Video-Torrents lingo

Statutory Warning: This blog is definitely not for the technical know-it-alls. It is for the tech-dummies (like me) who get overwhelmed when they come across too many new tech-terms n r also dying coz of the guilt of being a S/w engineer n still being so dumb-founded!(when a 10 yr old would know more than them in this case!)

Gosh! when I tried to select a torrent for download, I was literally sunk under a pile load of technical crap that I jus could not understand.The name of a video torrent generally has a lot of unheard abbreviations(abbrv). N, when selecting from many torrents with different pile of abbrv. , it helps to know what they stand for. The abbrv are obviously for the video that you will download using that torrent and a torrent client.
Lemme use an example here:

The curious Case of Benjamin Button DVDSCR XviD-DEViSE 4607167 TPB

Breakup is as follows:
1)The curious Case of Benjamin Button - Movie name (I know that u know, btw!)
2)DVDSCR - A screener is a pre VHS(Video Home System) tape, sent to rental stores, and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a VHS tape(wikipedia has a good description of this), and is usually in a 4:3 (full screen) a/r(Aspect Ratio- Again Wiiki can further enlighten u on this), although letterboxed screeners are sometimes found. DVDSCR is same premise as a screener, but transferred off a DVD. Usually letterbox , 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.
3)DivX/XviD 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. So, that is the video format.
4)DEViSE - DEViSE is indeed a better-known ripper Group- usually display their torent rips in MININOVA
(a). The worst kind of rips is the one that amasses a bunch of .rar files.
Decent-quality Rippers (aXXo, FXG and others) always provide a .avi(audio-video interleaved) file. Better-quality Rippers (eg, JOHNY) provide .mkv containers.
If you work with a Ripper that falls in case (a), then in order to obtain the .avi file, you should unrar the XXX00.rar file. When unraring ends, extract (ie, "copy") the .avi file which is produced in a folder of your preference.
Process the .avi file [maybe alongside your preferred .srt subtitle file] with CX2D.
5)4607167 TPB - TPB stands for thepiratebay.
4607167 is of course the specific tracking number for this particular torrent file. So using the above information, you can go to the following site:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4607167
This site is used for trackers n will give u more info abt the torrent and kind of ensure that its not a virus.

Again Wiki will come 2 the rescue to figure out what is a tracker.
Seeders,leechers etc are other related terminology to understand how torrents and torrent clients work.

At times one also sees torrent names like (most of the letters are in caps unlike below):
.dvdscr.xvid-ac3-int-devise.
Here Ac3 is an audio format and int is for internal release from DEViSE.
There could be a dot or hyphen or space seperating there various terms. Those are just to seperate the terms from one another. Mostly, whether letters are in caps or not depends on the way the fornat is written.' Devise' is alsways written by the group as DEViSE and Xvid is always written as XviD. So, whether the abbreviation is in caps or not, is for a reason and not a typo.

If you click on the description of a torrent, you might also find useful info:
Release Name: .DVDRip.XviD.AC3.iNT-DEViSE
Size: 2CD, 1.37GB
Video Quality: DVDRip, XViD, 720×416(this value decides lines per picture), 1970kbps(kilobits per sec,which is the sampling bit-rate), 23.976 FPS(frames per sec)
Audio Quality: AC3 5.1, 448kbps
Runtime: 85 minutes
Filename: devise-.cd1, devise-.cd2

Another good description of a torrent is :
http://www.mininova.org/tor/1967344

At times, you'll find the word CAM/MD. A 'cam video type' is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. MD stands for Mini Disc Recorder which is the audio source when CAM is the source for video recording.MD gives better audio clarity than the in-built microphone in the video-cam.

A good site on Video quality and related jargon:
http://www.vcdq.com/index.php?page=faq

There are many words that I have not yet covered because as I breathe, ppl r coming up with new formats n abbrv. for those. But coz, now u know that those scary terms generally r for coding formats or video/audio sources or rip providers or trackers, it will be easier for you to use the correct keywords to search on Google. Believe me, just searching for 'MD' or 'TPB' or even 'MD torrent 'can get u quite a lot of crappy search results!

Do add in ur specialized knowledge on this(if u hav it) or correct me (if u know better).... :)