4 ms·

Most of the time when I search for something, I sort by more seeders first. Some type of signature can be used too.

ryandrake 3y ago
Sorting by number of seeders will probably get you a file that is fast to download because of the number of seeders, but it will rarely get you quality. Let's go take a stroll over to a popular public torrent site and search for, say, a recent superhero movie. I see 100 (!) results for that movie's name. 49 of them have zero seeders at all. I don't know what even is the point. 29 of the results have one seeder. So already, 78% of the results are pure crap. Let's look at the top result with 338 seeders: File is 3GB, H.264 video, 1080p, but with a crappy stereo AAC audio encoding... arrggh why?? Number 2 result with 84 seeders: 1.43GB, H.264 video, 720p, no word on the quality of the audio encoding. Even more worthless. Number 3 result with 17 seeders: HEVC format, 2160p, audio streams include TrueHD Atmos 7.1, DTS-HD, Dolby Digital 5.1, stereo, and three non-English language streams. But, with an eye-watering download size of 61GB. Holy shit! Nice, but wow, what a download. You have to go a few more down the list to find a good balance of high quality video and audio encoding, but with a reasonable file size. By that point you're in the single digit number of seeders. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have a few choices and quality trade-offs. I guess there's someone out there who doesn't care about the stereo audio because they watch their movies with laptop speakers. But 100 results, with the vast majority of them either unseeded, poorly-seeded, or flawed in some way. I agree with OP: You definitely want some curation, not just search!
- fknorangesite 3y ago
  > arrggh why?? Because you are vastly overestimating how much most people actually notice or care about this.
- hirako2000 3y ago
  I often pick the 0 seeders results if there is even a slight chance of better quality, and quite often there is. 0 seeders now doesn't mean forever. Some seeders only hook to the network once in a while, long enough for a few leechers to fetch it all. If the content is in demand enough then a few seeders may be left and suddenly a 0 seeder search result becomes an attractive one. Even curating is complicated for the human eye, so good luck automating that.
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    Yes it sometimes works but usually for smaller stuff like ebooks or music. You dont want to download gigabytes if not more from 1 spotty seeder, the chances it wont take days of 24h online and source being obline too are tiny. Sometimes disconnect from site seeder count is bigger, and say 1 seeder mentioned is actually 15. But that was never rarbg's case, it was reliable and dependable like no other similar service. It also had IMBD rating so I could quickly weed out not so great stuff and focus on well rated ones, it generated maybe 60-80 movies a day with my filter applied, so quite a stream. After 2 week vacation, catching up took some time. I used to, including today, to just go there every day or two and check whats new with my predefined filter. Often great movies that I never heard about before, old and new alike, took 2 mins to get 1080p x265 variant. Glad I've still managed to download that highly rated turkish movie this morning.
    - hirako2000 3y ago
      It is sad they didn't take the care to open source their stuff with whatever doc may be floating in their chats, for a resurrect
- o1y32 3y ago
  Great example. Some private trackers have strict rules about quality, e.g. at most one 720p and at most one 1080p (probably 1080p and 4k nowadays), bitrate must be above a certain threshold, whichever was published first stays, unless there is an "official" version published by the same people maintaining the website. The exact opposite of decentralized torrent sites, and works really well. Takes a lot of work, obviously.
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago
  I always assume that the movie studios themselves hired some proxies to put out those 61gb files so as to waste everyone's time and bandwidth.
  - zolland 3y ago
    This is a proven fact, do not be fooled. For decades Big Movie have been propagating disks out into the public with giant movie files on them.
    - HlessClaudesman 3y ago
      Just like how Big Music decided to fight their pirates by only releasing unlistenable music for the last 20 years.
  - TheCoelacanth 3y ago
    They are probably just ripped straight from a bluray without re-encoding.
- recursive 3y ago
  > doesn't care about the stereo audio because they watch their movies with laptop speakers. Stereo doesn't imply low fidelity. Just as 7.1 Dolby Unobtainium doesn't imply high fidelity speakers.
pessimizer 3y ago
> I sort by more seeders first. But this couldn't be easier to game. All you have to do to be a seed is to report that you are a seed. You don't even have to send any data.

Sorting by number of seeders will probably get you a file that is fast to download because of the number of seeders, but it will rarely get you quality. Let's go take a stroll over to a popular public torrent site and search for, say, a recent superhero movie. I see 100 (!) results for that movie's name. 49 of them have zero seeders at all. I don't know what even is the point. 29 of the results have one seeder. So already, 78% of the results are pure crap. Let's look at the top result with 338 seeders: File is 3GB, H.264 video, 1080p, but with a crappy stereo AAC audio encoding... arrggh why?? Number 2 result with 84 seeders: 1.43GB, H.264 video, 720p, no word on the quality of the audio encoding. Even more worthless. Number 3 result with 17 seeders: HEVC format, 2160p, audio streams include TrueHD Atmos 7.1, DTS-HD, Dolby Digital 5.1, stereo, and three non-English language streams. But, with an eye-watering download size of 61GB. Holy shit! Nice, but wow, what a download. You have to go a few more down the list to find a good balance of high quality video and audio encoding, but with a reasonable file size. By that point you're in the single digit number of seeders. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have a few choices and quality trade-offs. I guess there's someone out there who doesn't care about the stereo audio because they watch their movies with laptop speakers. But 100 results, with the vast majority of them either unseeded, poorly-seeded, or flawed in some way. I agree with OP: You definitely want some curation, not just search!

fknorangesite 3y ago
> arrggh why?? Because you are vastly overestimating how much most people actually notice or care about this.
hirako2000 3y ago
I often pick the 0 seeders results if there is even a slight chance of better quality, and quite often there is. 0 seeders now doesn't mean forever. Some seeders only hook to the network once in a while, long enough for a few leechers to fetch it all. If the content is in demand enough then a few seeders may be left and suddenly a 0 seeder search result becomes an attractive one. Even curating is complicated for the human eye, so good luck automating that.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  Yes it sometimes works but usually for smaller stuff like ebooks or music. You dont want to download gigabytes if not more from 1 spotty seeder, the chances it wont take days of 24h online and source being obline too are tiny. Sometimes disconnect from site seeder count is bigger, and say 1 seeder mentioned is actually 15. But that was never rarbg's case, it was reliable and dependable like no other similar service. It also had IMBD rating so I could quickly weed out not so great stuff and focus on well rated ones, it generated maybe 60-80 movies a day with my filter applied, so quite a stream. After 2 week vacation, catching up took some time. I used to, including today, to just go there every day or two and check whats new with my predefined filter. Often great movies that I never heard about before, old and new alike, took 2 mins to get 1080p x265 variant. Glad I've still managed to download that highly rated turkish movie this morning.
  - hirako2000 3y ago
    It is sad they didn't take the care to open source their stuff with whatever doc may be floating in their chats, for a resurrect
o1y32 3y ago
Great example. Some private trackers have strict rules about quality, e.g. at most one 720p and at most one 1080p (probably 1080p and 4k nowadays), bitrate must be above a certain threshold, whichever was published first stays, unless there is an "official" version published by the same people maintaining the website. The exact opposite of decentralized torrent sites, and works really well. Takes a lot of work, obviously.
HlessClaudesman 3y ago
I always assume that the movie studios themselves hired some proxies to put out those 61gb files so as to waste everyone's time and bandwidth.
- zolland 3y ago
  This is a proven fact, do not be fooled. For decades Big Movie have been propagating disks out into the public with giant movie files on them.
  - HlessClaudesman 3y ago
    Just like how Big Music decided to fight their pirates by only releasing unlistenable music for the last 20 years.
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  They are probably just ripped straight from a bluray without re-encoding.
recursive 3y ago
> doesn't care about the stereo audio because they watch their movies with laptop speakers. Stereo doesn't imply low fidelity. Just as 7.1 Dolby Unobtainium doesn't imply high fidelity speakers.

pessimizer 3y ago

> I sort by more seeders first. But this couldn't be easier to game. All you have to do to be a seed is to report that you are a seed. You don't even have to send any data.