Thanks! This is very informative
Also would you happen to know like what were the highest qualities avail for different time periods. I look back at my collection and a lot are 540p but I did recall not getting the highest quality bc I was trying to save space and now I regret it haha
I attached a video guide if you want to look up the video number with the title. The following is what I have been able to reconstruct using metadata from .mov files I downloaded directly from the site years ago, snapshots of the sean cody site on the wayback machine, and resources like the fan made video guide I attached so it may not be 100% corrent.
In 2009 the studio remastered nearly all of their backcatalog and updated the older videos to high quality 480p .mov quicktime files.
(2001 to ~2003) 240p in .wmv:
sc0001 to sc0004 were not remastered and were purged from the site. All I have been able to find have been .WMV files in 240p. This also includes additional videos that seem to have been deleted early in the site's history: sc0009, sc0010, sc0034, sc0069, sc0070, sc0075, sc0088, sc0091, sc0115, sc00127, sc0129, sc0150, sc0154, and sc0168
(2001 to 2006) 480p .mov:
sc0005 to sc0346 (except for those listed above) seem to have all been remastered to 480p with the .mov files higher in quality than the .wmv files.
(2006) 480p .mov and 540p .mov:
in 2006, they began to transition to 540p with some older videos in 480p released before completely transitioning to 540p.
sc0347 to sc0365 are 540p except for the following released in 480p: sc0350, sc0351, sc0352, sc0357, and sc0366
(2006 to 2012) 540p .mov:
sc0367 to sc1455 all were in 540p and available in .mov format
(2012 to 2013) 1080p .mov:
sc1456 to sc1633
These were the most detailed HD videos they have ever released and also some of the largest file sizes. The largest files from this era were more than 3 GB and worth the size imo.
(2013 to present day) 1080p .mp4:
sc1634 to today
These have all been in 1080p full HD but the studio seemed to have tried different compression schemes over the years to save bandwitdh. if you compare the 2013 .mov videos to videos released in 2016 you can see they lack a lot of the detail the older videos have.
files with formats not mentioned above like .avi or .mkv or were not sourced from the sean cody site and have been recompressed by fans to save disk space at the cost of losing video and audio quality. Files that are listed as 540p but you may find out there in 720p are also lower quality because these were not remastered from the original footage and were 540p videos blown up to 720p and recompressed.