This document is designed to resolve problems with dupes, propers, REAL_PROPERS, etc..
and to ensure that only quality releases are released to the MV scene. The following
groups have agreed to follow these guidelines:

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Index
1) Encoding

2) Releasing
a) Dirname/Filename
b) Logos
c) Concerts & Live Performances
d) NFO

3) Propers and dupes

1) Encoding
Four formats will be allowed: XViD, DIVX, SVCD and VCD.
- This means that any other format, such as:
XVCD, XSVCD, nVCD, DVDR/DVDS
will not be allowed. If you must, keep them INTERNAL.

VCD Audio:         MPEG-1 Layer 2 44.1KHz 224kbps
Replacing audio on VCD rips is RECOMMENDED,
but not required.

VCD Video:         - PAL, 1150kbps CBR, 352x288, 25 fps.
- NTSC, 1150kbps CBR, 352x240, 29.970 fps.
- NTSC-FILM, 1150kbps CBR, 352x240, 23.967 fps. (via IVTC)

SVCD Audio:          Audio must be replaced on all SVCD music videos.
Replacement audio must be from a CD, or from a high
bitrate MP3 (192kbps+) ripped from a CD. All
video soundeffects must be inserted into the replac-
ement audio

- If replacement audio *DOES NOT EXIST* for videos older than 1998,
then you can release with normalised tv audio, AND, IF
REPLACEMENT AUDIO BECOMES AVAILABLE, it can be PROPERED.

- Vinyl ripped MP3s are not to be used. Replacing
less-than-cd-quality with less-than-cd-quality is
pointless.

- Use uncensored audio. If you use censored audio,
prepare to be propered.

- Live rips (concerts, performances) use normalised audio
from source. If source is 48KHz, downsample to 44.1KHz.

SVCD Video:          - PAL, Should be inverse 2:2 pulldown manually, if possible.
(This is also known as manual-deinterlace). If this isn't
possible on a regular vid the nfo MUST state why.

- NTSC, Should be inverse 3:2 pulldown manually, if possible.
(This is also known as IVTC).
If 3:2 pulldown is not possible, then inverse 2:2 pulldown
manually, if possible.
(This is also known as manual-deinterlace)
If none of the above methods is possible the nfo MUST state why.

- Interlaced videos will not be allowed.

- Video and audio bitrate MUST be within SVCD standard.

- For maximum player compatibility, it is STRONGLY
RECOMMENDED that the video bitrate does not exceed
2496 kbps. - SVCD rips must not be ripped from VHS or SVHS source,
due to the sub-SVCD specs of both formats.

- VHS resolution (analogue) approx 240 lines of resolution.
- SVHS resolution (analogue) approx 400 lines of resolution.
- VCD resolution = 352x240(NTSC), 352x288(PAL)
- SVCD resolution = 480x480(NTSC), 480x576(PAL)

- VHS/SVHS is only sufficient for VCD rips. SVCD rips
from VHS/SVHS must be kept INTERNAL.

XViD Video:          [standard Video]
- Allowed codecs: Xvid 1.1+ or Divx6.1 +
- Upsampling the horizontal resolution to maintain the vertical
resolution is allowed.
- Upsampling both the horizontal and vertical resolution from
the source video is not allowed.
- The width and the height of the video have to be a multiple of 16.
- Maximum (PAL ) resolution is 720x576 @ 25fps
- Maximum (NTSC) resolution is 720x480 @ 30fps
- All videos MUST be manually deinterlaced / ivtc'd (if possible).
- Maximum allowed average bitrate is 4000 kbps.
- Maximum peak bitrate during any 1 second of video is 8000 kbps.
- Interlaced encoding is NOT allowed.
- GMC and QPEL are NOT allowed.
- AVI pixel shape must be square.
- Only the MPEG and H.263 quantization matrices are alowed.
- No packed bitstream.
- Key frames must be inserted every 10 seconds or less.
- It is strongly recommended videos should encoded with 1 pass using
a target quantizer setting of between 3 and 4 inclusive.
- The DRF of the video should be below 8 inclusive.
- For concerts or other performances which are long enough, the
video must be made to fit on 1 or 2 cds (700meg) whilst still
obaying the rules above, except for the minimum DRF.
A 2 pass encode must always be used for this.

[High Definition Video]
- Source must have a horizontal resolution greater than 720 for
progressive video, and a horizontal resolution greater than 1440
for interlaced video.
- Maximum resolution is 1280x720 @ 30fps
- Progressive rips must be encoded at 1280x720 unless broadcast at
a lower  resolution.
- Interlaced sources must be encoded at half resolution and must be
deinterlaced by discarding the 2nd field (even/odd field deinterlace)
(eg 1080i to be encoded at 960x544)
- Maximum allowed bitrate is 4000kbps.
- Maximum peak bitrate during any 1 second of video is 20000 kbps.

Cropping and Aspect ratio

- Letterboxed videos should be cropped to remove the black bars.
- There is one exception to this: when there's an overlaping logo common
sense should be used to decide whether to crop the entire black bar
and thus cropping half of the logo, or cropping it completely.
Propering on no or half cropped overlapping logos is NOT allowed.
- Some videos contain variable aspect ratios. Crop as to not remove any
of the picture throughout the video.
- If black bars are still present in the video after cropping (due to
permanent logos etc) they must be of equal size.
- Encodes must be within 5% of the original aspect ratio.
- Calculating AR % error: (Release - Original AR)/Original AR x 100

XViD Audio:          - Can be MP2, MP3 or AC3
- MP2 must be used if no audio replacement exists and if the audio
source contains MP2 audio. The audio can be normalised if the
normalisation does not involve re-encoding the audio.
- MP2 audio must be interleaved every frame with 500ms preloaded.
- AC3 allowed only if it is 384 kbit+ and from a DVD/HDTV source.
- AC3 must be untouched.
- AC3 pre load 64/96ms of audio and interleave every 64/96ms.
- MP3 audio must be used as audio replacement on normal videos.
It must have a average minimum bit rate of 160kbit and must be
either 44.1khz or 48khz.
- CBR audio is prefered, however VBR audio will not be nuked. CBR audio
is required for maximum hardware and software player compatability.
- MP3 encodes must always be done with LAME
(APS (--alt-preset standard) prefered for VBR)
- MP3 audio must be interleaved every frame with 500ms preloaded.
- Use uncensored audio
- Sound effects contained in the source audio must be inserted into the
replacement audio if missing.
- If replacement audio *DOES NOT EXIST* for videos older than 1998, then
you can release with normalised tv audio, AND, IF REPLACEMENT AUDIO
BECOMES AVAILABLE,it can be PROPERED.
- Vinyl ripped MP3s are not to be used. Replacing less-than-cd-quality
with less-than-cd-quality is pointless.

2) Releasing
2a) Dirname/filename

- Directory name is decided by the group. However, the following naming
scheme is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED:

Example:

- SFV and NFO are required.

- The standard extension is .mpg for both VCD and SVCD releases. However,
it doesn't matter, so groups decide to use .mpg or .m2v as extension.

2b) Logos
- Including an intro/outro is NOT RECOMMENDED. Advertisements in your
videos is not what the MV scene is about... if you must spam, then
do it your NFO file. However, intro/outro will not be banned, and
propering a video with a logo will not be permitted.

- Watermarking on videos is NOT ALLOWED. This is the same situation as
intro/outro - nobody wants to stare at your spam while watching your
rips. It's already bad enough that tv stations do it. Videos with
watermarks can be propered.

- For letterboxed videos, covering a TV station logo that is entirely
in the letterbox is RECOMMENDED. However, propering because of
tv-station-not-covered will not be permitted.

2c) Concerts and Live Performances
- Concerts involving one artist must be released as one release.
This means, for example, that if you rip a concert of Linkin Park
at the Royal Albert Hall, you CANNOT release each song as a release.

- You should include the main introduction and any other introductions
between songs, as the point in ripping a concert is to have a COMPLETE
copy of the concert.

- The ripper decides to rip as separate tracks or as full CDs.

- If you rip as separate tracks, DO NOT PUT A LOGO ON EACH TRACK.
Single-tracks ripped concerts should be packaged in ONE release,
similar to a mp3 album:

Artist-concert_title-svcd-2002-group/00-artist-concert_title.nfo
Artist-concert_title-svcd-2002-group/00-artist-concert_title.sfv
Artist-concert_title-svcd-2002-group/01-artist-introduction.mpg
Artist-concert_title-svcd-2002-group/02-artist-song1.mpg
Artist-concert_title-svcd-2002-group/03-artist-song2.mpg

- If you rip as full CDs, it is recommended that you use multipass VBR
to make it fit evenly on one or more CDs. Also package it as a BIN/CUE,
and release it the same way VCDs are: 15mb rars, and a 1 minute sample:

Artist-concert_title-svcd-2002-group/nfo_file.nfo

- Non-concert live performances with more than one song, such as those
on TOTP, awards shows, etc. should be released as individual videos
with any intermediate footage (interviews, presentations, etc.) cut
out. Also, include the date and the name of the show in the dirname.

- COMMERCIALS (such as Britney Spears' Pepsi) are not music videos, so
they will not be allowed. Keep non music video rips INTERNAL.

2d) NFO
- Your NFO should contain:
- Artist and Title
- Format (VCD/SVCD, and PAL/NTSC/NTSC-FILM)
- Video source
- Audio source
- Deinterlace type
- Size
- Genre (This is nice for sites with scripts that search NFOs for genre)
- Video Year
- Live videos MUST include the show it is from and the date it was aired.
- If you are propering, you MUST include the reason for proper,
and the name/date of the release being propered.

- Other useful information to include in your NFO, optionally, is:
- Length in min:sec
- Bitrate of video and audio streams
- Album name
- Description of video
- Fullscreen or Letterbox (FS or WS)
- Source (Name of DVD or name of TV station)

3) Propers and Dupes

- Propering because of SLIGHT quality increase is not acceptable. If the original
rip was very bad, then proper, but un-needed propers will be nuked!

- PAL & NTSC
- Releases of lower quality are dupes of higher quality, as decided by
the following list, which is in order of lowest quality to highest:

CONVERT TV-Rip, CONVERT DVD-Rip, NATIVE TV-Rip, NATIVE DVD-Rip

- Native: This means progressive.
- NTSC produced video is native to NTSC broadcasts, and PAL
produced video is native to PAL broadcasts. Native NTSC
broadcast means IVTC-able NTSC or progressive NTSC.
Native PAL means progressive PAL.

- Convert: This also means deinterlaced.
- A PAL produced video, broadcast in NTSC, is converted before
it's broadcasted. A NTSC produced video is converted to PAL
before it's broadcasted. These converts cannot be reversed
to progressive, and must be deinterlaced.

Hence, it is not a good idea to release pal-ntsc converts of top 50 videos,
because a native rip will be released.

- Widescreen/fullscreen dupes will not be allowed. Keep WS/FS dupes INTERNAL.

- The following are reasons for you to release a PROPER:
- Desync
- Incomplete
- Improper inverse 3:2 or 2:2 pulldown
- Lack of inverse 3:2 or 2:2 pulldown (if possible)
- Incorrect Aspect Ratio
- Out-of-spec rips
- Massive frame drops
- Very bad quality (includes low bitrate on high motion videos)
- Rips without replaced audio (Concerts/performances excluded)
- Poor quality replacement audio
- Censored replacement audio
- Missing more than 1 SFX (propers due to 1 SFX missing not needed)
- Native video with correct picture aspect is broadcasted
- Logo included more than once in a concert release
- No manual deinterlacing/IVTC'ing when possible
- Watermarked video
- Bad cropping
- Improper multiplexing (such as underflowed audio)

- It is vitally important that you state which release you are propering
and your reasons in your nfo, and as well make sure to put -proper- in
your dirname.

- It is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED that you demux SVCD/VCD with M2 edit, and remux
with bbmpeg, to avoid improper multiplexing errors.

- No propering of releases previous to MV COUNCIL will be allowed.
If you want to release a better version of an OLD video, keep it INTERNAL !

- No dupes based on resolution aspect ratio or video profile.