source. Xvid The early DivX releases were mostly internal for group use, but once the codec spread, it became accepted as a standard and quickly became the most widely used format for the scene. With help from associates who either worked for a movie theater, movie production company, or video rental company, groups were supplied with massive amounts of material, and new releases began appearing at a very fast pace. When version 4.0 of DivX was released, the codec went commercial and the need for a free codec, Xvid (then called "XviD", "DivX" backwards), was created. Later, Xvid replaced DivX entirely. Although the DivX codec has evolved from version 4 to 10.6 during this time, it is banned in the warez scene due to its commercial nature. x264 In February 2012, a consortium of popular piracy groups officially announced x264, the free H.264 codec, as the new standard for releases, replacing the previous format, which was Xvid wrapped in an AVI container. The move to H.264 also obsoletes AVI in favor of MP4 and Matroska that most commonly uses the .mkv file name extension. x265 (HEVC) With the increasing popularity of online movie-streaming sites like Netflix, some movies are being ripped from such websites now and are being encoded in HEVC wrapped in Matroska containers. This codec allows a high-quality movie to be stored in a relatively smaller file size. AV1 AV1 is a free modern video format developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM). It delivers high quality video at lower bitrates than H.264 or even H.265/HEVC. Unlike HEVC, it can be streamed in common web browsers. It is being adopted by YouTube and Netflix, amongst others. As of now, a few encoders use AV1. Release formats Below is a table of pirated movie release types along with respective sources, ranging from the lowest quality to the highest. Scene rules define in which format and way each release type is to be packaged and distributed. Cam/CamRip A Cam is a copy made in a cinema using a camcorder or mobile phone. The sound source is the camera microphone. Cam rips can quickly appear online after the first preview or premiere of the film. The quality ranges from subpar to adequate, depending on the group of persons performing the recording and the resolution of the camera used. The main disadvantage of this is the sound quality. The microphone does