[staffrodore]

A very interesting article posted on the NZ Herald site today.
A bit long to post here (7 pages worth), but definitely worth the read.
Having not downloaded an aXXo release for a few years now, I'm amazed at the amount who still do, especialy when there is far better releasers out there. I'd say the guy who wrote this has never downloaded a movie in his life.

Hunting aXXo

[Andy]

staffrodore, on Jan 6 2009, 03:08 AM, said:

A very interesting article posted on the NZ Herald site today.
A bit long to post here (7 pages worth), but definitely worth the read.
Having not downloaded an aXXo release for a few years now, I'm amazed at the amount who still do, especialy when there is far better releasers out there. I'd say the guy who wrote this has never downloaded a movie in his life.

Hunting aXXo

Interesting read, as for aXXo most download his releases because they are small in filesize, you are guaranteed a quality rip, without all these nukes, propers etc from other release groups, and he uses simple codecs and settings, so for the average downloader aXXo is enough.

As for the article, no matter what the government does, or what laws change in country's they will never ever stop pirated content, no matter how hard they fight it. The ISPs aren't helping anyone, bringing all these high speed cable speeds, without torrent downloads seriously what would someone do with a 50-100 Mbit line rental.. streaming sites hardly require a mega BB connection to use.

The ISP and broadband speeds making their way to the public today make people want to download pirated content, you can download an average movie rip, and remove it entirely from your computer to external storage within a few minutes with a fast broadband connection.

[staffrodore]

Mind Freak, on Jan 6 2009, 04:21 AM, said:

Interesting read, as for aXXo most download his releases because they are small in filesize, you are guaranteed a quality rip, without all these nukes, propers etc from other release groups, and he uses simple codecs and settings, so for the average downloader aXXo is enough.

Ahh but Mind Freak, you are forgetting one thing - He takes material sourced from other Tier 1 providers (SCENE) and then re-encodes the material in to single CD (700Mb) releases vs the scenes rules of files of xx or xxx minutes must be xxx or xxxx size. Hence his quality on long run movies is shit-house. Short sub 90 min movies yes, 700Mb will give an OKish quality, but for 2 hour movies, you might as well be watching a Telesync.
And then there's the audio on top of that......

There are PLENTY (almost all regular releasers in fact) of other DVD rip releasers that actually KNOW what they're doing and do it FAR better than aXXo. The only thing he has going for him is he was one of the 1st re-encoders so he became known, and he does almost every movie that comes out on DVD. I would have thought by now he would have learned SOMETHING about encoding, multipasses etc, or even discover the option for "slower encoding time but better quality", but I guess not.

[Vantec]

good read. aXXo is overrated.

[Andy]

staffrodore, on Jan 6 2009, 04:46 AM, said:

Ahh but Mind Freak, you are forgetting one thing - He takes material sourced from other Tier 1 providers (SCENE) and then re-encodes the material in to single CD (700Mb) releases vs the scenes rules of files of xx or xxx minutes must be xxx or xxxx size. Hence his quality on long run movies is shit-house. Short sub 90 min movies yes, 700Mb will give an OKish quality, but for 2 hour movies, you might as well be watching a Telesync.
And then there's the audio on top of that......

There are PLENTY (almost all regular releasers in fact) of other DVD rip releasers that actually KNOW what they're doing and do it FAR better than aXXo. The only thing he has going for him is he was one of the 1st re-encoders so he became known, and he does almost every movie that comes out on DVD. I would have thought by now he would have learned SOMETHING about encoding, multipasses etc, or even discover the option for "slower encoding time but better quality", but I guess not.

You make an interesting point, but I did say for the average user aXXo is good enough. Personally I do not settle for anything less than 720 / 1080p content now.

[strawdog]

Quote

good read. aXXo is overrated.

[qiqi1021]

Too true.

@staffrodore:

aXXo does XviD encodes nowadays.

[LMG9]

staffrodore, on Jan 5 2009, 11:46 PM, said:

Ahh but Mind Freak, you are forgetting one thing - He takes material sourced from other Tier 1 providers (SCENE) and then re-encodes the material in to single CD (700Mb) releases vs the scenes rules of files of xx or xxx minutes must be xxx or xxxx size. Hence his quality on long run movies is shit-house. Short sub 90 min movies yes, 700Mb will give an OKish quality, but for 2 hour movies, you might as well be watching a Telesync.
And then there's the audio on top of that......

While the quality may be lost due to the size on many of aXXo's releases, it is nice to still be able to have access to those movies, which one may not have been able to download otherwise due to caps established by their ISPs. Something is better than nothing.

Thanks for sharing the article.

[ScHAmPi]

I don't get it... I gave my stepbrother a PUKKA 2cd release some time ago and he wasn't too happy about the quality... but he is happy about the quality of aXXo releases... people are so weird sometimes.

Edit:
"When you have six million people breaking the law, it's the law that needs changing, not the people." -> hehe good point
"To his followers, he is Robin Hood, Batman, God: he is everywhere, and nowhere." -> let's not overdo it...

[n3g4t1v3]

aXXo is not overrated! He is how I tell my parents which movies to download

And for them, he is quite enough.

[winnerma]

In terms of impact and popularity, aXXo is not overrated, his torrent (almost) always has the most seeders. However, the quality does vary depends on the length of the movie.

[LMG9]

ScHAmPi, on Jan 15 2009, 07:56 AM, said:

"When you have six million people breaking the law, it's the law that needs changing, not the people." -> hehe good point

I really like that quote, too. This article has become of some use for me today. I have a friend that won't stop asking me questions about anything and everything about torrents (and I certainly don't consider myself an expert). This article gave him a nice overview.

And yeah.. I, too, rolled my eyes at the reference to aXXo being god. Love him and all, but let's get serious here.

[midnightdragon]

i dont do torrents any more so who cares

[some1]

ScHAmPi, on Jan 15 2009, 12:56 PM, said:

"When you have six million people breaking the law, it's the law that needs changing, not the people." -> hehe good point
"To his followers, he is Robin Hood, Batman, God: he is everywhere, and nowhere." -> let's not overdo it...

Two good points

midnightdragon, on Jan 16 2009, 03:30 AM, said:

i dont do torrents any more so who cares

Umm.... 6 million people?

[vOlt]

its more like 100's of millions of people.

also torrenting is kinda illegal because you "share" too, where as a rapidshare download is less legal. (probably not in the official eyes)

great article, nonetheless. thanks staffrodore

[the kash]

ScHAmPi, on Jan 15 2009, 08:56 PM, said:

"To his followers, he is Robin Hood, Batman, God: he is everywhere, and nowhere." -> let's not overdo it...

same here, let's not get carried away. "He is Robin Hood...and he is everywhere and nowhere." nuff said

midnightdragon, on Jan 16 2009, 11:30 AM, said:

i dont do torrents any more so who cares

everybody ELSE, apparently

[Cooler]

Generally, aXXo releases are just fine. Not for keeps, but to see if movie is worth anything.
If you want better quality, just BUY the #&¤"¤% movie or go to movie theatre!

[Oceanic]

really enjoed this article

i get why the scene is bashing aXXo but i have to say i love his torrents

my reasons:

- the 2 year old dvd player plays the movies
- the quallty is good enough for the 8 year old tv i got
- every file i dl'ed form aXXo plays on the ps3 (can't say the same about pukka & co)
- i mostly use headphones so stereo sound is okay
- i know what i get when i download the file (no nukes to be worried about)
- +1000 seeds on every file there is the real spirit

[_kIf_]

Let him have his fame lol

Anybody with half a brain understands he steals from the scene who in turn steal their release's.

The biggest cheek he has is the fact he post's R5 rips and calls them DVDrips.

He mustn't go out much cos i certainly wouldn't be arsed re-encoding already decent files ad posting them all day

[Mr Grumpy]

If the large number of people out there didn't like the quality of AXXO's uploads then why are there so many people doing fakes and calling them AXXO releases.