Boy in the Dress video

[Betty]

For those who are still having a hard time getting it, I made a highly compressed phone version. Looks good on a small screen, but it's not HD for a big screen. Still, it is watchable if it's your only source of the film. Those with severe bandwidth or speed restrictions, my compressed version is only 103mb in file size for a 1 hour movie. I did the compression myself because it comes out better than u-tube's compression. I wanted to squeeze at least VHS quality at about a 100mb file size.

With downloadhelper you can download it from there if you want. There's also a 141p version there that's only 36mb in size for those with really limited internet connections, or want to store it on a small phone or tablet with limited space. To download it with downloadhelper, you'd click on the mobile version. The 3gp format is even compatible with small old flip phones that have camera & video capabilities. On a dialup connection you can download the whole hour of the 141p version in about 13 minutes.

The 103mb version is the mp4 at 240p... standard VHS tape quality.

Enjoy!

EDITED: I removed this video & it's link because I made a better compressed version of it at more than twice the file size. See my more recent post about the video for the link to the new version.

Although I've had a google account since we ran google/adsense ads here well over a decade ago,  This is my first U-Tube post ever.

For 100mb per hour of video, it don't look bad as long as you don't sit with your nose right up to a big screen. If I sit 5 feet or more from the 26" TV, it looks fine enough. To save on size though, it's only 12fps, so the motion isn't very smooth. I've seen 300-800mb per hour videos on u-tube look much worse. Most people who can't torrent can't because of bandwidth, speed, or other restrictions on their internet connection... or don't know how, or afraid to. If they use a public connection, torrents & underground streams, or large files may not even be an option.

If this low bandwidth solution is useful for your connections, or fears, or just to get a small file size copy fast for a phone or small tablet through downloadhelper, let me know, & I will do some more of this type of thing. The 141p 3gp mobile version can even be easily & quickly downloaded on a dialup connection. I notice we have a lot of visitors visiting through a wireless connection with phones & tablets. Most wireless services aren't very fast (sometimes only slightly faster than a dialup connection during peak times), & they put severe limits/caps on the daily or monthly bandwidth they can use. So compressing to the limits is important so everybody can enjoy Betty's on any connection, phone, tablet, or any old machine.

Don't forget to click on "like" when you view it at u-tube.

[andyg0404]

Hi,

Nice blog piece from Billy Kennedy who plays the boy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/entries/358f5a6f-1189-4067-9a53-1a888e6f52b4

Andy G.

[FionaP]

It was a nice little film but I felt it was a little bit unrealistic.

If the coolest and prettiest girl in school wanted me to go to her house and encouraged me to dress me up I don't think I'd have bothered with football again!

Even so, it was a happy story with a positive ending.  I wonder what he's doing now??

[Betty]

I only had permission to temporarily run a low quality version of the video for 30 days. Unfortunately I needed separate permission to run it with the background music in the game scene, which the copyright owners of the song refused to give. I managed to remove the song, but keep the dialog in the scene, to keep everyone happy about it.

But the 30 days I was able to run it have expired weeks ago. Last week (Feb 19th) I just got a notice that the permissions to use the video has expired, so I had to remove it. Usually for stuff like this, the take down reminder is sent out when it becomes available in the USA, or a DVD or mp4 of it goes on sale, rather than when the 30 days have expired. So that's a good sign that the video will be available on BBCA in the USA, or for sale as a DVD or downloadable form soon.

[Betty]

I don't see any news of this being aired again or in the USA, & no news of it going on sale. It would be a shame if they sit on this to be aired only once a year in the UK, or never air it again. I see it got good reviews, so why would the BBC just sit on it? Still, it was nice of them to allow me to post a low-def version of it for 30 days, & not actually want it shut down for 7 weeks. But the owners of the song in the film, "I Want to Break Free" were total pigs about it.

If this song is a problem in the distribution of the film, I had successfully removed the song while still preserving the dialog. I could have easily dubbed in a Royalty-Free music track in it's place on the 720p-1080p version of the film if necessary. Maybe people should write the BBC that they would like to see the film in the USA, or love to buy a download of it.

Anywho, I see it is still available on the torrents if you missed it. Much less seeders than before, so it may take about an hour to download. I may try to re-seed it if there seems to be a demand for it.

Beware there is a version over a GB in size of the film in the torrents. The 473mb version looks exactly the same so don't waste your time with the oversized version. It's only a 1 hour movie. It only takes 600-700mb of file sizes in mp4 or MKV formats for every hour of video for a perfect copy of a 1080p blu-ray video. Excellent but not perfect blu-ray copies in mp4 or MKV formats can be had at 350-450mb per hour of video. People with bloated file sizes for these videos are using poor conversion techniques, crappy software, or simply don't know what they're doing.

And "cam" versions of films that look no better (or worse) than old VHS tape NEVER have to be more than 300mb per hour in file size. If the quality isn't in the original, recording or converting it to a larger file size & bitrate is just a waste of time & bandwidth. With ISP throttling, data caps, & slow speeds in rural or remote areas, it makes no sense to unnecessarily bloat file sizes. It's like all those stupid people who take 128kbs music, & re-code it to 320kbs thinking it will make it better. No, you still have a 128kbs quality song, except now it takes as much space, bandwidth, & resources as 320kbs audio.

In most cases with our background mixes, the songs that sound the worst were because the low-quality royalty-free original song sounded no better. They are highly compressed for use only as background music, but recording them at a higher bitrate would have only made no difference with the songs that had the poorest quality to start with. I see torrents of current TV shows. These network TV shows were broadcast with only 90-190kbs AAC audio at 30fps video. Why do the torrent seeders convert them to 1150kbs audio at 120fps when that quality wasn't there in the first place? It's not gonna make the video & audio any better.

I see the same 20 minute sitcoms at over a GB in file size in torrents, that are nothing more than exact copies of the original 125-250mb torrent down the list. If it was broadcast over the air or through the cable or recorded on your DVR in a file size no larger than 250mb, converting it to an over a GB file size isn't gonna make it better, but all the fools are downloading the identical copy in the larger file size thinking it is anyway.

Anywho the film's torrent is still out there. I will continue to seed for a while it if I see people downloading it. Please seed it for a while if you liked it too. If I'm the only one seeding it on my slow DSL, it will take 112 minutes to download. My uploading speed isn't that good. Spread the word around about it so others download & seed it too.

https://kickass.to/the-boy-in-the-dress-hdtv-x264-tastetv-ettv-t10007296.html

I'm using uTorrent 3.1.3 Build 27498, from June 26, 2012 for my torrent downloads. It works excellent in XP, vista, W7, W8, & W8.1.

I know I say that it's best to get the software from the creator's website, but for the old version you want to go here, http://www.oldapps.com/utorrent.php and here, http://www.oldapps.com/utorrent.php?old_utorrent=7871

You have to pay for ad-free new versions of utorrent. The free older versions are essentially the same ad-free versions. Refuse any updates for it, or shut off all updates for it. Your own anti-virus & firewall will be your protection, not your torrent client. Use peerblock whenever downloading or sharing torrents to block authorities, & governments from seeing what you download & share. Allow it to update (about once a week). http://www.peerblock.com/

Pay very close attention when you install any software. More often than not it will ask you to install a toolbar or browser helper you don't really need. Those apps pay to be there so you get the software free. But they are no good or can even be very bad. So decline installing anything but just the software you wanted. Be careful, the wording may make it seem like you are just approving of the software you wanted. Read it very carefully, it's worded to fool you into agreeing to install crap ware. If you use the regular & default install, it might install all the crap automatically too. Whenever it's an option, always choose custom install, & carefully read what you select. They're worded to even fool the best used car salesman to trick you into clicking & installing stuff you don't want.

It's free software. To get something or a lot for free it should be worth your time to be cautious, & read carefully so you know what you're clicking for. In most good free software, if you accidentally installed something else you didn't want, it's easily removed in your programs add/remove menu. Whenever I install any software from anywhere, I always check the menu anyway to be sure they didn't slip something by me. Familiarize yourself with it so you don't remove something crucial that's actually supposed to be there. When in doubt, google it to find out what it is in there.

I consider torrents & most good torrent software to be much safer than surfing the web. But torrents should not be confused with other p2p fileshare systems out there like frostwire, emule, & edonkey. There are no peer comments, ratings, & control on those types of systems, so are much more risky.

[andyg0404]

Hi,

Speaking of David Walliams.

Simon Cowell and David Walliams Wedding | Red Nose Day 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=712ZilkyBT8

Andy G.

[Betty]

I had thought nobody else was interested in getting a torrent of the movie, because I saw no uploads of the movie from my file. So I was gonna shut down my torrent client this morning. Got sidetracked trying to deal with server problems at stories (they're working on it). When I get back to my primary PC, to shut down uTorrent, I see it's uploading the file at 63-79kbs. So I'll leave it on & running a while longer so they can get it faster.

I don't usually leave uTorrent on to share stuff. Usually it's only on when I'm downloading, but I'm not leaching. Anything in it to share is there while I'm downloading stuff. After I download, if I see someone is still downloading something I share, I'll leave it on until they're done. Don't you hate people who cut you off in the middle of a long download? It's extra annoying when it gets to 90-99% completed, & just stops before it's finished.

Usually when I'm sharing stuff, it's royalty-free stuff, like unsigned bands or some software I made. It's just large files, so it's the easiest way to transfer them over long distances without using up expensive servers or resources... especially when you want more than 1 person to get them. Then when 2 people share the same file, the download speed doubles. Instead of sending them the large file from my computer or a server, I just send them the torrent link. The more people who share it, the faster it downloads.

Speaking of torrents. I just discovered the last half of Season 2, & all of Season 3 of "Lost in Space" is missing from a hard drive. I originally transferred it from a very old 250mb usb drive that was wearing out. I guess the transfer from the worn drive didn't go through properly. It's shows the missing episodes titles, but when I click on them, it shows there's nothing there. So I only have about half the series. Gotta find replacements. I may have to find the entire series just to replace the missing ones

[Betty]

Found the entire series of Lost In Space to replace my missing episodes. Not quite as clear as my lost episodes, but good enough. My lost ones looked as good as the newest DVD versions, because they were recorded in Super-VHS, which was almost DVD quality. At least I didn't have to edit out any commercials this time, for the missing episodes.

[andyg0404]

Hi,

Brave Westhoughton schoolboy dresses up as David Walliams' The Boy in the Dress for World Book Day - and is a worldwide hit on Twitter

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/11837861.Brave_boy_turns_up_at_school_in_a_dress___and_is_a_worldwide_hit/?ref=trn

Andy G

[Betty]

Thanks.

Awww. How sweet.

One again a site prevents us from right clicking to see the full sized image or easily save & archive them, so I'm reposting them here for us & the archives to save for the future.