written by The Most Unfriendly SWong, Akito (uudecode/uuencode/MIME), Severin (NewsGrabber), Bogus Name (Rar recovery method), "Supernice" Inc (Agent tips), Moomoo (Realtext), NetGear (some addition to uuencode and file formats), darkwire (resources on Virtual dub, various players, codecs, converters, and Linux stuff, etc), TheMan (misc on file formats and codecs)
2000-03-11
2000-03-12
2000-03-16
2000-03-22
2000-03-30
2000-04-06
2000-04-25
2000-05-06
2000-05-11
2000-05-21
2000-06-07
2000-09-21 revision
This is an ongoing work, constructive criticisms welcomed, volunteer writers are very welcomed, someone who can do a better job than I is even more welcomed. All flames goes to the /dev/null
A webified copy of the faq is now on
http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/abafaq/
http://www.geocities.com/alt_binaries_anime/
1. Introduction
2. What is alt.binaries.anime and alt.binaries.multimedia.anime?
3. What's with the .rar, .r00, etc files?
4. Help! I'm getting all these text string garbage!
5. About repost requests (Sod, some of these parts
are incomplete!)
6. What's a good newsreader?
7. On posting...
8. What about hentai/porn?
9. What about subs/dubs?
10. On file formats and codecs
11. Help! My news-server bites! What can I do?
12. Misc
1. Introduction back
Before asking any question or making requests, read this FAQ and any
messages from posters. Most of the regular posters are much more friendly
and helpful than I am so they are usually happy to help out, but seeing
the same questions over and over again is just annoying.
2. What is alt.binaries.anime and alt.binaries.multimedia.anime?back
According to the charter of a.b.m.a. (ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/alt.binaries.multimedia.anime.Z):
This group is for posting any multimedia file (any format) that is anime related. The file may be a commercial, trailer, music video, opening movie, ending movie, special, or entire episode or movie of anything specifically anime related, including free fansubs which are widely unavailable to most people (check legal issues in your area, it is beyond the scope of this proposal to cover the vastness of fansubs.)
While alt.binaries.anime is a "rogue" newsgroup, the same definition
can be applied to it. "Rogue" newsgroup means that whoever created the
ng didn't go through the proper channels in newsgroup creation. Hence there
is no charter or control message for it, so quite a few newsservers refuse
to carry it.
3. What's with the .rar, .r00, etc files?back
Rar files are compressed/split archives. Nearly everything in the newsgroup are posted in this format. This is done to make successful download much more likely and it makes reposts much easier. The files in both a.b.a and a.b.m.a usually run from 50mb+, if these files are posted in a single post and even one part doesn't make it to somebody's server, then the file is useless. When the files are split up, the chances of the individual files arriving intact are greater, also, even if some of the parts didn't make it, the poster only need to repost one small part to fill it.
To uncompress these archives, you need to download every single part. Use a rar program to unrar these files.
Rar program can be found at: http://www.rarsoft.com for all major platforms, http://macrar.free.fr for macs.
Rar Recovery Method [Bogus Name]
Yet another good reason to use rar is the recovery record in the RAR file. In winRAR, highlight the affected R?? file, select the Commands menu and click Repair Archive. Then rename the resulting archive to the name of the corrupted archive (after first renaming or moving the corrupted archive). All should be well.
Another site with good explanations on rar files is at http://www.freepicgirl.com/nero-x/
4. On uudecode/uuencode, and MIME. (Help! I'm getting all these text string garbage!) [Akito, NetGear]back
On an older, less featured newsreader, you may see something like this:
-------------------------------------------------
>begin 644 filename.r10
>M4F%R(1H'`*6\<TD`#0````````"AZG2#@#4`V<%-`/8=?04"VD4&`%(.5R@4
>M-14`(````$QO9&]S<R!787(@;V%V(#`Q+F%S9EDF==)'"DO$1'Y+\A<\3X)_
>M5_AR06`T8P.$*?D_Z-<^5]TBHM0Y3I[/*P.<M$R1J)2\&RVYKAU?;A7ULJ%I
-------------------------------------------------
This is known as a uuencoded format. The "begin 644 filename" line
and the fact that every single line starts with "M" is a good way to recognize
uuencode. Newer newsreaders will automatically decode the file into binary
formats so you may never actually see the code. So if you are having problems
with the codes your best bet is probably get a new newsreader.
Here's what this means "begin 644 filename.r10". Save this uuencoded text as filename.r10 with permissions 644 (that's OCT for User read and write, Group read, World read).
Each line in a UUEncoded file is usually 45bytes. This is why "M" is
used. It tells the decoder that this line is 45bytes long. "M" is 77 in
ASCII and when you minus 32 from it you get 45. This is how each line is
calculated but because the binary file is read in 45byte chunks you will
always see "M" as the starting character except for the last line just
before the "`' and "end". The first charcter of
each UUencoded line is the control information.
The encoded form of the file is expanded by 37% for UUencoding and by 35% for base64 encoding (3 bytes become 4 plus control information).
A more verbose explanation of uuencode:
Uuencode, also aka uuencode/uudecode, is one of the popular forms of binary file distribution along the realms of passive file distribution. (Meaning it's not done in real-time, files are sent but received later, not instantly). Email and newsgroup messages are of such type.
Originated from UNIX systems, (thus the UU means Unix-to-Unix) it is used by users who wish to send binary data to others who are using software that's not capable of processing binary code. Something like this would be a unix-based email client like PINE.
Basically how uuencode works is that it takes whatever binary attachment you are sending, it may be a WinRAR archive, an .rm or some executable; and translates (encode) that file into a HUGE string of text garbage that only someone with the decoder can convert back to the original form. This way, it simplifies the transmission as no special protocol and/or software is needed. (Nearly all computers can do text transfer without problems. I say nearly because there is always some exceptions to the rule in the world of computers - just look at Windows)
In summary, uuencode is simply a utility if you wish, that translates binary code into encrypted text to be sent: 1) Over a medium that cannot process binary transfers. 2) To a individual using software not capable of receiving binary attachments.
Now for MIME... (this is the uglier one as it involves Windows and Mac OS...)
Raw codes of MIME looks something like this:
-------------------------------------------------
If your mail reader is text-only
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>
>------=_NextPart_000_004B_01BF8C4A.98F7ABE0
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="big5"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
-OR- if your mail can read MIME encoded mails but can't handle the file type
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
> boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000C_01BF8499.08997280"
>X-Priority: 3
>X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5
>X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3
-------------------------------------------------
Again, current newsreaders will decode MIME automatically like uuencoded
files.
MIME, aka Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extension, is an extension of the original E-mail protocol (an agreement between computers that data of such type [email] will be transferred using this set of specifics) to exchange different types of data. (Such as webpages, audio, video, and of course, text files)
How it works is that servers sending the transmission will insert MIME headers into the body where it instructs the client on HOW to handle the binary data that's to follow. Say it may be a webpage, then the client knows to launch the web browser to handle the attachment. (Or RealPlayer for those anime .rms ^_^ )
Currently only so many MIME types are registered on the Internet Assigned Number Authority (more info? you're on your own), as new file formats are surfacing as the days go by, the Internet MIME databases will be updated accordingly and YOU as the user, will need to download the appropriate software and update your computer so they can handle such files. Fortunately most installation programs take care of this for you on most platforms. (Called file associations - ie: files with .RM extension will be handle by RealPlayer, .HTM - web browser, MP3 - Winamp...etc)
In summary, MIME is a string of instructions inserted at the beginning of any web transmission that instructs the client receiving this how to deal with the binary attachments that's to come. By equipping themselves with the associated software, (which is usually widely available on the Internet) users will not have to hunt down software every time they receive a binary attachment.
Now, I've stripped down the definitions to avoid the complicated techno jargon, there is MUCHO to know about MIME but that I think is beyond the scope of this FAQ. There are numerous documents out there floating on the web on MIME and can be easily found using a search engine like www.google.com
----
The main difference between MIME and uuencode is that MIME is more user-friendly to newbies as it takes the guesswork out of the user on what software is used to deal with this piece of binary code. But uuencode is computer-friendly as it does not require fancy software to be able to receive such type of information.
Uuencode is the most preferred transmission type because most newsgroup
servers will not handle binary transmissions therefore MIME is not recommended
here at a.b.m.a. Make sure you are using a reader that is capable of uuencode
or else you might have some complaints (or nasty comments from our "respected"
SWong) coming your way =)
5. About repost requests (Sod, some of these parts are incomplete!)back
Read the 00/## or readme posts to see what the poster has to say before downloading. Some poster has a repost policy about when they'll start taking repost requests. Not following those instruction will usually resulted in your requests being ignored. It's amazing the number of people who seemed incapable of reading something so simple.
And for chrissake don't make a request right after the posts are just finished. I've seen this often and it's bloody annoying. Usenet is somewhat quirky even at the best of times, and more often than not some parts of the same post arrives before other parts, sometimes more than a few hours apart. If some files arrived incomplete at your newsserver at first, wait a few hours (12 hours is a good guideline) before making a repost request. Usually the missing parts would arrive in the mean time and make the request unnecessary. Unnecessary reposts would merely suck up more bandwidth and disk space on the newsserver, which will cause older articles to expire more quickly.
Quite a few people had been making requests but not really getting the information through. Here is a guideline on standard repost request heading:
Attn [poster]: Please repost [series] ep ## .r##
or for multiple parts
Attn [poster]: Please repost following parts of [series]
And put the episode number and parts in the message body, don't post 10 separate messages with a request for a different part in each. That is annoying and will probably get you ignored.
The point is to make sure the poster knows exactly which part of which episode of what series you want to be reposted.
And most importantly, don't forget to thank the poster. They are doing this on their time and bandwidth for no compensation.
5a. How NOT to make a request (or, do any of these things will get you deliberately ignored or kill filed)
a. ALL CAPS
b. ########LOTS OF PUNCTUATION#########
c. Nym-shifting: changing your pseudonym to pretend to be different
people requesting the same thing
d. Most annoying of all, vertical spam:
############PLZ POST KAWAII GIRLS TIA!!!!!###########
############PLZ POST KAWAII GIRLS TIA!!!!!###########
############PLZ POST KAWAII GIRLS TIA!!!!!###########
############PLZ POST KAWAII GIRLS TIA!!!!!###########
############PLZ POST KAWAII GIRLS TIA!!!!!###########
Some newbies post a request multiple times with some attention getting letterings, thinking that'll get somebody's attention and will respond to it. Well it gets attention all right. It gets deliberately ignored, or maybe even kill filed.
e. Pestering the wrong person for repost.
2 words: bloody annoying, chances are the person you pester will not
post your request even if s/he has what you want. It doesn't take very
much effort to keep track of who posted what.
6. What's a good newsreader?back
Outlook and Netscape are both exceedingly crummy in handling binaries, definitely not recommended.
Agent/Free Agent
For windows, Agent (http://www.forteinc.com) is very good.
Agent Tricks and Tips [inc]
A couple of things to know about Agent
1) Combining segments from multiple posts/servers:
In Agent, segments from a given Part can be retained in a work folder and later combined with other segments from a different post of the same part. Segments (or Sections) are the actual individual messages that are propagated by Usenet. You see them as something like foobar.r03 (4/16). This segment would be the fourth message of the sixteen that make up the RAR part foobar.r03. If you have an incomplete part (say, only 14 of 16 segments of foobar.r03 made it), they can be saved to a work area within Agent and later combined with segments from a repost of that part. (To make a work folder, be in the Groups/Folders window. Right-click and chose New Folder.)
When you have segments to retain:
- Select the RAR part that has the messages you are going to save.
- Choose "Message / Split sections"
- Select all the segments to save.
- Do "Online / Get selected message bodies."
- Right-click the messages and "Copy to Folder"
Then, later, if the part is reposted, but is again incomplete, you can check if the segments missing from the first post made it, if they did, save them to the same work area.
Once you have all the segments in the work folder.
- Select all the messages that make up the part
- Right-click and "Join sections"
- Verify the order & "Join"
The only requirement is that the poster is sending with the same segment size on both posts (and, preferably, with the same software & version).
This method can, of course, also be used to combine segments of the
same part post from different servers.
2) Missing messages:
Your server may be loading messages out of numeric ID order. By default, Agent just checks the ID of the last message you have and grabs headers from there on. If any new messages went on the server that has a lower id, you don't see them unless you do a "Get all headers."
There is an option in Agent that can cure this:
"Options / User & System / System / Server creates messages out
of order" ==> Checked.
Agent will then check for holes in the message ID list. Obviously slower,
but you won't miss anything.
Another site with good explanations of how to use Agent is at http://www.freepicgirl.com/nero-x/
NewsGrabber [Severin]
For people with access to more than one news server, NewsGrabber, [shareware, currently $17 and it's worth it IMHO] from TronTech at www.news-grabber.com carries the Severin Seal Of Approval. While not as easy to use as Agent or News Express this thing is AMAZING in that it can piece together complete posts from parts gathered from any of the servers you tell it about. ex: a 15 part article, with M1Jax having 1, 4-6, and 14; M1Naples having 1-3, 11, 13-15; M1Pompano having 7; AirNews having 1-6, 8-10; and EasyNews having 8-15 is complete from NewsGrabber's point of view. @home users may find this particularly useful, since I understand that all of their news servers are available to all of their customers.
Xnews [Meep Meep]
A excellent newsreader for binaries is Xnews, available at http://xnews.3dnews.net It is currently freeware.
It works best as an on-line browser, which is fine for people who have constant-on connections (cable, dsl, etc).
It can be a little bit cryptic to use at first, but the manual is very clear. For downloading binaries, parts can be downloaded and held in an 'archive' while you are waiting for the rest of a post, and assembled afterwards (this really helps on @home servers, where early parts of a post usually expire before the last parts of a post).
A newer feature is the 'q-archive' which does not download parts but
can let you queue up article parts across multiple servers and then download
them. Very cool (and space efficient).
Keygens/serials can be found at http://astalavista.box.sk/, use at your own risk.
Linux Newsreader (darkwire)
PAN (Pimp Ass Newsreader) http://www.superpimp.org/
This is the newsreader I use for all my NG sessions under Linux. It
is very similar to XNews and Agent and seems to have taken the best features
from both. It is currently a work in progress, and requires a fair amount
of memory and resources to run. Since it is beta, it does segfault occasionally,
or gets a hung thread. But otherwise, I use it as my *only* newsreader,
so I rely on it solely for all my news needs.
7. On posting...back
New posts are always appreciated. However, both a.b.a. and a.b.m.a. are very high volume newsgroups. Too many posts can push the older articles off faster than people can download them. A 100-150mb limit per day per poster seems to work well. It has been suggested that 200-250mb is ok as well since it will allow the posting of an entire mpg. Hopefully this will keep the amount of data manageable. The point is don't go nuts and post 6-700mb at once and expire earlier articles prematurely. Newsservers don't have infinite diskspace afterall.
Also, it is highly recommended all posts be rar'd into parts. See section on rar for explanation. There is no firm rule about how big each part should be. If the parts are too small, it will make files management more difficult, as there are more parts to take care of. If the parts are too large, it will make download and upload (refills) time much longer. I have seen parts as small as 4mb to as large as 20mb. Personally I lean toward the smaller size since missing parts take less time to upload and download for the modem users.
There will always be people who want to get their hands on a popular series. Some of these are requested frequently. It is probably a good idea for a new poster to ask about what was posted recently to avoid reposting something that was only posted merely days ago. There are always newbies who just discovered Usenet and there will always be people who just missed or catch the end of a posting cycle. However, if we keep posting and reposting the same thing we'd never get to any new stuff. For newbies who wants something they just missed, the only thing I can recommend is be patient and wait a few months and see if anyone is nice enough to repost the entire series.
Here is a guideline on header labels on posts:
[series] ep ## (format/sub or dub) file ## of ##
For large posts that takes several days, a "Day # of #" should be included as well.
I also recommend a readme post of some sort (sometimes file 00/##) describing the series, how many episodes are there in total, and a repost request policy if you are so inclined.
Also, if the post is a repost, repack, or parts fills should be indicated as well. The repack part is especially important. Every now and then there are folks who help out the original poster of a series by responding to repost requests so that the poster can move on to other things. And sometimes this involves repacking the files. Stating that the reposts are repacks is important so that the downloaders would know that the repacked parts would not be compatible with the previous posts.
It is highly recommended that auto-posting software be used for posting since nearly all postings require multiple parts. Whatever posting software that you decide to use, it is important to set the line number per message to below 9000 lines. Anything higher would very likely to result in the news-server rejecting your post.
Agentpost is a program that is used with the Agent newsreader software and can be found here:
http://www.skuz.net/madhat/
There is another thing about posting that affects @home users in particular
ever since the 200mb per day per user posting limit was imposed. Current
newsreader and newsposter will uuencode the files and post it automatically.
The process is transparent and is never seen by the user. The problem is
that uuencode process will increase the size of the file by nearly 37%
or so. Since the process is transparent nowadays the poster don't know
how much data they are actually uploading. So when a poster tries to post
a 140mb file, over 200mb of data was actually uploaded. So @home posters
hit the daily upload limit sooner than they realize.
8. What about hentai/porn?back
The charter for a.b.m.a. specificly stated:
Things that should not be posted in alt.binaries.multimedia.anime:
- pictures: they belong in alt.binaries.pictures.anime
- sounds/music: they belong in alt.binaries.sounds.anime
- general anime discussion: belongs in the rec.arts.anime* newsgroups
- hentai/erotica material
- non-anime material
That means no hentai stuff on the a.b.m.a. folks!
Now, while a.b.a. is a rogue newsgroup and hence no charter, and technically no rules on hentai stuff, I (and most regular posters, it seems) feel rather strongly that hentai should be kept off from it as well. This is not because of any self righteous puritanical reason. It is because of the fact that quite a few ISP's, newsservers will not carry erotica/porn newsgroups for puritanical reasons. If some self righteous parents find their kids downloading porn from a non-porn newsgroup and complain to their ISP, most likely the ISP will simply stop carry that newsgroup. This will ruin things for other people on the same ISP who also follow the newsgroup. So please be considerate.
One may argue that since a.b.a. has no charter so there oughtn't be any restriction on this sort of thing. However, there is a good reason for treating a.b.a. as a non-hentai newsgroup. In newsgroup naming convention, newsgroups with sex related material are designated with "erotica" or "sex", since neither words are in "alt.binaries.anime", newsservers and isps will treat it as non-sex newsgroup by default. If the more puritanical service providers discovers the existance of porn in a.b.a. they will no doubt stop carrying the ng. Just see the disappearance of misspelled/disguised warez newsgroups from the @home servers for a potential fate of a.b.a., or ask your servers providers what usually happens to "stealth" erotica groups.
For people who do want to post this sort of thing, For now I recommend posting to alt.binaries.erotica.anime, or alt.binaries.hentai. Those two groups have hardly any traffic, it'd be interesting to see how they hold up to large multimedia binaries. Posting to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.anime is not recommended. The denizens of that ng seems even more concern about bandwidth than we do. Recently H anime were being posted to alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.anime (no "a" in erotic!), check that one out.
Some users recently started exploring the possibility of creating a
group specifically for anime hentai. Stay tuned on this one.
9. What about subs/dubs?back
Anime purist fans (myself included) are not all that thrilled about
dubs and much prefer to watch subtitles with the original Japanese dialogue.
Nevertheless dubs are still anime and most definitely belong in both newsgroups.
I highly recommend posters to indicate clearly whether their posts are
subs or dubs (see posting headers guideline) so that people like myself
would know what not to download.
10. On file formats and codecsback
Popular file formats including .rm, .mpg, and .asf.
.rm RealMedia
RealPlayer can be obtained from http://www.real.com
Again keygen/serials for the Plus version can be found at http://astalavista.box.sk/
Of all the popular formats, .rm gives the best compression for the same length of video. There had been people who complained about lack of quality of this format in comparison with others, however, in the hands of a capable encoder with a good machine, .rm can be very good. Also, there are good reasons for using .rm:
1. Not everyone has a high-speed connection, even cable is slow with the u/l caps on @home. That makes posting large files nearly impossible. Also people with slow connection will have a better chance of getting the smaller .rm files.
2. Diskspace-- not everyone has a 20gb drive. I like to collect enough files of the same series before burning a CD. With incomplete posts, broken files that are the daily realities of Usenet, having a gazillion incomplete episodes on my harddrive would take out a lot of space.
Also, even if every posts are perfect, a considerable of blank cds will be needed. For instance, the Nadesico series has 26 episodes (standard length for most anime series), it fits on 2 cdrs when in .rm format. If it were in something like mpg it'd take maybe 8-9 cdr's. Now multiply that with the number of series that's been posted in the past, the number of series that's currently being posted... That's a lot more cdr's to buy. .Rm is a nice compromise between file size and quality.
There is an extension for subtitles for .rm format known as RealText:
RealText section [Moomoo]
What is RealText subbing?
RealText is a simple way of subbing rm (RealMedia) format videos.
Instead of adding subtitles directly to the video, RealText subs are
played in a separate panel at the same time as the video.
A posting of anime subbed using RealText would consist of 3 files :-
- Video file (.rm extension)
- RealText subtitles file (.rt extension)
- Synchronization file (.smil extension)
How to watch a RealText subbed anime?
To watch a RealText subbed anime, open the .smil file using RealPlayer
instead of the .rm file
How to sub an anime using RealText?
There is a good explanation of RealText and a tutorial here
http://www.lunaarts.com/realtext/index.html
.mpg Mpeg format
Most general format there is, plays on any platform. Best quality video, period (well, provided the encoder knows what he is doing and the source video is also high quality). The major drawback is that the file size is huge.
Can be played by Windows Media Player that's bundled with Win9x.
Need mpg extension on Quicktime for Macs.
[From Yugo Nada]
Not all files with the .mpg extension can be viewed with Quicktime.
When people pull .dat files off of VCDs they usually just change the
file extension to .mpg, but they're still .dat files.
Quicktime cannot play them directly.
Mac users must use a dat2mpg program called VCDGear from
http://www.vcdgear.com/
Mac users can go to
http://www.versiontracker.com
for software.
WMP is fairly buggy on Macs. Sound rarely syncs in full screen mode.
[Addition from xo]
Just for accuracy, QuickTime *can* play (most) .dat files directly under
MacOS, but how well it does so appears to depend on the hardware.
Perhaps the video card or cpu speed: it won't play well on my older
Mac
but the same dats played fine on 2 G3 class machines I tried them on.
Not all AVI codecs are available for the Mac.
Indeo(R) Video 3
Indeo(R) Video 4
and
Indeo(R) Video 5
are available on the Mac. You are correct in that many of the more
obscure codecs are not available on the Mac
For Linux, check http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/research/mpeg/mpeg_encode.html for Berkeley MPEG Tools. Encodes and Plays. Many other utlities out there. Check freshmeat.net. [TheMan]
Also, see mpegTV
http://www.mpegtv.com/download.html
Unfortunately it requires a $10 for the "full-featured" version,
although a free version is available. The free version includes a
time-limited demo of the "full-featured" version (mtv), *AND* includes
a
unlimited command line version (mtvp). It can play in regular size,
zoomed, and FULL screen. It even plays the Tylor movie mpeg that many
where unable to play, and VCD (/dev/cdrom, or set by environment
variable). Biggest difference in the 2 versions is the availability
of
a GUI interface to the registered version, fine tuning video, tracking,
and fine tuning audio.
Questions about mpgs (TheMan)
Q. I don't like having all these MPEG parts of a movie. I hate having
to watch 10 mins of video then having to open another file! Can I make
a 1 big MPEG?
A. First off, you don't have to join together a huge MPEG in order
to play back a movie continously without human intervention. You can get
a nice software player (haven't looked, haven't bothered), or get a DVD
player software such as PowerDVD or WinDVD to do it. Both of those softwares
support playlist playback. So you can queue up all those MPEGs and then
just play them back. I have found WinDVD's playlist playback to be better
though, with less noticable interruption during file changes.
Some very smart people out there have figured that they can "join" together those many MPEGs into one by using the DOS command "copy /b mpeg1.mpg + mpeg2.mpg bigmpeg.mpg". This goes the same with trying to use WinZip to zip up all the MPEGs in store mode. What is the problem with this? It will seriously screw up the MPEG playback hardware or software because the I/P/B frames are no longer in order. Whats worse is, if you use WinZip to join them, you will have a PK header at the begining of the file. Very smart indeed. I KNOW Media Player can play them back fine, but thats because Media Player is very forgiving. Many other players and editors out there do not. Try sticking the "MPEG" into VirtualDub and you can hope it can crash.
If you really want to join together the MPEGs into one, use a utility to do it properly. One that I know of is MPEGJoin, and that can be found at http://extra.newsguy.com/~theprof/Readme.html. Please ensure that when joining the MPEGs that they are the same in spec (bitrate, interleaving, etc). If you join together a MPEG of different specs, some weird stuff can happen. This utility will join together the MPEG by properly interleaving the frames so that it will be compliant to the IEC/ISO spec (whatever number that is) and thus players and utilties will be able to handle the resulting file with little or problem.
Q. How come I can't play the MPEG I copied off of a VCD? <insert
player here> other than Windows Media Player won't open it!
A. If you copied the DAT file straight off of a VCD, and renamed it
to .mpg, then that is why you are getting those error messages. Basically,
what happens when you burn an MPEG as a VCD is the authoring software (EZCD,
Nero) inserts/pads some extra info to the original MPEG on the fly during
the burn. The resulting DAT file on the VCD will have a 10-30% size increase
(bloat if you think of it). But anyway, because of this extra padded info,
it can confuse a crappy MPEG editor or player.
The best practice is to actually "dat2mpg" convert it so that you can
revert the
DAT back to an original MPEG form. You should *always* do this if you
have
downloaded something off the net (here on aba or abma, or some site)
if the person claims it was from a VCD. Do a dat2mpg no matter what so
that you can check to be sure it is really an MPEG before you actually
do something with that file, such as burning your own VCD. This util, VCDGear
can be found from http://www.vcdgear.org. VCDGear 2.0, which was recently
released has a GUI interface. While for some of you people who may prefer
a command line interface, can use VCDGear 1.5, which was released not long
ago also.
.asf Active Stream Format
Can be played by Windows Media Player that's bundled with Win9x.
Window Media for Macs will play .asf, as far as I know the player for
Mac is fairly buggy.
A fairly new proprietary video format from Microsoft. The quality of a well encoded asf can rival that of a mpg at considerable smaller size. However, there are several major drawbacks:
1. It is a Microsoft proprietary format, it will definitely play on a Windows machine. It will play on a Mac by a buggy player (from what I learned so far). At the moment I don't know if it will play on a Linux machine at all. Video in this format cannot be shared by all downloaders.
2. You need a fairly high end machine to play it well. On my awesome state of the art Pentium 200 (no MMX) machine, asfs plays like a bad slide show. Even the highly compressed .rm format plays way better on it. Remember that not everyone can afford to get the latest PIII whatever machine.
[From Brad via email] There's a fairly new library called avifile that plays DivX and .ASF files, among others, on Linux (it uses some emulation code from Wine to run the Windows codec DLLs). It's at http://divx.euro.ru/ . Performance seems to vary a lot depending on the file, but it works with at least some of the files.
Questions about asfs (TheMan)
Q. Why does the sound come first then I see the mouths moving in the
video? (or vice-versa)
A. In this case here, you computer is not fast enough to handle MPEG4V3
properly. This symptom usually means you have enough dropped frames to
get the video and audio out of sync. You can try these few things to see
if you can get the playback to be in a tolerable rate (remember you will
still get dropped frames).
1) try closing down ALL programs, that includes your RC5DES, SETI@home,
whatever. Make sure you have a bare bones Windows running except some necessary
things such as audio control.
2) In Windows Media Player, while the ASF is opened (good idea to pause
playback), click on File, then click on Properties. Then click on the Advanced
tab. You should see in there the Microsoft MPEG-4 codec in the top box
where it says "Filters in use", doubleclick on it. You should see the CPU
(Picture Quality) slider. Move it all the way to the left. Close down this
box, then resume playback and see how it goes. In most cases you should
be able to watch the ASF full screen. If your system is only a P200 or
something, then maybe you are stuck playing it in a little 1x or 2x size
window.
.avi Audio Video Interleave
Can be play by the Media Player bundled with Win9x.
Can be play by Macintosh with QuickTime player. Works just like Media Player. It's codec based. Now Microsoft could have created a MAC codec for QuickTime so that MPEG4 and ASF's worked, but you know how Microsoft is. [NetGear]
A somewhat more obscure format than the previous three. If done right, the quality of this format can be very good at a small size. There is a huge drawback for this format though. Several different codecs exists for avi's. If the encoder use a codec that the user does not have, the file will not play unless the user finds the codec and install it. This option is available to Windows users only. It is not known if Macs and Linux user can play avi's with the more obscure codecs at all. So while it is a high quality format, users of platforms other than Windows will not be able to enjoy it.
Most popular codec: MPEG4V1-V3 (default with Windows Media Player)
MPEG4V3(Beta): [darkwire]
AVI mp43 format, also used in ASF
---------------------------------
Windows Media Tools
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/technologies/tools.asp#Downloads
Windows Media General Infos
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/default.asp
Windows Media for Mac
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/en/download/macintosh.asp
This is MS version of the standard mpeg4, most of the time mplayer2
will try to *find* this code by contacted MS, but will result in a failure,
which is the problem for most people. The version I have found to work
is contained in the package wmtools.exe, beta 4.0
The important file is MPG4c32.DLL version 4.1.00.39.17
MPG4C32.DLL version 4.00.3688 is the last version (as of most recent
revision of this faq) that supported MPEG4V3 AVIs. In other words, this
was in the final beta of Windows Media Tools.
4.00.3845 and up will cough up an error message to you if you try to
play an AVI that's done in MPEG4V3. [TheMan]
New versions on the MS homepage *WILL NOT* work AT ALL, I have tried
this over the weekend (04-22-2000), the version available on MS homepage
is
wmtools.exe, release 4.1
Installing a new version, then uninstalling, and reinstalling old version,
will not work, because windows decides to keep the newer codec file, you
can fix this by running the old wmtools.exe, waiting till it finishes decompressing
the files, then digging through the 'temp' directory for MPG4c32.dll
(NetGear also made an account and put up a copy of it on this site.
http://homepages.go.com/~mpeg4/fxmpeg4.zip)
Just download this zip, it is 4.00.3688. Don't even have to bother with
trying to find an older version of WMTools to "rip" the file out. You can
install the latest version of WMTools, then "patch" it with that older
DLL. Since that DLL is beta, if you have problems with some weird side
effects such as weird color bursts after decompressing the AVI or ASF,
then you know why. The codec has never crashed on me or gave me any serious
problems other than some weird color effects sometimes when working with
the decompressed AVI. [TheMan]
DivX(hacked MPEG4V3): [darkwire]
http://divx.ctw.cc
This is a hack of the MS mp43 format, supposidly, the *standard*
versus the bastardized MS version.
Files that are divx or mp43, both have avi/asf extension, essential
what happens is that the FOURCC identifier is changed, from DIV3(4)<->MP43,
but essential the data inside the file is the same.
Read next point
AVI<->DIVX convertor
--------------------
AVI<->DIVX convertor homepage
http://members.xoom.com/cheekyb0y/ac3decode.html
Link for download http://members.xoom.com/cheekyb0y/divx2mp4.zip
This tool rewrites changes the 4CC code from mp43 to div3 or div4,
or
vice versa.
I have been able to play div3/4 files with a rewritten to mp43 4cc,
with MS mp43 codec, although sometimes the results are not as pretty,
there are some purpling artifacts occasionally, but in a pinch
situation, you can convert back and forth.
VirtualDub homepage http://www.geocities.com/virtualdub/index.html
Freeware avi/asf manipulation software
VirtualDub filters
http://www.geocities.com/virtualdub/virtualdub_filters.html
This section has the file subtitler.zip, which can be used to read
a
SSA (unzipped) file and overlay it on an asf/avi file, the output will
be an avi file as well.
Avi/smi files
Recently, people started using divx(.avi)files that are in raw japanese,
while the .smi file contains the subtitle information. The subtitles can
be view in Windows Media Player by merely playing the .avi file and select
view/captions in the menu to see the subtitles. The .avi and the .smi files
must have the same names.
Linux Stuff [darkwire]
-----------
mp43 and most new avi wrapped codes wont run under Linux, neither will
ASF.
Solutions:
::Mpeg-1/Rm will play under Linux, requires (glibc2 / libc.so.6)
Smpeg + SDL http://www.lokigames.com/development/smpeg.php3
RealPlayerG2 Beta http://www.real.com
-- it's listed as beta under the other regular players on the same
page
Xanim http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/home.html
-- Can play some older AVI and QT formats natively, currently looks
un-maintained
:: For playing ASF / AVI latest / or latest crap codec from MS
VMware http://www.vmware.com/download/download_linux_pre.html
-- Virtual Machine x86, can install windows 9x, NT, 2k, whatever =)
-- then install the same tools as if under a real windows sessions
-- this requires some change in perception, between real machine and
virtualized machine
11. Help! My news-server bites! What can I do?back
Short answer: Get a new news-server.
Long answer:
Get a new news-server. If your news-server hardly ever get any complete parts, no amount of repost will help.
The best solution is to spend money to subscribe to a premium news-server. See alt.binaries.news-server-comparison for more extensive information.
For those who are financially challenged, there are free, open news-servers out there. This is not a good solution. A.b.a and a.b.m.a are both very high volume newsgroups. Open news-servers usually cannot handle the large volume for long. Chances are if you find an open news-server it will either go down, or be closed not long afterwards. For more information on where to find open news-servers, see alt.free.newsservers.
If you don't get either of newsgroups mentioned, go to www.deja.com.
Special section for @home peeps:
The following 3 servers are particularly reliable in terms of new posts and completeness:
news.rdc1.on.home.com
news.rdc1.sfba.home.com
news.rdc1.sdca.home.com
The following 2 servers have much longer retention time (5-6 days) than
others:
news.rdc1.tx.home.com
news.kenner1.la.home.com
12. Miscback
Batch file for deleting trailing underscore: [Inc]
Here's what the bat I have used for quite awhile. Note, it is pointing to the directory where Agent puts the anime parts I dl - change to suit yourself:
DEL_UNDL.BAT
c:
cd \media\anime
ren *.???_ *.???
If you want to go to different directories it would be easy enough to change the path to a parameter ( %1 ) that you could pass within the Shortcut, one for each directory you use.
The only bug is if you try to rename to an already existing name, the bat aborts entirely.
Also, the whole thing can be one statement if you prefer (and with the variable):
ren c:\media\anime\*.???_ *.???
or
ren %1\*.???_ *.???
called like:
DEL_UNDL. c:\media\anime