February 08, 2010 by sharky
BTN is not just another TV Tracker.
How to Join BTN:
Registration to BTN is not open publicly - and likely never will be. Private tracker members who are "Power Users & up" may have already witnessed direct recruitment happening through reputable trackers such as What.CD, Waffles and a few others. Look for the BTN invite threads, you’ll find the offers.
For those unlucky enough not to be able to make the most out of internal tracker recruitment, there’s still the option to request an invite through BTN’s IRC invite/interview channel.
- Server: irc.omgwtfhax.net
- Channel: #BTN-Invites (hotlink here)
TIP: Those who try to connect through Mibbit will be ignored (since BTN’s bot can’t PM Mibbit users). Use a real IRC client such as mIRC instead.
NOTES about the Interview: Due to the large number of potential members flocking in to BTN’s invite channel, the interview process is completely automated. Thus typically, interviewees don’t need to wait for the interview to commence (but read the topic/message and follow instructions). In a private PM, a series of questions will be asked by the invite bot, mostly about your torrent habits so be sure to have a couple of profile links on hand. Once completed, the ‘interview’ is then saved and staff will manually go through each one. If you’ve been approved, an invite will then be sent to the email address you supplied. Approval (invites) are not automatically sent at the end of the interview, so please be patient.
Option #2: Fill out the BTN application form, found at http://passmetheremote.org
BTN - Current Stats:
It’s not like BTN even needs to open an "IRC recruitment" channel - word-of-mouth has already spread quickly throughout the BT circuit, without the use of “BT paparazzi sites” such as FileShareFreak. BTN already boasts more than 2,100 torrents and 863 members since coming online in early November 2009.
BTN is Active: 675 out of 863 registered members have been active on the tracker during the past week, which says a lot about the community. BTN’s stats speak for themselves: 20,000 forum posts and 6,000+ seeds on nearly 2,200 torrents. This tracker is sizzling hot!
BTN’s Unique Exclusive Features…
Let’s get straight to what BTN brings it to the table:
Titillating Torrent ‘Browse Page’, with Banners
On the browse page, torrents are subdivided into two main categories for releases (TV and Series) - "TV" being single episodes and "Series" meaning full seasons & series’. But it’s the banners (icons) for TV shows that really makes BTN special.
"Banners" double as category icons for each individual television show as listed at BTN (which lists nearly 1,200 different shows). These banners are direct links to the series page listing (read more below).
Series Page: Entries For All TV Shows
Great stuff here - just click into a series page (a "banner" icon) to get to BTN’s page for each TV series.
Unique to BTN, there’s a plethora of info to be found - including:
• Series Info — Includes a wealth of information about each TV show, including: A synopsis of the series, torrent requests for series/episode, last episode, next episode, runtime, first aired, air day, the network, and external links to the show (IMDb, TVRage, TheTVDb).
• Extended Info — All torrents that pertain to each TV Program are displayed on the corresponding series page (HD/XViD, episodes/seasons). On the series page, BTN makes it easy for members to pick out the season packs from individual episodes. Full seasons are a popular staple to BTN’s content, and are shown in a separate listing on the series page - which makes seasons easy to browse among the torrents; and episodes are displayed at the top.
• Other Goodies — Multiple screenshots (banners, posters, and fan art), as well as a YouTube link (and if not available, an option for members to add one) and even a forum link to discuss the series. Actor info is slated to roll in soon.
BTN is Scene Connected; Has a PreDb
One thing that many TV trackers are lacking is scene access. Without it, these trackers are relying heavily on fast uploaders to supply the latest TV releases which can lead to missing content & gaps in episodes, not to mention lackluster pretimes. Not so with BTN - pretimes are posted for all episodic releases.
BTN goes so far as to have their own web-based PreDB which displays an updated list of TV scene releases, with links to torrents on the site.
Sceneaxx & Pretimes — How many TV trackers have topsite access with an autoupload bot to the tracker? BTN does, and is becoming one of the fastest trackers for tv release pretimes. Here are just a few of the recent torrent races as seen on p2p-net.eu #tracers:
- [ BTN ] [ #2 ] [ The.Office.US.S06E14.720p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION ] [ 1m 52s After Pre ] [ Race Won By SCC 49s Ago ]
- [ BTN ] [ #2 ] [ 30.Rock.S04E12.720p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION ] [ 2m 32s After Pre ] [ Race Won By SCC 56s Ago ]
- [ BTN ] [ #3 ] [ Fringe.S02E15.Jacksonville.HDTV.XviD-FQM ] [ 1m 24s After Pre ] [ Race Won By SCC 1m 1s Ago ]
- [ BTN ] [ #4 ] [ Supernatural.S05E13.The.Song.Remains.the.Same.HDTV.XviD-FQM ] [ 1m 16s After Pre ] [ Race Won By SCC 55s Ago ]
TV Schedule
Looking for airtimes (and dates) of a particular TV show? You’ll find it on BTN’s "TV Schedule" page - which includes season & episode numbers, a description (usually the episode’s official title), as well as what station the program will air on (and when) - completed by links to TVRage.com.
TV Favorites
Users are able to create their own personal page and add TV shows to the list. While this feature is still in beta, users are able to enter keywords to search for particular shows. Info that is displayed here includes latest & next episode, airtime, status and episode titles.
Shows & Series Lists (Pages)
BTN offers two different (yet equally informative) pages for browsing both shows and series. On the TV Series page - shows can be filtered by network, name, status and airdate (day of the week).
Filter By Status — To give an example of how functional BTN really is, below shows how filtering can be applied through "filter status".
Filter By Network — Shows/series can also be filtered by their originating network, as seen below:
Unique User Profiles
BTN incorporates a unique ranking system which takes into consideration many different levels of activity on the tracker.
Uploading, Autofill & FastTorrents
Uploading is encouraged, but it’s also requisite for transcending in user class. To make it to Power User - members must "be here at least 4 weeks, have uploaded at least 5 torrents, have snatched at least 5 torrents and have 110GB uploaded. Has access to PU forum and can access notifications." Uploading rules: No restrictions at the moment; other than that all releases must be unrarred (archived files are not allowed).
Unique autofill: Uploaders simply need to import the proper scene name, and most fields on the upload page will be automatically filled in. Great when combined through releases found on BTN’s PreDB link.
Internal Image Hosting: BTN has their own image hosting service; members can use it to host tv series artwork & banners, user avatars or anything else.
Bonus System, With Real Benefits
Bonus System — "Bonus points are awarded for seeding completed torrents. Every 15 minutes you are awarded 0.25 points for each completed torrent you’re seeding". BTN has put some effort into their bonus system, and offers some real incentives:
BTN’s IRC Features:
At any given time there are 150-200 members on the main #BTN channel, which shows a very high level of activity. A list of BTN’s IRC channels in irc.omgwtfhax.net include:
- • #BTN - the main BTN channel
- • Full IRC announces in #pre, #pre.spam, #BTN-Pre, #pre.search, #btn-announce
- • Help/support channel - #btn-support
- • Invite/Interview channel - #BTN-Interview
BTN is Ratio-Free
That’s right: no ratio is counted on BTN. Once torrents have completed downloading, they need to be seeded for:
- • Single Episodes - must be seeded for 24 hours, or to 1:1.
- • Seasons/Packs - must be seeded for 120 hours, or to 1:1.
- • You MUST seed the torrent to the required amounts within 2 weeks or you will receive a warning, or worse.
- • If you pause a torrent, you have 12 hours to restart it or it will become a HnR.
BTN has a H&R system in place; members can view the seed status for individual torrents in their snatchlist by clicking on the number listed next to "H&Rs":
BTN - Rules:
- • The tracker’s full URL is not allowed to be posted publicly, same goes for screenshots that reveal the URL.
- • Invites are not to be offered through torrent forums (GA/Request threads) apart from official staff recruitment.
- • Please read the rules, especially for uploading. BTN wants as much information in the torrents as possible, preferably using TDMaker or MediaInfo (refer to the news entry on their homepage for more info).
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