Before I begin let me say that this is a recommended way of posting, this is by no means a REQUIRED method, many of you have different templates when posting and I do not wish tell you how to do things if you have your own way. What this guide does tell you though is what we do want posted.
First and foremost please make sure what you are posting has not been posted before. Use our forum search to check this.
REQUIRED: A subject line. Some movie forums have their own postings rules within the forum. For all English audio movie forum rules read this thread. Subject lines MUST follow these rules in order to maintain our A-Z lists.
Note: To quickly retrieve the next two requirements you can use a little application created for us (thanks Chaindead) which when you right click on a movie file, on your hard drive, it finds what you want. Make sure you enable popups for this site in order for the search to work as it opens up two new windows when you submit.
You can download the app here -> http://sharethefiles.com/apps/moviestfsearch.rar
Make sure you copy it somewhere that you want it to be, before you install it, as it will run from this location all the time unless you uninstall it. Once installed when you right-click on a movie file (supports most file extensions) select the following:
Note: This app only uses the correct search terms if your filename has a year in it.
REQUIRED: A movie poster. Every movie should have a movie poster, to find one search using images.google.com. Please use a medium sized image of at least 250x400 pixels so we don't have to strain to see the image! In order to post an image via google images click on the thumbnail of the poster until you get to the large image of it. Right click on the image, select properties and copy the Address (URL) of the image:
Put the URL in between the img tags like below:
- Code: Select all
[img]http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005JKZU.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg[/img]
Note: Some websites do not allow you to hotlink to their images, you will see this when you click on the thumbnail for the larger poster and some warning shows or when you post the cover it doesn't show up (IMDb and ImpAwards are examples of sites which don't allow hotlinking). If you still want to use an image from such sites then download the full size image to your hard drive and use imageshack.us to upload the cover there. Once you do that copy the "Direct link to image" link here surrounded by the IMG tag as below:
- Code: Select all
[img]http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/4778/55311471nh3.png[/img]
please do not copy the imageshack links like this:
- Code: Select all
[URL=http://imageshack.us][img]http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/4778/55311471nh3.png[/img][/URL]
Alternatively you can upload an image directly from a site if you have the ImageShack Toolbar installed. You can then right-click on the image and select Upload Image to ImageShack. If you don't want to install the ImageShack Toolbar then add the URL of the image you want uploaded to ImageShack right after http://imageshack.us/transload.php?url= in your browser address field.
Click on http://imageshack.us/transload.php?url= ... ZZZZZZ.jpg for an example.
REQUIRED: An IMDb link and plot summary. Every movie should have an external link which contains more information about the movie. IMDb is preferred but some movies may not have an IMDb link so use AllMovie or the official site of the movie instead. In IMDb click on more in order to get a good sized plot summary and when copying the plot summary over please put it between QUOTE tags. Here is an example:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167261/
- Code: Select all
[quote]Sauron's forces increase. His allies grow. The Ringwraiths return in an even more frightening form. Saruman's army of Uruk Hai is ready to launch an assault against Aragorn and the people of Rohan. Yet, the Fellowship is broken and Boromir is dead. For the little hope that is left, Frodo and Sam march on into Mordor, unprotected. A number of new allies join with Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Pippin and Merry. And they must defend Rohan and attack Isengard. Yet, while all this is going on, Sauron's troops mass toward the City of Gondor, for the War of the Ring is about to begin.[/quote]
REQUIRED: Screenshots. This is required. It is usually a good idea to create at least 4 different screenshots of the movie.
Everytime you take a screenshot using JPG you lose some quality, it may not always be noticable but it's there, especially if you add a tag to the screenshot. It is therefore recommended you take your screenshots in a lossless format such as BMP or PNG. BMP takes a lot of space so PNG is preferred.
http://sharethefiles.com/apps/Screensho ... rSetup.zip
Here is a screenshot creator (thanks Wantos). It automatically loads 15 images from an AVI video as thumbnails. You can click on a thumbnail of an image you like and it will show you the image in full size. If you accept the image, then the screenshot (PNG) will be created in the same folder as the executable with a tag and the full path will be added to the list, so you can upload it to ImageShack from there.
Adding tags to screenshots (optional)
- Go to Tools -> Settings
- Fill in a tag (e.g. ShareTheFiles.com) and set the Position of the tag. Leave it empty if you don't want to tag the screenshot.
- Click on Select and choose Font, Color, Fontsize, etc.
- Click on Preview to see how the tag will look like.
- Close Preview and click on OK to save the tag and close the Settings menu.
Retrieve screenshots
- Go to File -> Open AVI Video. Select an AVI video and open it. You can also drag & drop an AVI video into the application if you find that easier.
- After the thumbnails are created, click on a thumbnail you like and the full sized screenshot will be shown.
- If you can't find a usable screenshot, then go to File -> Load Next Batch of Images. A new set of images from the same AVI video is loaded.
- Click on Accept if you like the screenshot. The screenshot will be created in the same folder as the executable and the full path will be added to the list.
- Click the Upload All button to upload the screenshots. The path of the image will be replaced with the online ImageShack link and the [img] tags.
- Click on Copy All when the image(s) are uploaded and paste them into your forum post.
Known Bugs
- AVI Screenshot Creator crashes most of the time when an AVI video is loaded that was made with AVI-Mux GUI. Not much I can do about that.
- Uploading may never end or the upload isn't very fast. If nothing happens for a while, then click the Cancel button and try to re-upload the image(s).
- AVI Screenshot Creator doesn't support videos bigger than 2GB properly. Having a 3 part (3 x 700mb = 2100mb) joined AVI shouldn't cause much problems, but if the video is much bigger, then only a couple of thumbnails will be loaded or the app crashes.
Question & Answers
- Does AVI Screenshot Creator support other containers besides AVI? - No.
- Will AVI Screenshot Creator ever support other containers? - No.
- Suddenly nothing happens when I try to load an AVI video, what's wrong? - Make sure you have the correct codec installed. FFDShow doesn't work, you'll need the actual codec.
Here are some other methods of creating screenshots:
BSPlayer supports BMP and JPG screenshot taking so make sure you set it to BMP. In settings:
Whilst the movie is playing if you press P it will save the screenshot to the directory you set it to save into.
VLC media player supports PNG and JPG so make sure you set it to PNG. In settings/preferences (CTRL-S):
You can set a key to take screenshots by going to Hotkey Settings and scrolling down to Take Video Snapshot.
Note: It is highly recommended you use VLC for taking screenshots of MKV files where the resolution is anamorphic (e.g. TLF rips) as this is the only player which takes a proper screenshot of them.
Another good way of taking screenshots is using VirtualDubMod as it supports PNG and you can scroll through the movie in a paused state. Unfortunately it does not support most MKV files.
Set the button you want to take screenshots with in Options -> Preferences -> Main Keys
Open the file you want to take screenshots of and press SHIFT whilst using the left and right arrow keys to go through keyframes and choose the screenshot you want. You can also use ALT to go a few frames backwards or forward or just the left and right keys to move a single frame.
Press the key you set to take a screenshot with and change file type to PNG, enter a filename and save.
In order to host the images you can follow the method explained earlier for movie posters and upload each screenshot individually. To upload multiple screenshots at a time with Internet Explorer download and install the ImageShack Toolbar. An ImageShack Upload button will then be added to your Internet Explorer, you can click on this and select all the images you want uploaded at once. You can also select all the images on your hard drive and right-click on them to select Upload Images to ImageShack.
Check also Guide: Tagging screenshots with your name
FireFox users can also use ImageShack Toolbar or if you prefer use ImageBot for FireFox. A tutorial for this can be found here.
REQUIRED: Technical information. Too little information or too much information can be annoying. When posting technical information post the .NFO text of the file between CODE tags (you can open .NFO files properly using WordPad) or if you don't have access to the .NFO file (which could be found at VCDQuality, NFOrce or iSONEWS) then provide at least the following information about the files using any method you know:
Duration (Runtime), Video Codec, Video Bitrate, Resolution, Framerate, Audio Codec, Audio Bitrate, Audio Channels.
Please do not overprovide information such as 3 different ways of showing the filesize!
If you do not have a specific method of retrieving this information then use a little app created for us (thanks Wantos), you can download it from http://sharethefiles.com/apps/Avi2ClipboardSTFonly.rar
Note: If you are already using the full version of Avi2Clipboard and still wish to use this STF-only version then you must uninstall the full version and reboot your system before installing this one otherwise it will not work.
Once you have installed the app right click on the file you want to retrieve information from (.avi files only)
after clicking on STF Tech Specs (Save to Clipboard) you can paste the information into your thread.
Note: This app only supports AVI files, for everything else use http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/
REQUIRED (obviously): eD2K link(s). There are a few ways to create eD2k links. The most common is through your eMule client. Simply go to your Transfers or Shared Files tab, right-click the file you wish to post (or select multiple files) and select eD2k Links. Once there click on Copy. Do not select any of the basic or advanced options (other than AICH if you wish), posting a clean eD2k link also provides the filesize next to your link and a Check Sources feature. HTML links do not do this.
Another (older) method is using STF Collider. You can download this from http://sharethefiles.com/apps/STF_Collider.rar
The pros of using STF Collider is that you can simply drag files into its window and it will hash them for you, there is no need for even having an eD2k client installed. Another bonus is that it stores every file you ever hash into a text file for future retrieval if required. Unfortunately STF Collider is a bit outdated and as such takes longer than it should to hash files (don't let this put you off though, it's still fast enough) and probably the worst thing about it is that it is unable to hash large files (over 4gb).
When running STF Collider (no installation required) make sure the settings are as follows:
Further reading on the functions of STF Collider can be found at viewtopic.php?t=17990
Another method of creating an eD2k link is LinkCreator. You can download this at the bottom of the page of the official eMule site.
This creates eD2k links without the need of an eD2k client as well and is very very fast. Unfortunately you can't hash multiple files at the same time like with STF Collider nor does it store your hashed files for future retrieval but you can hash large files with it. When you run it (no installation required) just keep the default settings or deselect Create links with AICH Hash if you wish as this is not a requirement.
Conclusion: If you have eMule installed and want to quickly retrieve eD2k links for your files then use it to do so. If you do not have an eD2k client installed (I don't know, maybe you only use BitTorrent) then use STF Collider for multiple files and Link Creator for large files.
Note: Purely for presentation purposes your subject line and eD2k link filename should match (without the file extension in the subject line).
Finally if you want to post your links much in the same way Chaindead does (example), then download and use this little app ->
STFMoviePoster v2.5: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfm ... r.v2.5.rar *NEWEST*
STFMoviePoster v2.33: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfm ... .v2.33.rar
STFMoviePoster v2.31: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfm ... .v2.31.rar
STFMoviePoster v2.3: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfm ... r.v2.3.rar
STFMoviePoster v2.2: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfm ... r.v2.2.rar
STFMoviePoster v2.1: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfm ... r.v2.1.rar
STFMoviePoster v2: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfm ... ter.v2.rar
STFMoviePoster v1: http://sharethefiles.com/chaindead/stfmovieposter.rar
We are an ed2k community information site. Within these pages you will find an in-depth listing of ed2k Network URIs.