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Par2 and new posting style
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Falk



Joined: 18 Jul 2002
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 3:18 pm    Post subject: Par2 and new posting style Reply with quote

Hi,
Since there are now tools (Win32: http://www.pbclements.co.uk/QuickPar/ - Unix: http://parchive.sourceforge.net/#client_par2cmdline) released that support the par2 standard (http://www.pbclements.co.uk/QuickPar/AboutPAR2.htm) it would be possible to cut the split / rar part out of the posting process. One could simply d/l all available parts of the file and then repair it with a given amount of par2 parts. This would make handling usenet downloads and uploads much more convenient and comfortable and save unnescessary posting of par files, too. As abma was one of the first groups to use par files it would be great if par2 would become the new standard fast.

Greets
Falk
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 3:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

AB(M)A was the first, I believe, since the idea was by a regular here and the starting spec by his friend, who I think also lurked here. Very Happy They, of course, did the really smart thing of making it open-source and open-collaboration.

I just hope that folks don't start deciding to skip the rar process due to the fact that par2 supposedly works well with individual large files. I feel a headache coming on. Mad

Falk, I'm unclear on one point. How will it "save unnecessary posting of par files"? I believe I understand the "advantages" of par2, but don't see how this point is strongly affected. The poster still has to decide on an amount of par2 data to post, doesn't (s)he? (Unless they depend on requests, but that was true of par1 also.)
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One other point is that with a number of newsreaders, it's difficult/time-consuming/impossible to download and save an incomplete file-- my binary downloader in particular pukes at the slightest yEnc error, leaving me with nothing-- no temp files or anything! So for me, unless I change my binary downloader software (and I'm *very* happy with NewsShark), par2 won't do anything for me that the original par didn't (aside from recovering corrupt files with less data required, though I very rarely run into corrupt files...).
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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@Keikai: This applies only to the case when files are corrupt and not missing completely. I usually included 20-30% of par files with my posts;with par2 i think i would reduce it to 10-15% because of the partial restore capability. It´s likely that most people will get something of a post and instead of using a complete par, they can now more or less d/l fills (a thing that unfortunately nearly ceased to exist). Also, I don´t see the advantage of rars anymore with this technique since it really would make things more cleary in big groups and most newsreaders can handle partials quite well.

@Melchior: The partial restore capability is of no use with newsshark atm, true. But since it isn´t discontinued they could add such a feature in future releases. And although you don´t really have any advantage from par2s at this time it won´t bring you any disadvantage either. And people with really crappy newsservers will be grateful for it since it saves them quite some bandwith.

BTW: There are some par2 files posted with the releases in alt.binaries.sounds.anime, so if you´re interested in seeing it in action...
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Falk



Joined: 18 Jul 2002
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2003 10:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Guest" is of course me (just forgot to log in).
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zanson



Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 41

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 3:18 am    Post subject: Re: Par2 and new posting style Reply with quote

Do either of these clients verify parv1 files also? From looking at their instructions and abilities it seems they don't, but I thought I'd ask... I don't want yet another program I need to verify files, I already need an sfv checker and a par checker, now I need a par2 checker also... It makes command line globbed checking a pain. par r *.p* will now break because of the .par2 files, and par2 r *.p* will break on the par1 files...

Falk wrote:
Hi,
Since there are now tools (Win32: http://www.pbclements.co.uk/QuickPar/ - Unix: http://parchive.sourceforge.net/#client_par2cmdline) released that support the par2 standard (http://www.pbclements.co.uk/QuickPar/AboutPAR2.htm) it would be possible to cut the split / rar part out of the posting process. One could simply d/l all available parts of the file and then repair it with a given amount of par2 parts. This would make handling usenet downloads and uploads much more convenient and comfortable and save unnescessary posting of par files, too. As abma was one of the first groups to use par files it would be great if par2 would become the new standard fast.

Greets
Falk
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(inc)



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 356
Location: San Diego

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 4:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can't even *force* the Win version to open a PAR.

Keikai wrote:
first, I believe, since the idea was by a regular here and the starting spec by his friend,
Giving credit: Tobias Rieper ==> concept, beaker ==> code (Mirror) PARs were first tested and used on Usenet in aba/abma around Oct/'01.

I hope I'm surprised, but all my instincts tell me PAR2 is going to be a painful transition. Hehe, remember how hard it was (still is at times) to get people just to use PARs. X-platform compatibility, X-new-client compatility, blah, blah.... Sheesh, people screemed to high heaven when RAR changed its naming convention.

My first reaction is to still use RAR in the near term, if only because of news-reader compatibility problems with saving partially streamed avi's. Hehe, even in the sites "How to use..." they get enough info to repair by adding another *data* file (Deus Ex Machina Twisted Evil ) to their list of .dat's ==> compare it to re-up'ing a part of a RAR set after, say, some hypothetical post in which only 3 or your intial 4 parts arrived anywhere and the 3 that did arrive are damaged.

(inc)
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PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 5:53 am    Post subject: Re: Par2 and new posting style Reply with quote

zanson wrote:
Do either of these clients verify parv1 files also? From looking at their instructions and abilities it seems they don't, but I thought I'd ask... I don't want yet another program I need to verify files, I already need an sfv checker and a par checker, now I need a par2 checker also... It makes command line globbed checking a pain. par r *.p* will now break because of the .par2 files, and par2 r *.p* will break on the par1 files...


You could try:

par r *.p??

and:

par2 r *.par2*
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zanson



Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 41

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 2:21 pm    Post subject: Re: Par2 and new posting style Reply with quote

Anonymous wrote:

You could try:

par r *.p??

and:

par2 r *.par2*


I know I could, but that takes 2 commands and more thought. Its not that much of a big deal, just would be nice if the V2 clients had backwards compatibility. More people will upgrade to the v2 clients if they do, and therefor use v2 when they make new par sets.
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 4:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Falk wrote:
@Keikai: This applies only to the case when files are corrupt and not missing completely. I usually included 20-30% of par files with my posts;with par2 i think i would reduce it to 10-15% because of the partial restore capability. It´s likely that most people will get something of a post and instead of using a complete par, they can now more or less d/l fills (a thing that unfortunately nearly ceased to exist). Also, I don´t see the advantage of rars anymore with this technique since it really would make things more cleary in big groups and most newsreaders can handle partials quite well.

@Melchior: The partial restore capability is of no use with newsshark atm, true. But since it isn´t discontinued they could add such a feature in future releases. And although you don´t really have any advantage from par2s at this time it won´t bring you any disadvantage either. And people with really crappy newsservers will be grateful for it since it saves them quite some bandwith.


PAR2 will bring me disadvantage if one or the other of these situations happen:
1) People stop RARing and instead post huge single files, which I can't download and decode with my current software if a single part is missing.
2) People reduce the amount of redundancy in their posts because PAR2 allows more efficiency (whereas my situation doesn't allow me to take advantage of that efficiency).

And as far as switching binary downloaders goes, when yEnc was introduced, I tried XNews, and I *hated* it, but it worked, so I continued to use it. I tried a few other binary downloaders and didn't like them (problems ranging from demos that were far too limited, with nags popping up every 5 minutes, to software that advertised yEnc compliance but didn't actually do it, to software that was horrendously buggy). I might not've lasted on Usenet had I not found yProxy last spring, which let me go back to my ooold copy of NewsShark (circa 1999) which works well and is super-easy to use. I tried a couple other pieces of software (capable of handling multiple servers) a few months back, but ended up going back to NewsShark because I prefer the user interface.

I wonder when Forte's going to release Agent 2.0.....
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PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2003 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

All the binary newsreaders I've seen will not even attempt to combine and decode a file if it sees parts missing. Doing so would produce a corrupt file, so disallowing it is normally the correct behavior.
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2003 12:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The advantages of par2 are certainly interesting, but, since par1 was written specifically for the needs of our group, it makes it a far less spectacular jump than for many other binary groups.

That said, even if par2 were a step backwards, some people would use it anyways, just to be different. So, we need to be prepared. Once I've played with it a bit I'll get a quick section into the FAQ about it. Initially, I'll urge caution in it's use and emphasize that it doesn't lift the need for rarring. Any other comments?
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2003 12:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Keikai wrote:
Any other comments?


One of the things that I specifically like about RARing files is that it forces the downloader to crc-check the files when he/she unRARs them. I suspect that a lot of people will download large unRARed video files without any apparent problems, and then they'll skip the stage of checking the file against a PAR2 file to verify correctness when in fact their file has developed some small errors during the download process that now cause blocky bits on the screen here and there, or keyframes that are messed up, or you-name-it...
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PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2003 2:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Melchior wrote:
One of the things that I specifically like about RARing files is that it forces the downloader to crc-check the files when he/she unRARs them.
The extra check when unraring is very useful, but I have had at least one instance of a rar set when FSRaid said was valid and WinRAR said it was not. The poster obviously made an error of some kind with the creation of the RAR and PAR files.
Melchior wrote:
I suspect that a lot of people will download large unRARed video files without any apparent problems, and then they'll skip the stage of checking the file against a PAR2 file to verify correctness when in fact their file has developed some small errors during the download process that now cause blocky bits on the screen here and there, or keyframes that are messed up, or you-name-it...
There are many groups which use neither RAR (or any other archiver/splitter) nor PAR. Most postings (even in the groups which do use RAR/PAR) tend to include and SFV file or an MD5 file. If users download files and choose not to verify them that is their lookout.

That said however, considering the number of newsreaders which won't permit you to download an incomplete file, continuing to use RAR is probably a sensible idea.

The developers of those newsreaders which won't permit you to download incomplete files obviously operated on (what they thought was the reasonable) assumption that no one would ever want an incomplete (and hence obviously damaged) file.

That is all well and good, but some of the file types in the binary groups are still useable even if the file has been truncated or otherwise damaged, and many people are quite willing to view an incomplete version of something if the only other choice is to not see it at all.
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Onakra



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 89
Location: Geldrop, Netherlands

PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2003 3:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PAR2 has quite a lot of advantages, but unfortunately also some disadvantages. The main probably being that a lot of news clients won't save incomplete files (ie. one or more articles are missing). Some of the clients that do support downloading incompletes (I currently know of) are Agent, Xnews and BNR2). The problem with most is that it requires more manual steps. With some you'll have to concatonate (sp?) the segments of a file (BNR2). With Agent you'll have to split the segments, download them all and then combine and save them. (Because if you combine them before downloading it will stop at the first decoding error.) Does anyone know more clients who support downloading of incompletes btw?
This issue (cannot download incompletes/requires more manual work) will probably be the greatest hurdle that must be overcome would PAR2 be to become adopted on a large scale.

Some links that might be useful (thanks to Marco van Loon pointing them out in ABSA):
Short practical info http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=2297042&forum_id=11471
Tentative FAQ TOC http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=2258074&forum_id=11471
Dutch FAQ (with screenshots): http://members.home.nl/etraman/qp/quickpar.htm

Speaking about new formats/technologies; I wonder how long it'll be before someone starts to use the Matroska container to post files (despite it's infancy status)...
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