Scene Tags/Formats

The tag is the name of the release. These releasenames give you
information about the release instantly. 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
definitions of tags.

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 often this won't be possible, so the
camera may shake. Also seating placement isn't always ideal, 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 has the same specs 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.

TC (Telecine):
A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and
picture should be quite 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
letterboxed , 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 a film which has not been finished yet. There
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). WP's 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. When a dvd is COMPLETE, it
didn't need any adjustments and the video is therefore untouched.
Most dvd's though are DVD9, so they need to be compressed to DVD5. DVD5
is much more wanted since all dvd players 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.

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 usually 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.

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

FESTiVAL:
This is a variation of STV/LiMiTED. A FESTiVAL is a movie which hasn't
been shown in a public theater, but does has been shown on a
filmfestival (such as Cannes Film Festival). An example of a FESTiVAL
movie is Hot Tamale (imdb), which has not been in a public theater, but
it was shown on the Newport Beach Film Festival.

iNTERNAL:
An internal release is done for several reasons. The most common reason
is because it has already been released before, and with iNTERNAL in
title, the release won't be nuked. iNTERNAL's are quite common. Also
lower quality theater rips are done iNTERNAL so it doesn't 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 a release is iNTERNAL, it
still can be very popular. For mp3's the interla-tag is different. 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:
If a release is subbed, it usually means it has hard encoded subtitles
burned 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
and DVD support switchable subtitles, so some DVDRips and most DVD's
are released with switchable subs.

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 than 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(rip). For example, when Dutch
subtitles were added to a NTSC DVDr:
Madagascar.2005.Custom.NL.Subbed.NTSC.DVDr-Group. Off course, 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 very well. In some countries,
dubbing is very common, for example Germany.

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
deleted scenes, interviews, or a 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 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. These are the same as the abbreviations 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. In general, when the language is fully
mentioned in the releasename, this is the movie language. The
abbrivation usually means the subtitle(s). So DUTCH will mean that the
language is Dutch, and NL will mean that the menu/subtitle is Dutch.

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 & recolor the video, 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 of a movie, 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 is released in a certain geographical area, or region and it's
not viewable on a dvd player outside of that region. This was designed
to stop people buying American dvd's 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 mentioned in the NFO.

REPACK:
If a group releases a bad rip, they can release a Repack. A Repack is a
fixed version of the original release. It's similar to PROPER but then
done by the same group. Note that a Repack is different from a fix. A
Fix will repair the original release whilst a repack is a new release.

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

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

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 rip of the final released DVD. If possible this is released
pre retail (for example, Star Wars episode 2). The quality of DVDrips
is very good. 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 capped 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.
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 1,150kbit 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
you can fit 74min on a CDR74.


SCVD (SuperVideoCD):
SVCD is a mpeg2 based (same as DVD) video format which allows variable
bitrates 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 bitrate, 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 bitrates, 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
anamorphic and the bitrate/resolution are interchangeable. 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 at the moment is XviD. The formal most popular codec was
DivX.

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.


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.

Software:

AIO

AIO stands for All-In-One, meaning an all-in-one software pack. For
example: Microsoft Office, which contains Word, Frontpage, Publisher,
Access etc.

RTM
RTM means Release To Manufacturing. This release is leaked before it's
available in stores. A RTM version of a software title is the final
retail version, the one that you will be seeing in stores.

VLM
VLM stands for Volume License Key. This means that the cracked
application is already licensed, and therefore doesn't require an
activation after installation.

Crack Type
For example crack or keygen.


Machine
On what machine is it compatible, such as Nokia phones, PDA etc.

OS
With which operation system is it compatible. For example Windows, Mac etc.


PlayStation:


PS2
A copy of a Playstation 2 game released to CD.


PS2DVD
A copy of a Playstation 2 game released to DVD.

MULTi3 / MULTi4 / MULTi5 etc
This means the release contains multiple languages. The number at the end indicated the number of languages.


PlayStation Portable:


UMDRip
This applies only to Playstation Portable (PSP) games, and it means
that some stuff was ripped from the original game because it was not
required or was ripped to save space. For example languages or movie
files.

UMDMovie
The Playstation Portable (PSP) is also capable of playing movies.
Though a PSP can't playback DVD's or CD's, only UMD discs. So movies
for the PSP get released on UMD discs.


PSXPSP
This is a PSX (Playstation 1) game playable on a PSP (Playstation Portable) using custom PSP firmware.


USA, JAP, EUR
Especially PSP releases, but also other console releases, are sometimes
tagged as USA, JAP and EUR. These are alternative regions, and they
replace PAL and NTSC. USA are off course the United States of America,
JAP is Japan and EUR is Europe.


256MS, 512MS, 1GB and 2GB
These tags only apply to PSP releases, and they show the required size
of an UMD disc. UMD discs can contain up to 2 gigabytes. When a game is
100mb it fits on every UMD disc, but when a game is 900mb it will only
fit on 1GB and higher UMD discs.