I generally use torrents from mininova for mainstream films. For harder-to-find foreign or independent films I usually go to The Pirate Bay or Demonoid (which is a great source for audio books too).
Look for DVD or BD rips by well-known groups like aXXo or FXG (movies) or eztv (tv shows). The easiest way to gauge quality before you download is to get the torrent with the most seeds. For example, a search for Harry Potter by default sorts by date, which isn't very useful since a lot of it is crap. But if you sort by seeds you get the most popular on top, which is a nice compilation of the first 5 movies by aXXo.
Most standard-resolution videos are encoded with XviD with either 2-channel MP3 audio or multichannel AC3 audio. High-resolution videos (high-definition BD rips) are usually encoded with H.264 with multichannel AC3 or AAC audio. I recommend you get the CCCP codec pack to ensure that you can play everything, or use the VLC player which has most codecs preinstalled.
Look for DVD or BD rips by well-known groups like aXXo or FXG (movies) or eztv (tv shows). The easiest way to gauge quality before you download is to get the torrent with the most seeds. For example, a search for Harry Potter by default sorts by date, which isn't very useful since a lot of it is crap. But if you sort by seeds you get the most popular on top, which is a nice compilation of the first 5 movies by aXXo.
Sometimes I just browse all movies and sort by the number of seeds to see what's popular: http://www.mininova.org/cat-list/4/seeds
Most standard-resolution videos are encoded with XviD with either 2-channel MP3 audio or multichannel AC3 audio. High-resolution videos (high-definition BD rips) are usually encoded with H.264 with multichannel AC3 or AAC audio. I recommend you get the CCCP codec pack to ensure that you can play everything, or use the VLC player which has most codecs preinstalled.
Oh, and download with μTorrent.
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