I’ve seen a few throughout my life at friend’s houses as a kid during the age of Limewire. Typically they were pretty good quality even though you’d see the odd person get up from their seat or hardcoded subtitles. Lately I’ve been curious about the history behind them and how they came to be.
Have there been well known release groups similar to the game cracking scene?
Have they always been mostly from one region?
Are they released strategically for one reason or another?
Have there been hidden methods to bust groups after a release such as steganography?
I’d be down to hear any facts about it you find interesting, stories, and if you have any articles or videos about the subject.
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone in this thread mention Telecines at all. It’s a machine that captures the video and audio from the film print directly to digital. A lot of good Cam rips were filmed from the projection booth, and could conceivably be done by a projectionist surreptitiously. Telecines though, required a large piece of equipment and time with a print outside of hours. Likely you’d need to be a manager or owner to get away with it, or have their blessing.
I remember the excitement of finding a Telecine for a movie in theatres rather than a Cam. It felt like striking gold. I bet the people releasing those in scene groups would be treated like gods back then.
Also, Telesyncs, which would be labelled TS, is when you have that high quality cam recording and sync it to a direct recording of the audio. The audio often came from the FM microbroadcast that are designed for hearing-aid users.
Don’t even get me started on how audio is included on a 35mm film print. Dolby Digital is an image of a digital signal (basically a QR code) that is between the cog-wheel holes on one side. Good Telecine machines are able to record the full surround track from this. That used to be the absolute best you could get while something was still in theatres. Often better than award copies, they had no stupid watermarks.