How to play movies from inside RAR archives without extracting them

BitComet Guides and Tutorials
1

Whether you’re a veteran of the BitTorrent Network or a newbie, you’re probably already well acquainted with the nuisance that many torrents present by having the video file(s) contained into multi-volume RAR archives instead of the unarchived original file(s).

This introduces a few serious disadvantages for these type of torrents, as far as the user/downloader is concerned, as opposed to torrents which have video content in its original form (e.g. AVI, MPEG etc. files):

You have to extract the movie file(s) from the archive before being able to play/preview it;

If you want to play the file but also wants to keep seeding it after finishing the download, it will occupy (at least temporarily) a double HDD space;

You will have to download the whole contents of the torrent before being able to view any of the included files; this renders the Preview function of BitComet, pretty much useless.

As a consequence of the above fact, you won’t be able to tell a fake torrent from a genuine one (in case there are no comments for the torrent you’re trying to download) until you’ve downloaded the whole torrent contents. This can be very frustrating when you’re dealing with fake torrents, as it is often the case on public index sites.

The reasons why many legitimate torrents come in RAR archives are multiple and in part have to do with the unwritten rules which govern the way new releases are packed and transferred inside the Scene. Consequently, the releases which leak from the Scene into the BitTorrent Network are often compelled to use the same format. Since these reasons are not the subject of this guide, we’ll just leave it to that.

Furthermore, if you downloaded a torrent containing archived files, from a private tracker for instance, you may need to keep it in that form on your computer for quite a long time for seeding purposes, in order to reach at least a 1:1 ratio, especially if the size of the torrent is big.

That goes as well for uploads you may have made on Usenet or FTP sites; if one archive proves to have been corrupted during upload, you may be requested lately to upload it again. So, it makes sense to keep the archived form of the files for a while on your computer. This doubles your storage space consumption if you keep both the archived and extracted files.

However, you’ll be glad to learn that there is a way around all the issues mentioned above. In order to be able to **play **video within RAR archives **without **extracting/unraring the archives first there are a few solutions at hand.

Also, any of the below described solutions can be used for **previewing **unfinished downloads of multi-volume RAR archives. All you need to do is make sure that the first file of the archive (the one with .rar extension or the one with .part001.rar) and the last one (the file with the .r****nn or .partnnn.rar extension, where ***nn *** or ***nnn *** is the highest number among the archive files) are fully downloaded.

You can achieve that, by setting the highest priority for the above named files, so that BitComet attempts to download them first. (Check this Wiki topic to see how you can do that).

Once these 2 files are fully downloaded you will be able to preview the video content by opening the first file of the archive in your RAR-capable player (the file with the .rar or the .part001.rar extension). Starting with BitComet v.1.23 you can even do that from inside BitComet, just as you would preview any other video file. Read the end of this article for details on how to do that.

Solution 1

You can use VLC Media Player (version 1.0.0 or later) to play movies inside RAR archives. Just use the Media–>Open Files menu and navigate to the folder containing the multi-volume archive. Depending on the archive type you’ll have one of two file naming styles applied to your files:

if the files of the archive use the RAR 3.0 naming style (i.e. files are ending in something like .part001.rar, .part002.rar… partnnn.rar) you will have to select the file ending in .part001***.rar***, for opening in VLC;

if your archive uses the older file naming system (i.e. the archive files have extensions of the type .r**00, .r**01… r**nn) then you will have to select the file which has the .rar extension (there will be only one file in the whole archive with this extension).

You can also, drag’n’drop the .part001***.rar*** file or the .rar file to the player window, with the same results.

Solution 2

You can use Dziobas Rar Player (which is a player based on Mplayer) to play without extracting first, video inside RAR archives. As opposed to VLC player into this one you can open/drag’n’drop any of the files of a multi-volume RAR archive; it will automatically detect the first file in the archive and load the movie.

You can check its FAQ for more details.

Solution 3

If you have none of the above players installed on your system or don’t want to install another player, you can use RARFileSource which installs itself as a DirectShow Filter and will make available the video contents stored in RAR files to virtually any player installed on your system.

After installing it, all you need to do is start your player of choice and open the RAR file. (I haven’t used this personally, though, so I can’t say with which player it will work or not but theoretically it should work with any of them).

Solution 4

There are also other players which can play video files inside RAR archives. They may be at least as good for you as the above solutions for the purpose at hand but since I haven’t tried them all, this is not meant to be an exhaustive guide of every option out there.

However, you can try any of the following players; you should be able to play with them video inside RAR files, as well, without extracting it first:

BS.Player

Kantaris Media Player

KMPlayer

XBMC Media Center

However, as a corollary, you should note that ANY of the above methods for playing video contained inside single or multi-volume RAR archives, **will work only if the archive is of the type: **uncompressed RAR.

That is, the maker of the archive had to have used the “Store” method when choosing the compression method. This is a method which doesn’t imply any compression algorithms, it just adds a few bytes as a header to the actual file (or file-set) and then splits it in evenly-sized RAR files.

This is actually, the most sensible choice when splitting a movie into RAR volumes, since video files are already compressed files, which use highly particularized video compression algorithms and RAR compression has virtually no effect as far as reducing file size goes.

Therefore, if you find yourself compelled to split a movie into RAR archives (i.e. for uploading it on a private tracker which requires this format or for uploading it on Usenet, for instance) then make sure that you ALWAYS use the “Store” compression method.

However, for playing those RAR archives you just downloaded, this shouldn’t be that much of an issue, since the vast majority of the archives you download from the Internet ARE archived using the Store (a.k.a. uncompressed) method.

Nonetheless, you may still encounter, once in a while, archives that for whatever reason (e.g. the maker was a n00b and didn’t know about this) were created using an actual compression option; for these ones, the only choice will be the old fashioned way of downloading the whole content and extracting it, before being able to play or preview the video.

But for the rest of them archived downloads, any of the options above may be a much more convenient choice, for playing/previewing the video content inside.

L.E. Starting with BitComet v.1.23 if you’re using for preview from inside BitComet a player capable of playing video directly from RAR archives you have the possibility to play/preview RAR files from inside the interface just as with any other standard video files. Just go the the Files tab and right-click on a RAR file then choose “Play file…”.

Of course, depending on the player capabilities you will be able to start playing the movie by choosing any of the RAR volumes or by choosing specifically the first volume of the archive, as described above (i.e. the .rar or .part001.rar file).

**You can change the current BitComet player in **Options–>Advanced–>ui.preview_program_path

2

There is one more option, further on which you can use: you can extract the file from the RAR format, then make a new torrent and upload it. This will help your upload ratio a lot, and will earn you gratitude from many others.

Modern audio and video files are already as compressed as they can be, and putting them in RAR files doesn’t save any space. The practice of doing this is an outdated holdover from earlier technology and is indefensible now. Even the Scene hasn’t got a reason that holds water, for still doing this. They’re running on inertia – they’re not ORGANIZED enough to be able to say, “let’s stop doing this silly, useless thing”. The Scene doesn’t post torrents themselves and frowns on the practice, so the original torrent uploader was just too lazy to extract it himself, thus wasting the time of every single subsequent downloader

The only reason to put video or audio inside an archive any more, is to hide spam or malware in it. Any video you download that is RAR’ed should be treated as highly suspect and probably infectious. Examine it carefully before you let it loose on your system.

If it’s safe, that’s good, but this is yet more of your time wasted by somebody too lazy to take the thing out of its archive before torrenting it. So I oppose giving the original uploader any credit at all. Just take it away from them and upload it they way they should have done it in the first place. If they don’t like that, they can quit being so lazy.

So rip it out of there and post it yourself. I and many others will thank you.

/rant

3

Well, that’s all nice and fine if you’re referring to public trackers.

But as long as private trackers go, many of them have **specific **rules which demand that any Scene release should be packed in RAR archives, and furthermore they prohibit the uploading of duplicates. So, just unpacking a torrent and re-uploading it immediately just won’t do.

It may slide later, if you do upload it at someone’s request but not right away.

And anyway, for as long as you have to seed THAT specific torrent you downloaded, you’re stuck with the RAR archives. And private trackers don’t kid around about you seeding back for a minimum time/ratio any torrent you download from them.

I know that these practices are arguable, but I guess that most of the users just won’t feel like getting into an open debate with the staff of the private trackers they use, over this matter.

So, while I don’t really like the practice of uploading multi-volume RARs on the BitTorrent Network, I found myself compelled to accept their use on all the private trackers I’m using.

I do understand the utility of multi-volume RARs on the Usenet or FTP sites transfers (where it allows you to retransmit only a single RAR segment in case of transmission errors instead of the whole movie and also allows for creation of multiple PAR files for repairing only the damaged RAR segments) but I too, think that this shouldn’t be forced upon the BitTorrent Network which has its much finer error checking mechanisms.

But that’s just the harsh reality of the private trackers’ realm these days, and it really doesn’t do you much good to argue with trackers’ owners; most of them are rather inflexible about their rules. So, if you want to use them you’ll pretty much have to play by their rules.

4

There are private trackers run by sensible people, who can readily see that RAR’ing video is pointless and suspicious. People should patronize those trackers, and boycott trackers with stupid, inflexible and arbitrary rules.

After all, many private trackers ban BitComet without reason or sense. We urge people to just avoid these trackers if their administrators prove unwilling to listen to reason. No one can force you to continue a senseless and wasteful policy, and if they try, just find somebody smarter.

I have never found a private tracker that was both unwilling to consider that their policies might be wrong, and that also had anything you couldn’t find elsewhere. I HAVE found that most trackers run by people who aren’t willing to even consider that they might be wrong, will routinely give you more grief and hassle than they’re worth, and don’t last very long anyway.

Most trackers of any kind though, do NOT care whether or not you seed the particular torrents you downloaded, up to a certain ratio – most of them are interested only in your overall ratio – have you given back as much or more than you’ve taken? They don’t care WHERE you gave it back, and are just as happy to have you seeding up new material and contributing that way, as seeding existing torrents. So not seeding the RAR’ed release and instead uploading and seeding the unrar’ed one, is just fine by most tracker admins – many even prefer the new material because having more torrents attracts more users.

NOBODY is happy about, nobody wants, nobody likes, nobody prefers, the rar’ed versions. Nobody sane, at any rate.

Most of the tracker’s users would rather have the unrar’ed version anyway. Some release groups actually advertise that – “We don’t RAR our releases” – as a feature. If the operator of your tracker is so lost to reason and to his user’s desires as to consider the unrar’ed version and an unnecessary duplicate in violation of his rules, you don’t want anything to do with that … um, …person …, anyway, and his tracker’s likely to shut down pretty quickly as people go find somebody less petty and impaired.

The unreasonable minority of trackers, you should just kiss goodbye. It improves the quality of your life.

5

Hmm… if you’re a member on, like, 20 private trackers, perhaps you’ll afford to be as picky as you say, when it comes to obeying a tracker’s staff wishes or rules.

But if you’re a member on only 2-4 trackers then I guess that, as a simple user, you’ll sit back and think twice: is it worth starting a storm nobody will care about? After all, if they’re happy about all the rest of the stuff, the features and package of the site, very little people will go ahead and quit a tracker, just because it uses RAR-ed versions for a certain part of its torrents.

I’m not a member on such a great number of private trackers but for the ones I am a member of, I beg to differ: EVERY ONE of them requires you to seed EACH torrent you download to a minimum 1:1 ratio or a minimum preset amount of time (whichever comes first). Even for the Free-Leech ones! In fact they stress in many places on their sites that they do not condone hit-and-run behavior.

Since I’m very happy with the variety of stuff I find on these trackers and with the speeds I get, I definitely can put up with them having RAR-ed versions for a part of their releases. As I said, if you have a lot to choose from, you can easily afford to be picky. But if you don’t the situation changes.

Besides, many of the trackers you refer to as viable alternatives, have a lot of users already and don’t easily give out invites or open up for registration. You have to actually beg or wait at the door for a tiny window of open registrations; which fact very often doesn’t look like a walk in the park for someone who wants to become a member.

For many of them, once you signed up, you’ll be literally bombarded with donation requests.

Therefore, I’m think that, just like me, many users would think twice before dismissing a tracker they already like and know well, only to go out there in the dark to try something new, that they might discover they don’t like as much as the previous place they left.

It’s that feeling, when you’ve found something you really like and you’ll be willing to put up with a few turn-offs if the good stuff weighs heavier.

I guess that at the end of the day, it’s all subjective; if this situation annoys you enough that you would decide to quit a tracker because of it, then it may be well worth for you to do it. But if it doesn’t annoy you that much then I guess that you’ll never take that step, based on this reason.

6

I don’t ever propose to start a fight over this or any other rule. I do propose to talk to the administrator about it. If I find that the subject’s not even open for discussion, then i do indeed simply stop using that site. No fight, not even any discussion, I’m just not there anymore.

But in such cases, the administrator has probably driven a lot of other people away too, and the tracker’s in the process of dying because of the way it’s being run. Leaving a tracker that’s headed for oblivion anyway, is not an issue.

While others’ experience may vary, I have never had much difficulty getting into any tracker that I wanted to. A large part of this is “wanted to”, in that most trackers won’t allow anyone to see what they have unless one is already a member. I have joined countless trackers that turned out to have nothing others didn’t have, and have never visited again. But having gotten in, I’ve never found any tracker so good, or such a source of unique material, that it was in any sense irreplaceable or anything more than a slight inconvenience to stop using.

Most of them ain’t got nothin’, and think far more highly of themselves than they merit.

Fortunately this is changing somewhat, as new trackers finally see what I thought was obvious – that you have to at least try to lure new members in, give them some reason to try your new site.

Now a tracker will try to police itself, and will delete infected torrents. Well and good, but how did it find out the torrent was infected? One of the members had to download the torrent, try it, and deal with the consequences. If you’re that member, that means YOU have to combat the infection by yourself, nobody from the tracker is going to help you, or test all of the uploads first. YOU are doing THEIR quailty control for them.

Thus, for an administrator to demand and insist on a format that has no legitimate purpose at all, other than to conceal malware and spread infection, consequences which YOU and not HE, must deal with, is simply unreason.

Likewise, an administrator who would insist, or even prefer, that you seed existing material instead of uploading new material that would enhance his site’s reputation and attractiveness, is simply unreason. (I’ve never run across such an administrator, but will take it on the word of others that they exist.)

Similarly, I’ve never encountered a private tracker whose rules insisted that each torrent be seeded up to 1:1. I must take you at your word that such exist. I would not join such a tracker, and would probably just drop the connection upon reading the rule, as I often have. There are simply too many of them out there, coming and going, living and dying, to have to put up with arbitrary crap in their rules.

Truth is, I find little real merit in private trackers at all. There are a few exceptions, but VERY few, and that mostly due to the sort of material. For the most part, anything I have much wanted, I’ve been able to find, sooner or later, on a public tracker. When I can’t, and do join private trackers in pursuit of it, I usually don’t find it there either.

Download times? Maybe. But not for me, as I already have a considerable backlog to deal with and don’t demand instant gratification. Speed on public trackers is at the limit of my connection, and is fast enough that I don’t have time to read/watch/listen to it all. I can wait to download something. I’m aware that others recount different experiences, and express hatred for public trackers that I haven’t had any particular problem with.

I do not find that it is a tracker’s market out there, or that any of them are in a position to dictate to anyone. I’ll just go elsewhere, and that’s never been a problem or even an issue. Indeed, every private tracker I HAVE joined upon being assured how wonderful it is, has been a disappointment to me.

7

As far as my totally personal and subjective experience goes, I find 3 major benefits in using private trackers:

  1. I do, INDEED, get access to the newest releases, as soon as they get out (I’ve been monitoring the major public indexes in parallel with the private ones I’m a member on, so I can testify that about 80% of the new releases I’ve looked for, appeared on the private trackers **before **the public ones.

Some releases that I’ve got from private trackers weren’t present on the public network, in some cases, even a month later!!! It’s true that didn’t happen often, only a few times, but nonetheless the gratification feeling was there.

  1. I like that comfy feeling of knowing that I can access hot new material without having to fear that much about anti-p2p monitoring. As you say, there may be others that aren’t that eager to access new stuff as soon as it gets out, but hey… this all depends on what you want/like. So, if you do like new stuff while it’s hot I feel you’re better off getting it from a private site.

  2. Since the trackers I’m member on, work based on seeding every torrent up to 1:1 ratio OR a predefined number of days (whichever comes first) I found that for about 95% percent of my downloaded torrents I don’t really have to upload at all! That is, the main uploaders have such great upload speeds that they saturate the bandwidth for most of the peers out there and in most cases you don’t get to upload a whole lot immediately. That allows me to download 10-20 torrents in a row and let them seeding when they’re finished, without having them hogging my whole upload bandwidth and bringing my Internet connection down to its knees.

I’ll admit, as far as trying to convince others about the things I think that are wrong, in most cases I’m too darn lazy. I find that there are so many people with preconceived prejudiced opinions, that even bothering to attempt to change their minds seems to me a complete wasteful crusade bent on fighting the windmills.

If they have something I want, I don’t mind playing by their rules as long as them rules don’t stand in my way.

I need to specify though, the private trackers I’m a member of require multi-volume RARs ONLY for scene releases (i.e. if you uploaded a new scene release you’d have to do it in the original format). For all the other stuff or older movies, movie packs and TV packs/episodes this rule doesn’t apply.

So my vision about the issue at hand is this: we’d be naive to think that by just a few voices advising people about staying away from sites which use RAR archives, the RAR-ed movies will magically disappear from the BitTorrent Network. This may happen in a few years, when the Scene may change and even then, I reckon Usenet may still continue to use them. They’re too d*mn convenient for them, to even bother thinking about something else, at present time.

Since a huge chunk of the content on the BitTorrent Network COMES from the Scene and from Usenet, it would take a huge and powerful campaign to persuade all of the divided/antagonist groups to change that. So, my pretty realistic estimation, I think, is that we’ll still see around for a while, movies in RAR archives.

While, as you say, one may choose to stay away from most of that content, there’ll still be a huge number of users who willingly or unadvisedly will have to deal with them at least in the near future.

The little guide I wrote addresses to them. I like to think that those who didn’t know about this possibility, will be as thrilled as I was at the time when I found out.

8

This subject is probably best left ignored, but I think one point thats being overlooked here is we aren’t talking about private trackers requiring anyone to archive files, we’re talking about not allowing users to to download files from a non-bittorrent source that has strict rules and violate those rules by sharing them in anything other then their original release format.

The biggest and the best private trackers all strictly obey the rules used by the warez scene (aka “the scene”). It’s more of a matter of respect to not take someones work, repackage their release and upload it.

The way I see it is if you want to upload a movie anyway you see fit, then steal it from hollywood, do the encoding and make a torrent. To take a scene release which rules allow you to share and violate those rules by altering the files will get you banned from many trackers, it’s just not considered polite. I “get” that many bittorrent users feel it’s silly to use archives to transfer files, but on the other hand FTP users could argue it’s just as silly to break the files into thousands of bitorrent pieces and hand out your IP address to anyone who wants it just to download something. Both points have merit, but in my mind it falls back to the person who encoded the video, if they did it with specific rules, then these rules should be followed when sharing, if someone wants to do it their own way, they should do their own encoding.

Also if you look at how private trackers operate, the uploaders use scripts to grab scene releases, download them and they get made into torrents and uploaded instantly. Many will be onsite and ready to download in less then 1 minute from pre-time. This would not be possible if the uploaders were forced to extract the files before uploading. Most of these uploaders never extract the files, they download them, torrent them, then delete them a few days later… a constant ongoing process.