Just got this email from U2 start: they have video boots now.

[cobl04]

Hi there pappy,

There is a phrase in Dutch that says 'stilstand is achteruitgang', which means something like doing nothing is going backwards. Doing nothing is not an option at U2start, we are U2 fans, and U2 fans are people who like to share their love, share their ideas and contribute to the world. We came up with some great new ideas for another new version of U2start and developed it in a few days. We released U2start 3.0 today and it's again, better than ever.


Video bootlegs
The first major enhancement is the addition of video bootlegs. Video bootlegs are concerts of U2 in video, which you can download easily. You're used to the best, we give you only the best: we already have 54 video bootlegs for you, direct downloads, already available to you, for free, today! A lot of great features on our video bootleg pages like video previews and the option to sort videos on quality and type of recording (amateur, pro-shot).

You can find the video bootlegs along the existing streaming videos on the video pages. Enjoy!


Lossless recordings
The second major enhancement is the addition of lossless recordings. U2start has proven itself to be the number one in lossy recordings (MP3) and because there became more and more interest in lossless recordings we decided to offer that too. At the moment we already have 65 lossless recordings easily available for you, and for free.

You can find the lossless recordings on the bootlegs pages.


Other improvements
Our support is greater than ever with two new FAQ and info pages for videos and lossless recordings, everything you want to know on what lossless recordings are, how you can convert videos or anything else you want to know is available on our FAQ and info pages.

You can also search for bootlegs on the bootleg pages, sort bootlegs on review-rating, see the latest bootleg reviews and the most reviewed bootlegs and see the songs who are added the most to the 'notable live performances' on a bootleg page. There are also two new RSS feeds, five new information blocks for the rotating footer and the bootleg tab-option on the frontpage is rewritten.

I also would like to point to you our donation page, I don't like doing this but since this site is getting more and more expensive (and bootlegs are more popular than advertisements) we could use some support. As usual, this is not a requirement for U2start, we will always be free, but a little help is always welcome.

Sweet news. Anyone care to tell me what a lossless recroding is?

 

[Screwtape2]

Sweet news. Anyone care to tell me what a lossless recroding is?

It is stuff like FLAC, SHN and APE. Most torrent sites for bootlegs use one of those three.

The first paragraph sums it up:

Lossless data compression - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Screwtape2]

The big problem with loseless recordings are that FLAC and SHN (not sure about APE) are larger files. They take up so much space on a computer.

 

[thelaj]

I always found the notion of bootlegs (especially audience recordings) in lossless to be somewhat bizarre. Alt. Fast. Extreme does for me

 

[Screwtape2]

I always found the notion of bootlegs (especially audience recordings) in lossless to be somewhat bizarre. Alt. Fast. Extreme does for me

The only real difference in sound quality is when you have demos. They really come alive in loseless form.

 

[cobl04]

I don't understand that stuff at all so I'll just stick to my normal bootlegs I think

 

[Screwtape2]

I don't understand that stuff at all so I'll just stick to my normal bootlegs I think

In short, lossless means better sound (though personally only demos really benefit) but needs specific music players and can't be played on iTunes or the like. They also take up a lot of space on the computer.

 

[LarryMullenFan]

Lossless compression is just what it says: Without loss. So, all sound information that was in the original (wav) file remains in tact. It's just like a zip file: you take out all the overhead information or ranges of the same stuff. When unzipping, you put back that information. FLAC etc works the same. You need a special player that "unzips" the file for you while playing.

MP3 is lossy, which simply means that you loose information. You can often hear it in the high frequencies. It just sounds less lively.

now, with bootlegs, there's one issue though: They are usually recorded in very bad quality, so why bother to store and distribute them lossless i.s.o. mp3? Consider that I uploaded my beachclips in FLAC ...

Anyway, in bootleg-world, mp3 is "not done".

 

[Moser]

I bought an external hard drive to solve any capacity problems. I have about a 100 gigs of U2 on it so far.

 

[mikal]

Yeah, U2start is my 2nd favorite U2 site now, behind this one of course.

I get most of their boots from there, and their forum also posts video boots in Ipod format, and they post upgrades to current bootlegs.

 

[Rosebud]

I thought this was about sexy boots.

 

[Caroni]

Me too

 

[nirniva]

I thought this was about sexy boots.

It is. It's about sexy VIDEO boots!
...Okay, that was horrible.

 

[Rosebud]

It is. It's about sexy VIDEO boots!
...Okay, that was horrible.

Yes, yes it was...


And I love it.

 

[david]

I went there last night, maybe I am confused, but their boots were just links to videos on you tube, and the one I clicked on was removed.

 

[Lara_Croft]

u2torrents has been plenty of u2 videobootlegs for years

 

[digitize]

u2torrents has been plenty of u2 videobootlegs for years

That's where I get my boot DVDs from... I'd much rather download the torrent for a DVD, put it into my queue, and wait a few days for a full-quality DVD than deal with for a week for 320x420 video.

U2Start is awesome for audio boots, though... I'm not an audiophile (don't kill me), so I don't really care about not getting lossless audio, especially with my HD space limited, and the fact (do I deserve death for this, audiophiles?) that I like listening to the boots on my iPhone.