Radarr uses "Scene" quality tags to match qualities that you can apply to Quality Profiles. This page will explain these qualities so you can make better informed decisions on what each one means.
WORKPRINT
A workprint of a film generally contains timecode and usually has watermarks from the studio involved in the production of the film. These "proxy" copies of a film often go between the editorial and visual effects departments of the film crew. A workprint may be of any resolution, but are generally lower quality versions of the film used to show progress on the editorial or post-production process. Therefore, these may not be at all the same as a theatrical version of the film, and may be missing many of the visual effects or audio that end up making it to the theatrical release.
CAM
A cam is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. A mini tripod is sometimes used, but a lot of the time this won't be feasible, so the camera may shake. Seating placement isn't always ideal, and it might be filmed from an awkward angle.
If cropped properly, this is hard to tell unless there's text on the screen, but a lot of times these are left with triangular borders on the top and bottom of the screen. Sound is taken from the onboard microphone of the camera, and especially in comedies, laughter can often be heard during the film. Due to these factors picture and sound quality are usually quite poor, but sometimes we're lucky, and the theater will be fairly empty and a fairly clear signal will be heard.
TELESYNC (TS)
A telesync is the same spec as a CAM except it uses an external audio source (most likely an audio jack in the chair for the disabled). A direct audio source does not guarantee good quality audio, as a lot of background noise can interfere. Sometimes a telesync is filmed in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, giving better picture quality. Quality ranges drastically. A high percentage of telesyncs are CAMs that have been mislabeled.
TELECINE (TC)
A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and picture should be very good, but due to the equipment and cost involved telecines are fairly uncommon. Generally, the film will be in correct aspect ratio, although 4:3 telecines have existed. TC should not be confused with TimeCode, which is a visible counter on screen throughout the film.
DVD SCREENER (DVDSCR)
A pre-release DVD often sent to awards judges and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a DVD or other large enough media. The main draw back is a “ticker” (a message that scrolls past at the bottom of the screen, with the copyright and anti-copy telephone number). Also, if the screener contains any serial numbers, or any other markings that could lead to the source of the tape, these will have to be blocked, usually with a black mark over the section. This is sometimes only for a few seconds, but unfortunately on some copies this will last for the entire film, and some can be quite big. Depending on the equipment used, screener quality can range from excellent to very poor. Usually transferred to SVCD, DivX/XviD, or MP4.
SDTV
Post air rips from an analog source (usually cable television or OTA standard definition). The image quality is generally good (for the resolution) and they are usually encoded in DivX/XviD or MP4.
DVD
A re-encode of the final released DVD9. If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality (for the resolution). DVDrips are usually released in DivX/XviD or MP4.
DVD-R
Same as DVD, but re-compressed to fit a single-layer DVD (generally reduces the original source bitrate by half, so the source material may have already been compressed from the original DVD copy and has been compressed a third time by the ripper).
WEBDL-480p
A rip of a film from a streaming service, usually resized from its original size since most streaming services default to streaming a higher resolution. These are nearly as good as a Blu-ray source but can suffer from audio lag or visual artifacts from the adaptive bitrate of streaming services. If a ripper's internet connection drops to a point where the bitrate lowers, the source bitrate could change dynamically, causing variations in picture quality. Most releases that suffer from an extreme amount of visual artifacts are NUKED and a PROPER is generally released to fix any wild variations in adaptive bitrate.
Bluray-480p
A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, downscaled to 480p resolution (720x480 @ 16:9, any other Aspect Ratio may be a different resolution). If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality for the resolution. Bitrates may vary, but these are generally encoded to DivX, XviD, or AVC and offer the tradeoff of a small perceived quality reduction over the original source while drastically reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4, but some DivX/XviD are around as well which use AVI.
Bluray-576p
Same as Bluray-480p, but in 576p (720x576). 576p is the standard PAL resolution for SDTV (although some manufacturers represent HDTV as anything above 480p, 576p offers barely any perceived quality increase over 480p). Bitrates may vary, but these are generally encoded to AVC or HEVC and offer the tradeoff of a small perceived quality reduction over the original source while drastically reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.
HDTV-720p
A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, but broadcast over HD cable or satellite (1280x720 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). It may be modified for runtime or content depending on the network it came from. This is released usually several months after a retail release, but sometimes upscaled versions of a Standard Definition film are released on cable channels such as STARZ or HBO, and they would be the only HD copies of that specific film available. These are generally MKV or MP4.
WEBDL-720p
A rip of a film from a streaming service, released in 720p resolution (1280x720 @ 16:9, any other AR may be a different resolution). These are nearly as good as a Blu-ray source but can suffer from audio lag or visual artifacts from the adaptive bitrate of streaming services. If a ripper's internet connection drops to a point where the bitrate lowers, the source bitrate could change dynamically, causing variations in picture quality. Most releases that suffer from an extreme amount of visual artifacts are NUKED and a PROPER is generally released to fix any wild variations in adaptive bitrate.
Bluray-720p
A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, downscaled to 720p resolution (1280x720 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality for the resolution. Bitrates may vary, but these are generally encoded to AVC or HEVC and offer the tradeoff of a small perceived quality reduction over the original source while drastically reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.
HDTV-1080p
A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, but broadcast over HD cable or satellite (1920x1080 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). It may be modified for runtime or content depending on the network it came from. This is released usually several months after a retail release, but sometimes upscaled versions of a Standard Definition film are released on cable channels such as STARZ or HBO, and they would be the only HD copies of that specific film available. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.
WEBDL-1080p
A rip of a film from a streaming service, released in 1080p resolution (1920x1080 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). These are nearly as good as a Blu-ray source but can suffer from audio lag or visual artifacts from the adaptive bitrate of streaming services. If a ripper's internet connection drops to a point where the bitrate lowers, the source bitrate could change dynamically, causing variations in picture quality. Most releases that suffer from an extreme amount of visual artifacts are NUKED and a PROPER is generally released to fix any wild variations in adaptive bitrate.
Bluray-1080p
A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, at its native 1080p resolution (1920x1080 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality and the same resolution as the source. Bitrates may vary, but these are generally encoded to AVC or HEVC and offer the tradeoff of a small perceived quality reduction over the original source while slightly reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.
Remux-1080p
The final released Blu-ray, remuxed into a container MKV. The original audio tracks and video track are untouched, which means it is basically an exact copy of the Blu-ray in question, just in a video container that your media player can deal with. Remuxing simply means taking the original streams and packaging them into a different container format, hence no discernable quality difference can be observed between it and the original source media.
HDTV, WEBDL, Blu-ray, and Remux-2160p
4K versions of films that are released in generally HEVC codec and could be either 8-bit or 10-bit color reproduction or from an HDR source. These are released in 3840x2160 at 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution. The source may vary, since 4K content comes from a variety of sources, read up on the sources above to get a better understanding of where the source comes from.
BR-DISK
The original Blu-ray disc, with it's AVC folder structure and no change in container format. Some media players are unable to deal with these, but they are generally used for archival purposes. The original Blu-ray disc content is unmodified. Most of the time, these have been run through an HDCP decryption process already via the ripper. Sometimes they are still encrypted.
Raw-HD
Uncompressed HD footage, these may vary in resolution but are completely lossless. These generally come from the studio itself, processed from uncompressed clips sent between the color correction station and the editing station.
Scene Tags
PROPER
Due to scene rules, for example, whoever releases the first Telesync has won that race. But if the quality of that release is fairly poor, if another group has another telesync (or the same source in higher quality) then the tag PROPER is added to the folder to avoid being duped. PROPER is the most subjective tag in the scene, and a lot of people will generally argue whether the PROPER is better than the original release. A lot of groups release PROPERS just out of desperation due to losing the race. A reason for the PROPER should always be included in the NFO.
LIMITED
A limited movie means it has had a limited theater run, generally opening in less than 250 theaters, generally smaller films (such as art house films) are released as limited.
INTERNAL
An internal release is done for several reasons. Classic DVD groups do a lot of INTERNAL releases, as they wont be dupe'd on it. Also lower quality theater rips are done INTERNAL so not to lower the reputation of the group, or due to the amount of rips done already. An INTERNAL release is available as normal on the groups affiliate sites, but they can't be traded to other sites without request from the site ops. Some INTERNAL releases still trickle down to IRC/Newsgroups, it usually depends on the title and the popularity. Some years ago people referred to Centropy going “internal”. This meant the group was only releasing the movies to their members and site ops. This is in a different context to the usual definition.
STV
Straight to Video. Was never released in theaters, and therefore a lot of sites do not allow these.
ASPECT RATIO TAGS
These are WS for widescreen (letterbox) and FS for Fullscreen.
REPACK
If a group releases a bad rip, they will release a Repack which will fix the problems.
NUKED
A film can be nuked for various reasons. Individual trackers will nuke for breaking their rules (such as “No Telesyncs”) but if the film has something extremely wrong with it (no soundtrack for 20mins, CD2 is incorrect film etc) then a global nuke will occur, and people trading it across sites will lose their credits. Nuked films can still reach other sources such as p2p/usenet, but its a good idea to check why it was nuked in the first place. If there's something wrong with a group release, they can request a nuke.
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