BTN - Interviews Are Open Again to a Special TV Tracker

May 11, 2010 by sharky

Just a quick shoutout to TV freaks looking to join BitTorrent’s hottest ratioless tracker - BTN has now re-opened their IRC interview channel to those looking to apply. After a temporary (but lengthy) removal of members’ invites and shutdown of IRC recruitment, both have now been restored. Here’s your chance to get into one of the most innovative accomplishments ever put forth by a tracker dev team - this is definitely an opportunity not to be overlooked.

BTN Invites on IRC

Aspiring applicants are encouraged to apply for an interview on IRC (details are below). To join the queue, type !add in the command window in the BTN-Invites channel and wait for assistance (be sure to read the topic, as well). TIP: You might want to brush up on BTN’s rules found at http://passmetheremote.org/?action=rules before applying.

BTN - New Features

A lot has changed at BTN since they officially went public three months ago. After launching with *just* 2,200 torrents, BTN now boasts an impressive 14,000 - which includes an array of more than 8,200 shows and 2,200 unique TV series. Instead of outlining all of BTN’s features (check out our introductory BTN article for a more robust list), we’ll touch on some of the newer details that make this site a modern marvel among TV trackers.

Advanced Searching / Browse Filtering

Members are now able to filter the "torrent browse" page by way of a few new criteria, including:

  • • Portable Device — BTN has recently added torrents for portable devices (M4V/MP4 container) - to view all, you’ll need to filter these through an advanced search using the resolution dropdown menu.
  • • Advanced Filters — Torrents can now be arranged by criteria including scene/non-scene, internal/non, codec, container, source, resolution, year - or anything else that could be possible.
  • • Episodes vs. Seasons — Simply put a tick in "Seasons" and click filter to return all results that are non-episodic. This can also be done through TV Shows & Series Lists as found on the homepage.

New ‘Legend’ Icons on the Browse

BTN already had a "fast torrent" icon to indicate seedbox-hosted torrents, but now they’ve also added icons for 1.5x and 2x upload torrents; portable device releases; and official BTN autouploads.

Enhanced & Updated "Links"

There’s been a number of changes to the Links ’sidebar’ on the BTN homepage; it’s an area worthy of closer inspection. Here can be found links to some of the best features that BTN has to offer; including pages to TV Schedule, TV Pages, Shows List, Series List, BTN’s PreDB, and their Wiki — all of which make BTN a unique TV tracker as detailed here.

Newly-added features to the links area (see right) include Actors (this is the Actor’s Showcase) and TVNews (with a blog-like format for recent info about TV gossip, top stories & headlines from the world of TV - BTN members are able to contribute which makes it special). The Friends (v2) entry has been revamped to include links for messaging, user profiles, and ‘add’ to your own buddy list as well as an item for possible friends based on snatches of your torrents (amazingly, all these features are available on the same page).

Updated "Notification" System via IRC and/or PM

Common to Gazelle-based trackers, BTN has a notification feature - but with a really cool twist. For those unfamiliar with how this works on What.CD or elsewhere - in a nutshell it allows for members to specify certain criteria or keywords for when a new torrent becomes available on the site (ie - a new upload) and thus users will be notified via a PM when a new release/torrent matches a predetermined set of details as set in the notification. Simply configure a notification to tell you when the next torrent for House, Lost or Dexter arrives, and you’ll automatically get a PM on the tracker.

Sounds cool? It is, but it has it’s restrictions under normal circumstances; especially so with TV trackers whereas being notified via PM is a slow process (since you’d need to continually refresh BTN in the web-browser to be able to be notified, duh). This is the process on which What.CD’s notification system works - it’s great, but not exactly efficient for its members. In reference to music, notifications are quite useless for those trying to build up ratio (if that’s the goal) but they’re great as they stand - purely as notifications. That’s why pywhatauto & zillions of other customized IRC/seedbox stuffs are used - this is offtopic.

However BTN takes the notifications to a new level. To reiterate - BTN is ratioless, so there’s no reason to be a ratiowhore - it’s all about getting notified of the newest TV eps from the tracker. BTN offers notifications via IRC, PM and RSS. That’s right: set a notification and hang out in their IRC channel and wait for an automated PM through IRC (not on the website) and download the torrent.

Profile Changes, ‘Wall’, & New Options

There’s a new action to choose who can comment on your profile (your options are: anyone, friends or nobody). In order to qualify as a friend, you must be on that users friends list. You can change who can post in your site preferences, but by default only friends can post on your profile.

BTN is the future of TV trackers. Loads of other changes are in store; there’s too many to mention herein. Get in now, if you can.



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