November 23, 2008 by sharky
We probably don’t have to tell you which is the best private TV tracker. However, there are some very decent alternative private sites that deal exclusively in television torrents; even some that are open for registration. For those of you who would rather shell out mad dollars for a good Internet package instead of subscribing to hefty $50 cable bills, then it’s imperative to get yourself into a couple of TV trackers to fill in the void. So, what’s the best part about having access to almost every show imaginable… Is it that they’re absolutely free to watch? Nope. Is it that there’s so much more variety, including different languages & international programs that aren’t available from your lame Cable Co.? Nah. The best part is, there are no commercials!
| Tracker: | BitMeTV | TVTorrentz | TVT.ro | TvT.com | Bitt.tv | Feedtv.org |
| # of Torrents** | 15,600 | 2,706 | 8,523 | 10,720 | 3,707 | 1,329 |
| Daily Torrents* | ~89 | ~13 | ~37 | ~60 | ~59 | ~11 |
| Open Signups? | No | often | often | No | ? | Yes |
| RSS Feed? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Freeleech? | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Active Invites? | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? | open reg |
| Lang./Country | English | English | Eng/Rom | English | English | Sweden |
| # of Users | 21K / 25K | 3,969 | unknown | > 40K | 5,942 | 6,988 / 9K |
| Alexa Rank: | 22,164 | 614,912 | 23,444 | 18,282 | 234,397 | 480,759 |
** Stats for torrent number include only ACTIVE torrents.
* Stats for number of daily torrents added are averaged over the last 31 days (except for TVT.ro).
BitMeTV
No one can dispute the fact that BitMeTV reigns supreme as the king of TV trackers. While their pre-times are less than stellar compared to 0day trackers, there’s a staggering amount of variety that doesn’t exist anywhere else. Couple this with BitMeTV’s custom re-encodes, large packs, tons of HD releases, complete sets & series’ - and you’ve got yourself the best TV tracker on the planet.
- Pre-times: Usually anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes.
- # of Torrents: Currently, ~15,500. Averages are between 15K and 17K.
- # of Daily Torrents (Avg.): ~89 new torrents per day (averaged over last 30 days).
- Complete Sets/Series’: 100’s
- # of Categories/Shows: 403 (and countless others in amongst the general cats)
- Freeleech Torrents: Nil
- Minimum Global Ratio: 0.5
- Specialty Torrents: Custom re-encodes that are unavailable elsewhere.
Finding an Invitation: BMTV almost never opens signups publicly, but it’s been known to happen. Finding an invite isn’t too difficult, as long as you’ve built up some reputation in a torrent forum. You’ll likely be asked if you have a seedbox, too - as torrents burn out extremely fast; home seeding is difficult, to say the least.
- Invite System: Power Users and up are awarded a maximum of [3] invites per 30 day period, which is indicative of ratio.
- RSS Feeds: Two types; one is site-based, the other is IRC-based.
- IRC — irc://irc.bitmetv.org/bitmetv or #bitmetv.help
- Classes/Active Torrents:
BitMeTV could have many more torrents than they currently do; however, much of the older single episodes smartly get concatenated and re-released as ’season sets’ and complete series’ (packs).
TVTorrentz.org
TVTorrentz.org is an overlooked tracker that is not known for great pre-times, so if you’re looking for scene stuff as it comes out, go elsewhere. However, TVTorrentz has its own strengths - as found in more than 800 available season packs throughout over 400 listed shows. If you’re a collector of complete sets new and old, then this is the place for you.
- Pre-times: Hours to days.
- # of Torrents: Currently, 2,706 active torrents.
- # of Daily Torrents (Avg.): ~13 new torrents per day (as averaged over last 30 days).
- Complete Sets/Series’: 808
- # of Categories/Shows: 404
- Freeleech Torrents: 205
- Minimum Global Ratio: Not set. Uses a Seeding Hours scheme.
- Specialty Torrents: Complete Series’, packs, and older shows.
- Finding an Invitation/signups: Signups are often open publicly, just keep checking back as inactive accounts are pruned all the time.
- Invite System: Currently there’s no active invite system, but there’s 200 slots for new members added each week.
- IRC — irc://irc.eu.freequest.net/tvtorrentz
TVTorrentz doesn’t operate with ratios commonly found on most trackers, but instead employs a Seeding Hours plan. All members here at TVTorrentz.org commit to seeding a few torrents worth at least 40 seeding-hours per day. It’s a way for everyone to show they care about their fellow members and a way of sharing the work of keeping all torrents alive. 40 seeding-hours are therefore deducted from your account by the system every night. If you for some reason don’t have enough seeding-hours, you will compensate for not doing your share by having 50 MB credits deducted from your account instead.
To put it simply, if you continuously seed just 2 torrents, you’ll keep your account more than healthy. And even if you don’t, it will still take quite some time to use up all of your 50 GB credits that are given to each new member, until such time as you’re able to seed again.
TV.Torrents.ro
Many regard TV.Torrents.ro as the second-best TV tracker next to BitMeTV, and for good reason. Everything HD is freeleech (720p, Blu-Ray), as well as most season series’ and ‘complete’ packs. Combine this with a huge userbase & a colossal number of leechers for everything, seeding is a breeze. To keep the site uncluttered, single episodic torrents are often removed and replaced with a series pack once the complete set is made. Aside from a staggering amount of content, TVTro is extremely user-friendly; browsing and searching is easy at this visually appealing TV tracker. At last check (today, Nov. 23) signups are open.
Pre-times: Usually 30 minutes or more.
- User Classes: See image (right).
- # of Torrents: Currently has 8,523 active torrents.
- # of Daily Torrents: ~37 (averaged from Sept. 20 - Oct. 20).
- Complete Sets/Series’: 600+
- # of Categories/Shows: 259
- Freeleech Torrents: 2,182
- Minimum Global Ratio: 0.5
- Specialty Torrents: Complete Series’, scene releases, custom RoSubbed torrents.
- Finding an Invitation: Signups are often open publicly, just keep checking back as inactive accounts are pruned all the time.
- Invite System: Currently there’s no active invite system for their members.
- IRC — Not found
- RSS Feed: TVT.ro uses a sophisticated RSS feed, in which categories (shows) can be selected in the feed. Additionally, the RSS can be viewed as a Web or Download link, with or without cookies for the login:
TVTorrents.com
Users either faithfully love the unconventional layout of TvTorrents.com, or they don’t. If you can get accustomed to how the torrents are arranged then you’ll find there’s a plethora of content at TvT. With over 1,000 categories (shows) to choose from, there’s something for everyone.
- Pre-times: 30 minutes to 3 hours, sometimes longer.
- # of Torrents: Currently has 10,720 active torrents.
- # of Daily Torrents: ~60 (averaged from last 30 days)
- Complete Sets/Series’: unknown, but many
- # of Categories/Shows: 1,015
- Freeleech Torrents: None
- Minimum Global Ratio: Uses a credit system. See below.
- Specialty Torrents: Complete Series’, scene releases, HD content
- Finding an Invitation: We haven’t seen ‘open invites’ in quite some time. There’s a recruitment thread in What.cd > Forums > Invites (for PUs) which sometimes has GA’s.
- Invite System: Qualifying members are awarded 3 invites per 90 days.
- User Classes: Two types; Users and Premium [donators].
- Forums: Apparently available for VIPs (Premium members) only.
- RSS Feed: Two types; Recent torrents and Favorite shows.
- IRC — irc://2.irc.tvtorrents.com
Here’s a look at the options for a selected show. This is the Torrents tab:
TVT has recently changed some of the rules for their Credits and RSS system:
TVT Credits system: Instead of using ratios, TVT employs a Credit system whereby regular ‘Users’ get 1.5 MB upload credit for each 1 MB uploaded (Premium users get 3:1). Thus, if you download a 5 GB file, you will lose 5 GB of your credit. However, if you are able to hit 1:1 sharing ratio on that torrent, you will get 5 GB X 1.5 = 7.5 GB added to your credit, for a net gain of 2.5 GB credit. This is for normal torrents, and the rules have been changed on this for torrents with high seeders (see image above). Additionally, there’s a Seed Bonus with the same 1.5-to-1 credit ratio for data uploaded in a finished (seeding) torrent. Depending on your GB credit (GCredit), users are limited to the number of simultaneous torrents, thus it’s important for new members to build this up as soon as possible.
Bitt.tv
Hands down, Bitt.tv has to be the most under-rated TV tracker around. With blazing pre-times and content not even found at BitMeTV, we’re uncertain why Bitt.tv isn’t more popular than it is. While this tracker is not a great haven for those in search of large packs and complete series’, new scene content is definitely their forté.
- Pre-times: Seconds to minutes - very fast.
- # of Torrents: Currently has 3,707 active torrents.
- # of Daily Torrents: ~59 (averaged over last 30 days).
- Complete Sets/Series’: 73
- # of Categories/Shows: 123
- Freeleech Torrents: 73 (all ‘packs’).
- Minimum Global Ratio: 0.5
- Specialty Torrents: New content, fast pre-times, sports torrents.
- Finding an Invitation: Apparently as of Nov. 2, signups are closed.
- Invite System: Yes, but members need to request them.
- IRC — irc://irc.bitt.tv/bitt.tv
- User Classes: User (Member), Uploader & VIP.
- RSS Feed: Two types; regular for all new content, and a custom one for categories.
FeedTV.org
FeedTV.org is a Swedish TV tracker that carries torrents in both English and their native language. The site is aesthetically pleasing and well organized - albeit not in English. Torrents can be browsed by newest releases, and by TV series. There aren’t a lot of ’season packs’ to choose from; which count in at around 48. Almost everything on the site is scene content.
- Pre-times: Very decent for mainstream stuff.
- # of Torrents: Currently has 3,707 active torrents.
- # of Daily Torrents: ~11 (averaged over last 30 days).
- Complete Sets/Series’: 48
- # of Categories/Shows: 185 (although many are empty)
- Freeleech Torrents: 123 (marked as yellow releases)
- Minimum Global Ratio: 0.5
- Specialty Torrents: New scene content.
- Finding an Invitation: Open to new signups.
- Invite System: Unknown
- IRC — irc://irc.freequest.net/feedtv
- User Classes: User (Member), Uploader & VIP.
- RSS Feed: Yes - one type.
TheBox.bz
TheBox.bz specializes in UK television torrents, as almost everything from BBC ends up here. Currently there’s almost 1,800 sports torrents (rugby, football, etc). There’s also a very impressive selection of invite threads (for other trackers) in the forums, aptly named "Other BitTorrent Sites" which is available to all. TheBox has a nice selection of torrents & rare stuff, fast speeds, friendly staff, and keeping a good sharing ratio is easy.
- Pre-times: N/A
- Members: 68,769
- # of Torrents: Currently has 29,760 active torrents.
- # of Daily Torrents: ~79 (averaged over last 30 days).
- Complete Sets/Series’: >100
- # of Categories/Shows: 20
- Freeleech Torrents: 4,004
- Minimum Global Ratio: varies upon DL GBs.
- Specialty Torrents: BBC, sports
- Finding an Invitation: Currently open to new signups.
- Invite System: Yes, (Any User Class) Downloaded > 10 GB and ratio greater than 1.05 (Invites given every 20 days).
- IRC — irc://irc.thebox.bz/thebox.bz
- User Classes: User, Power User, Extreme User, VIP
- RSS Feed: Yes - both regular and ‘direct download’ RSS.
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