It could take a day or two for all the pieces of a file to get from the poster's news server to yours. The person posting it may have had a problem and needed to stop uploading for a few hours. You just need to have a little patience. Just download what you can get and keep your eyes open for the rest.
Why should I bother with RAR? Think about this one. Let's say you have a 200 MB MPG you want to share. You COULD just post the entire file as an OBZ (One Big Zip), but that would just be foolish. If you lose your connection in the middle of that post, then what? You'd have to start all over again. If somebody is missing a small piece from the middle, then what? They have to download the entire thing again. RAR lets you split a large file into several smaller files on your hard drive. If something happens to one of those small files, you only have to upload a few MBs. The same goes for the downloaders. If something happens in the middle of the download, there's no need to start over from scratch. It makes life easier for everybody.
Why can't I find any porn in this group? While nothing is physically stopping people from posting pornography to this newsgroup, it is a sure way to get majorly flamed, since there is already several groups dedicated to adult material. If you are looking for adult material, or if you have some to share, go to alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica. Remember, always check all the newsgroups available on your server to see if there is a "specialty" group available. The alt.binaries.multimedia group is already so flooded anyway, if you post a message in this group, it's likely to be missed by a lot of people who would have been able to enjoy it had it gone to the right, less crowded, group.
Section 12 - Conclusion
I hope this document serves to help you enjoy the alt.binaries.multimedia group. Following the guidelines in this document will not only help you create better "internet-ready" video files, it will also help you get more out of the time you spend here. This group is a lot of fun. Lets all help keep it that way.
This document is dedicated to the memory of Commander Jim Smith, USN Ret.
Credits
Author/Editor
Altoid
Contributors
N E O
Wacky Weed
Damaceles
The Profiteer
Marco van Loon
3Ball
Troy