Movie rip standards
From Wiki
There are the ways movies can be ripped. This is a rough order of the quality of the releases. Of course individual rips may be better than the previous ones, but thats the exeption.
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Video Techniques
CAM
A cam is as it sounds. Somebody goes into the movie theater with a big trench coat, in which is a camera and tripod. When the lights dim, they set up the camera and do their best to center it. These releases often suffer from poor video quality, terrible audio quality, and video that is not centered with the screen. Often, because of where the camera is, the picture won't be rectangular.
TELESYNC
Similar to a cam, but of much higher quality. These are usually CAM's taken from in the projector room. They are perfectly centered and may often have audio-input for high quality audio. Telesyncs will suffer from moderately poor video quality, often having low audio quality, but are, on average, much better looking than a CAM
Guide To Telesync Here
TELECINE
A telecine is a copy of a movie made from the original tape reel at a movie theater. These are rare, because getting a hold of the tape for a long enough time to make the copy, and simply getting a flying spot scanner (telecine machine) is difficult and somewhat expensive.
R5
R5 refers to a specific format of DVD released in the Former-Soviet Union, which is in DVD Region 5. R5 releases differ from normal releases in that they are usually a direct Telecine transfer of the film without any of the image processing common on DVD releases, and without any special features. Releases of this sort are of rather high quality image/audio, but still not DVD quality. R5 releases are sometimes tagged as Telecine, and sometimes .R5.
R5 Line
R5 Line is almost the same as R5, the line meaning it has direct english line audio. The releases are tagged .r5line or something similar.
DVDSCREENER
As a film gets reviewed by critics and is rated for awards, several copies of it are sent out in DVD format. Occasionally a copy of this DVD will be released to the public. These are relatively high quality videos, usually encoded in xvid. Often, you will see a banner on the video stating that it is a screener. These are similar to R5 DVDs as sometimes they are cleaned up (cigarette burns removed, etc) and sometimes are left in their original quality.
DVDRip
These are rips straight from the commercial DVD. They will be similar in quality to a screener, but will be the "final cut". They are also cleaned up of all defects like cigarette burns and watermarks.
DVDR
These are full 4.7 or 8.5 GB rips of the DVD, generally in a cd image format such as .iso. These can then be burned, or mounted with a program like alcohol 120%, to produce a full quality video containing menus and bonus features. The only drawback to these is the huge file size when compared to a 700 mb xvid. If you plan to view the movie on a large television, this is what you want to look for.
Video Codecs
XviD
DivX spelled backwards. Its very similar to Divx, but is open source. Therefore, its more universal and has supporting applications on linux and other less common operating systems
DivX
The original codec used to encode movies in the scene. It is known for having superior quality for the size of its files. It has been banned from the scene because it became commercial, and XViD provides better encoding for same sized files.
x264
X264 is an opensource codec also used in the warez scene. It's not nearly as common as XviD, even though it's rather good. It's maintained by VideoLAN and is released under the GNU/GPL. You can view x264 files in VLC Media Player, also maintained by VideoLAN.
Audio Codecs
MP3
This is by far the most common audio format used for rips. It's, as you might know, also used in virtually any portable music player. The format offers a fairly good quality compared to filesize. Movie audio is often encoded using the Lame encoder, which is bundled with many dvdrip applications.
OGG
Ogg or Ogg Vorbis is a new addition to the world of codecs. It's completely opensource, unlike MP3 it doesn't require propreitary software to encode/decode, and it actually outperforms MP3 in many ways. Ogg is not as popular as MP3, maybe because it's newer, but it is also found in some scene releases. To play ogg files you can use virtually any player, as long as you install the codecs. Winamp and VLC support ogg out-of-box.
AC3
AC3 is the audio format used in DVDs. It's 5-channel surround compared to Ogg and MP3s 2-channel stereo, so this is the audio format to look for, if you are watching your movies with a surround system attached. If an XviD release contains AC3 audio it's marked as: Release.Name.XviD.AC3-ReleaseGroup.
