why people will take a single file and split it into 15 or 20 separate .RAR files to make it into a sigle RAR for the release? What benefit does the download gain? I remember the good ol'days (20th century), when splitting a big file on several floppy disks was the only way to share: but why worry about it, now?
I would love some insight into this, someone please explain why this is done. This is one of the biggest mysteries to me. The only thing I get out of it is having to take a few extra minutes to extract the file before I can do anything with it.

 

It's a scene convention for some of the reasons stated here.

 

Rasputin says:

Actually I'm talking about the one link releases (one single file). Usually, inside this big rar there are let's say 20 little rar parts: they only came out after the first decompression. So, I have no way to redownload just a single part in case of errors

Catalyst says:

Yeah, I guess Catalyst hit the mark: there is no real logic purpose: it is a dogma...

 

And an really old one. Also the rar-parts have a max of 8+2 letters...thats soooooo old fashioned! I think this rule is from MS-Dos times!

I also sometimes wonder why releases are not simply packed in an adaequate way.
Best way would be to pack it incl. directory structure.
And after extraction automatically have a folder with such a nomenclature:

Minimum information on each release should be:

[Company Name][Product Name][Version No.][x64 x86][Type of Application(VST,VSTi,VST3,AAX,RTAS,AU)][OS (WIN, OSX, LINUX)][Group-tt-mm-yyyy]

additionaly info about language.

Folder structure should be:
[Company Name][Product Name][Version No.][x64 x86][Type of Application(VST,VSTi,VST3,AAX,RTAS,AU)][OS (WIN, OSX, LINUX)][Group-tt-mm-yyyy]
-->Folder named [Crack] (should contain nfo + Keygen + etc.]
-->setup.exe/dmg/etc.

This is also the best way to archive software. You have all necessary information directly in foldername.

Exsample:
Native Instruments Kontakt 5 v5.4.1 x64 x86 STANDALONE VSTi AAX Update + Full Install Patch WIN (R2R-17-09-2014)

But I fear this will never happen! I dont want to calculate the years I've spend renaming and sorting all Audiowarez I archived the last 18 years. What a waste of time!

 

Thanks Rasputin for saving me the full explanation and for hitting on some great key points. I was about to get into it but realized I'd be spending time I need to wrap up some important things. There is a reason for the existence of every scene rule since the scene is made up of people that have to actually see all sides to a decision rather then the end result of making cataloging easy for you lukehh which leads us to a very important point: The scene does not serve us, they support us! It seems that the difference is lost on many these days. They do not care about how easy or not it is for the end user, in their view they could have just as easily not shared anything and then packaging would certainly not matter. They do what they feel is right and if it will ever need to be changed then someone will propose changes and they will be voted on. Even then just because scene rules would dictate that files be packed a certain way there is no guarantee that when passed through many hands it wouldn't be repackaged differently. We are given a gift, however it is packaged or whatever work we have to put in to catalog it. Luke for you it may be better to catalog like that, to someone else that may be completely irrelevant or even inferior packaging. You're also forgetting that such a long name will probably bump up against OS file name limits especially since most people don't store files in the root of a drive and there would be at least a path of a few folders + the file name which would be too long. If something is done a certain way we should trust that it's done that way for a reason that we may not be seeing or understanding what that reason is either because we aren't involved on all levels or simply because we don't have all the information. When we look at it for us the only thing that matters is our end user experience but that is not the whole picture. *no*

 

Very interesting, I can see clearly now

 

the rain is gone?

 

good question, good answer

 

Hassle aside, it also (i believe), makes it harder for the OG Content owners to sniff out when trying to send out DCMA take downs etc…. hence the naming schemes etc… but i could be wrong, usually am!

 

But that doesn't explain a small file rar'ed into many pieces and then zipped under that etc. This over zipping is sometimes taken to silly levels for no apparent reason in my opinion. I've seen this on 10mb and less. How hard is it to restart a failed 10mb download?

 

i love that its zipped, dont get deleted by antivirus ( which i dont use for 2 years now )

 

Yes it's so frustrating when the things we get for free are not packed the way we think they should be. Hey that rhymes. :dancing:

it reminds me of how people join AudioZ and then immediately start letting everyone know how it should be run, if only we did x, y and z it would be so different. Of course they don't put into account the 100 other things they haven't considered. Who has time to explain all this stuff anyway? If you spend all day justifying every decision then you get nothing done. *no*

 

splitting rars might make sense for large files what what about a 10mb soundbank that split in parts?

 

I don't think anyone is complaining here, we just want to know why it is the way it is.

My three hypothesis, are
A) to manipulate file sizes, for example on uploaded.to files under 25 or so mb don't generate any revenue, this revenue is used to release more material.
B) when the packer is compiling the package, splitting rar to multiple files for the initial compression (which if you've noticed takes longer), may reduce the need to re-rar if any errors occurs as you may not have to re-rar all parts. then compress all the bits to one single manageable file (which doesn't take nearly as long, since no real compression takes place).
C) Its harder to peek into a rar within a rar to see if its contents breach the TOS.

 

A) Wrong. We're talking about the scene packing (initial packing done by teams),
and teams don't give a shit about couriers and people down the chain making money with FFS.
If there was something to do to prevent the end uploader from making money
(and beggars to have stuff they don't deserve) they would try to stop that. And they do try.
The easiest way?
Go totally or anyway 99% internal like most big teams did since long time.
Most stuff people beg about everyday on forums, included big stuff we always reply with "you'll never see it",
it's around since years in the internal channels. Yeah, even that stuff that need a thingy plugged in your usb port to work *yes*

B) These are standard that have been used in the scene since day 0, mostly related to that time archiving media.
A commonly used format was floppy (1.44MB).
Many of those standards are still used, both for historical reasons and also still valid practical reasons.
Official scene groups are those that stick more strongly to the old standards.
In P2P Audio scene (R2R i.e.) they use split rars too but no particular standards about size are required,
though every group tend to use same size.
I mean, for a 4MB file R2R make a single archive, not 4 x 1.44MB segments individually zipped like i.e. CORE would do.

C) Yeah, that's true.
Though, scene groups don't give a fuck about TOS of this or that site,
since they share on ftp and their release are not meant to go on p2p or FFS channels.

I advice you guys to read this, scroll down to the packaging section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)

 

really, MINUTES ?

you know you can select ALL zip files in a folder , right click->'extract here' for "batch-extracting" them (winrar) ?
This is 1,36 secs of work for me ;)

 

scene rules never gets updated, thats the reason... it's simply a relict from the loooooooooooooooong past! at the early 90's are no flatrates available, so it was not cheap to download 15 MB, as it was not bad enough... the download rate was more than lame. (at this time i pay ervery month +\- 1300 DM *in EURO more,less 650€) - it happens many times that it tooks 1h for !!!1MB!!!, and i agree... most times no resume-support at ftp's (and also most time, your online connection brokes after some time for sure) , so at 80% download of total 1MB you have to begin new and new and new (so we HAPPY till end because of splitted archives) SHORT: ALL THAT PACKING "RULES" MAKES REALLY A SENSE TO AVOID USERS, GETTING POOR OR MAD---> !!!AT AT THE PAST!!! ,

but today? it's a joke and a worthless work unpacking anytime tons of releases in that way... LOL , they also STILL put Sfv\Hash Checks inside a !5MB! Release (its for the ftp-site, there are scripts inside who check it and put after this something like a COMPLETE tagline inside the rel-folder... OK! makes today still sense, IF you plan to download a 17 GB release)

...the SAME with "PATCHERS" , the mainthing as all began: they must be under 15kb (because of the same reasons described above and later because of it was something like a challenge to generate stunning things with a tiny size for coders) BUT: PLZ!!!! wake up, scenedumb from the past!!!!, we have 2015! feel free to put mp3's inside a crack , instead of ugly xm-mod tunes from C64 releases incl. a dos-looking gui & stop packing any shit as archive-fragments, use ISO or simply 1xRAR for whatever! ... that's my thoughts about this thread-question and i hope anyone *scenerelated hq owner* read this and start begin living in the future

 

I personally have argued against the splitting of releases for no reason. In my opinion the fact that teams have to split small sized releases is silly. I can understand the reasoning if they're larger but they are forced to split even if the file size is 7 MB. What a pain in the ass and it creates an extra opportunity to fuck something up. Also some teams ignore these rules and don't split anything under 50 MB (DISCOVER) yet some teams are still asked to do it (HORIZON, SYNTHiC4TE). Don't really understand why. It's one of those: we always did it that way and so we're going to continue doing it that way.

Tracer you have to remember that teams are forced to adhere to these rules so it's not so easy as not to follow them. Everyone has to agree to scrap them. Personally I would like to see P2P 2.0. Maybe one day it will be on the horizon.