[ryandrake]

> Also a note about the dangers of cracked software. There could be malware, viruses, etc. The value becomes much smaller to use something that could ransomware your system.

I've always thought this was kind of an old wives' tale FUD. Long time back when I used to hoist the ol Jolly Roger, the pirated versions of software seemed to always be pristine copies. Reputable release groups had their reputation in mind and would go out of their way to release clean copies, or even go so far as to remove the official company-shipped malware like all those offers you used to get during install to Also Get This Toolbar! Reputable crack groups were the same way--leave no trace and use the smallest, most minimal binary modification possible.

Same with pirated movies: The pirate releases are often better than the official releases, containing more subtitle languages, stripping off marketing and FBI warnings, and so on.

[nebula8804]

Problem with pirated movies these days (and for a long time) is that you have so many variations: garbage like different encoding schemes because some loser still watches the films on their DivX player or re-encoded in other methods. Then you have different release groups releasing their own variations and you have to keep on top of all these silly labeling schemes on the filenames. It all leads to clutter on the scene sites and no true guarantee that you are getting the pristine release. These days, I acquire the 4K Blue-Ray, rip the data, strip off the DRM, and make my own pristine release that I know for sure is the best of the best. Its got all the ads/copyright stuff stripped and all tracks, subtitles added.

[Eisenstein]

Neither of those things you mentioned (poor/strange encoding, silly filenames) are a problem beyond minor inconvenience. Any standard release will be x264 or x265 with AAC or DTS, and a simple program like Filebot will lookup all the files on imdb and rename them for you automatically. It is great to support the industry that makes things you like, but ripping blu-rays is orders of magnitudes more work (I do it though, since I like the commentary tracks, I just wanted to correct your misconceptions).

[nebula8804]

It depends on your perspective. If your intention is to enjoy the film with the best possible quality, then it goes from being an inconvenience to being a real problem. If you don't care, then yes it is just an inconvenience. I'm not saying it is a dealbreaker for everyone, but it is a dealbreaker for me.