There are only a handful private trackers on this planet that can boast about being online for 5 years – RevolutionTT is one of them. This BitTorrent tracker which first came online back in 2006 has grown into one of the best and one of the most sought after General/0Day trackers in existence today. Being online for 5 years is quite an achievement especially when it comes to a private tracker, as they have to go through numerous obstacles ranging from legal issues to gathering enough monthly donations to keep the servers running. Therefore, RevTT is celebrating its 5th birthday in grand style. One of the major highlights of this celebration is the new look and feel – Revo now has a modernized layout with a more polished interface. In addition, site staff have activated download freeze (an option similar to free leech) on all torrent packs and are giving away gigabytes of free upload credit to all members.

RevolutionTT

Quoted below is the official notification about 5th birthday celebrations:

Five years ago a mighty tracker was launched providing the building blocks for the great community we love and know today. Hundreds of sites tried to copy us and our success over the years, most died within months, some lasted a couple of years and some even ran away with their members generous donations.
We wanted to do something special on our fifth Birthday for the members who stuck by us through the years as well as those who are still joining this great community today. We have given the site a refreshing makeover for starters, for those who for whatever reason don't like the modern style you can select classic style in your profile settings page. In addition to the new look, from 12:00am on the 28th of March to 11:59pm the 4th of April 2011:
We will activate Download Freeze on all request torrents, all torrent packs and any torrent 10 GB or over in size. This means your download counter will not be updated for any of those torrents, your upload will still count. This gives everyone a good chance to get on torrents they may have been too afraid to touch and to build a good buffer at the same time too.
Also, a Birthday gift awaits you on your user page, you will see a button to activate a free upload credit. The longer you've been here the higher the credit will be. From 5 GB for the newest members up to 30 GB for the oldest members. Just click on your user-name and you'll see the button just under your join date in the page, it will say how many GB's you are due, then you just click it to activate your upload credit.
Double Up Donation credits will also remain active during the Birthday promotion week too.
Here's to the past five years  and here's to the next five  Happy Birthday to all the members of our community, we would like to thank you all for the support you have generously shown us throughout the years, from the staffing team at RevolutionTT.

Having featured RevTT open signups more than 5 times in the last couple of years, we know for a fact that a lot of our readers are already members of this tracker. If you are one of them and haven’t visited the site in a while, now would be a good time to do so. Download freeze is an excellent opportunity to build your ratio and everyone gets free upload credit as part of the celebrations. The amount of free gigs that can be claimed will vary depending on how long you were a member of the site. Newest users will get 5GB while oldest members will get the full 30GB (I was a member there for three years and I got 20GB).

If you are a new reader who still haven’t managed to sign up for RevTT, unfortunately the birthday celebrations so far do not mention of an open signup. If anything of the sort is announced, we will update the news on the blog.

Read more about RevolutionTT:

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We are back again with another collective open signup update – this time with 10 more direct download link forums that have proved to be widely popular amongst our reader base. As some of our regular readers might know, this article is a recap of 10 most recently featured DDL sites on FILEnetworks Blog. Todays’ post features lots of niche sites including those specializing in lossless music, cartoons, horror movies, international magazines, foreign, non mainstream movies, scene MP3 music, eBooks and more. Not all of the listed sites are pure DDL forums though – there are some sites modeled after release blogs as well as a site that’s a hybrid of a DDLF, torrent tracker and a FTP host. All forums listed below are currently open for signup and are accepting new registrations - updated statistics, links to registration URLs as well as links to full site reviews are included with each entry.

We request our readers to have a look at the full site review before registering for a particular site. Full review has all the information you need including screenshots, content details, internal encoder group info (if any) and will help you decide if you really need to become a member of a particular site or not. Hopefully this would reduce forums getting filled with would-be-inactive members who signed up just because they can :p

What The Flac
What The Flac Logo
Site Name: What The Flac (http://whattheflac.net)
Registration URL: http://whattheflac.net/forum/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=register
Stats: 2000+ posts and 1000+ members
Description: WTF is DDL forum which focuses mainly on lossless music encoded using the FLAC codec – you can find and download discographies, full albums, official soundtrack (OST) and more here.Read the full review for a detailed overview.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Cartoon World
Cartoon World
Site Name: Cartoon World (http://forum.cartoon-world.org)
Registration URL: http://forum.cartoon-world.org/ucp.php?mode=register
Stats: ~1500 posts and 50000+ members
Description: Cartoon World (C-W) is a direct download link forum specializing in all sorts of animation – this includes regular modern cartoons, classic toons, anime, manga and even soundtracks of popular animated series. Check the full review for screenshots and addition details of what you can find on this site.
Full Review: [Click Here]

DDLThe.Net
DownloadThe.Net
Site Name: DDLThe.Net (http://ddlthe.net)
Registration URL: http://ddlthe.net/
Stats: ~70000 releases
Description: DDLThe.Net is not technically a DDL forum but os modeled after a release blog. It automatically uploads untouched scene releases to multiple one click hosting services and exposes their direct download links to be consumed by the masses.
Full Review: [Click Here]

StoreMags
StoreMags Logo
Site Name: StoreMags (http://storemags.com)
Registration URL: N/A 
Stats: 3200+ magazines
Description: StoreMags is a great site to find direct download links of iPad/PC compatible issues of popular international magazines. All issues come in high quality true PDF format. For more info check out the full review. Note that this site indexes some adult magazines and is not family friendly.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Library.Nu
Library.Nu Logo
Site Name: Library.Nu (http://library.nu).
Registration URL: https://ssl.library.nu/account:register
Stats: 47000+ titles
Description: Library.Nu is a huge repository of nearly half a million Ebooks relating to various categories both educational and non educational. This site was previously known as Gigapedia – you can read more about the change and new site features here.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Horror Haven
Horror Haven
Site Name: Horror Haven (http://www.horrorhaven.org)
Registration URL: http://www.horrorhaven.org/register.php
Stats: Unknown
Description: A great alternative to the now defunction HorrorFlix, Horror Haven (HH) is a site that allows you to download Horror Movies, TV shows, soundtracks plus even books and magazines relating to the genre. Read this for screenshots and more information.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Magazines Download
Magazines Download

Site Name: Magazines Download (http://www.magazinesdownload.com)
Registration URL: N/A
Stats: Unknown
Description: Another good site to find downloadable PDF magazines. It has much less adult content than StoreMags and indexes new releases from pretty much all major international monthly publications. Check the full review for screens and more info.
Full Review: [Click Here]

musiCORE
MusiCore
Site Name: musiCore (http://musicore.net)
Registration URL: http://musicore.net/forums/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=register
Forum URL: http://musicore.net/forums/index.php
Stats: ~12000 members and ~370000 posts 
Description: musiCORE is no longer just a DDL forum – the site has morphed into a hybrid download engine which now offers three ways of leeching music; DDL, torrents and FTP links. Read this post for detailed information about how you can leech from this site.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Rojadirecta
Rojedirecta
Site Name: Rojedirecta (http://www.rojadirecta.es)
Registration URL: http://forum.rojadirecta.es/register.php
Stats: 867000+ members and 117600+ threads
Description: Rojadirecta is a huge repository of direct download and streaming links for live matches, recorded matches and highlights relating to a number of different sporting events across a number of different countries. Despite domain seizures by U.S DoJ and ICE, the site still remains online.
Full Review: [Click Here]

ForiegnMoviesDDL
ForeignMoviesDDL
Site Name: Foreign Movies DDL (
http://forum.foreignmoviesddl.org/)
Registration URL: http://forum.foreignmoviesddl.org/ucp.php?mode=register
Stats: 11800+ threads and 15500+ members
Description: ForeignMoviesDDL is a direct download link forum that specializes in non mainstream movies and foreign movies from across the world. You can find download links to thousands of English and non English movies on this site, including some rare content not usually found on even the largest of movie trackers.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Looking for more forums?

In case you didn’t read our previous summarized DDL forums updates, you can go ahead and check them here, here and here (includes details about 31 forums). Most of the sites featured in these updates are still open for signup. In addition, you can see our latest reviews in the DDL Forums section accessed from here.

What’s the best download manager for use with DDL Forums?

We strongly recommend you use JDownloader. This download manager is optimized for handling multiple one click hosting site links (commonly found on forums listed above) and includes a host of other features that will make your life a lot easier. The software is  free and comes without adware. To read more about JDownloader and download it for multiple operating systems, refer to this article.

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Several years ago when private trackers first came into the scene, there were no such things as dedicated HD torrent sites. However today, with HD video formats becoming increasingly popular, HD trackers have really gained traction. Today’s post is about one such dedicated torrent tracker for high definition content, namely World In HD (WiHD). WiHD is a BitTorrent tracker of French origin – that doesn’t necessary mean the site is useless for those who don’t speak French. It tracks a significant amount of English releases along with some French content, including untouched Blu Ray movies, Blu Ray remux as well as 720p and 1080p TV shows, movies, animation, documentaries, etc. Being a private community, WiHD is usually closed for public registrations. However, signups are currently open as part of their 1st anniversary celebrations.

WiHD Logo

Although it’s been online for just 1 year, WiHD hasn’t done badly in terms of expanding their torrent index - the site currently tracks over 1500 HD releases. It looks like they have amassed a decent enough user base during this time too, judging by the per numbers on popular torrents (official stats are unavailable). If you are concerned about the underlying mechanics, WiHD is built on the TS Special Edition codebase. It has all basic features of a private tracker and thankfully is one of the more cleaner looking, less cluttered TSSE implementations we’ve seen.

As we said earlier, WiHD tracks a mix of French and English releases including full Blu Ray movies, animation, documentaries, TV series and more. Most of the releases are in Multilanguage so English speaking fans will not be disappointed they created an account here. Amongst the indexed torrents were some unique uploads which I had not seen in other HD trackers – these are probably internal encodes by the site’s own release groups. The screenshot below shows some of the content traced on WiHD tracker:

WiHD Index

WiHD being tracker with its roots in France, the interface language defaults to French. However this can easily be switched to English by clicking on the English flag icon on top left corner of the page (once logged in). As mentioned in the title of this post registrations for World In HD are currently open. Get in while you can.

Site Name: World In HD (http://world-in-hd.net)

Signup URL: http://world-in-hd.net/signup.php

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Crysis 2, one of the most anticipated games of the year, is finally released. Just like its predecessor, the game has superb graphics but heavily taxes hardware and you’ll need a high end gaming rig to play it with everything maxed out. Needless to say this is one game you’ll want to tweak to get optimal performance on your system with minimal loss of visual quality. Thankfully, you can now tweak the hell out of Crysis 2 thanks to an awesome tool created by an avid fan of the franchise - Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options Tool allows you to change a number of advanced game settings though an easy to use graphics user interface. Either way this is our routine troubleshooting article for Crysis 2 – it discusses in detail how to use this tool to change game settings and provides generic tips to avoid random crashes you might experience while playing.

What is the Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options Tool and how does it work?

The Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options Tool allows you to enable/disable, turn on/off or change the following settings: shaders, post processing, motion blur, effects, shadows, radial blur, objects, sound, MSAA, particles, physics, edge AA, water, anisotropy. Additionally, it comes with options to disable intro movies, mouse acceleration , mouse smoothing, toggle zoom, toggle couch as well as to adjust field of vision (FoV) and movement FoV.

And how does this tool make it all possible? It uses the autoexec.cfg file to pass the settings on to the game during startup. Autoexec.cfg is a file that comes with Crysis 2 by default – all of the settings stored in the file automatically get applied during game startup. Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options Tool automatically updates this file as the user changes settings through the graphical user interface. Screenshot of the GUI can be seen below:

Crysis 2 Config Tool

How to use Crysis 2 Advanced Graphics Options Tool to tweak and change advanced game settings

Using this tool is pretty easy and straightforward - you don’t need to be a power user to do it.

  • Make sure you have .NET Framework 2.0 or higher installed on your system.
  • Download the tool from here or here.
  • Unzip the download. Once you have unzipped place anywhere you want.
  • Delete any autoexec.cfg files found in the Crysis 2 root folder (default is C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis 2).
  • Run the Crysis2AdvancedGraphicsOptions.exe
  • Hit apply once all settings are set. Start the game.

Full credit for making this tool and making it available online should go to wasdie, who originally posted it on this thread.

The configuration tool did not work for me. How do I edit game settings manually?

If for some reason the automated configuration utility above did not work for you, there is still no need to panic. You can always do it manually, the old school way.

1. Open notepad. Paste the following inside a new document.

g_skipIntro=1
cl_fov=72
pl_movement.power_sprint_targetFov=72
i_mouse_accel=0
i_mouse_accel_max=100
i_mouse_smooth=0
r_motionblur=2
g_radialBlur=1
cl_zoomToggle=0
r_UseEdgeAA=0
r_TexMaxAnisotropy=16
sys_spec_shading=3
sys_spec_gameeffects=3
sys_spec_objectdetail=3
sys_spec_particles=3
sys_spec_physics=3
sys_spec_postprocessing=3
sys_spec_shadows=3
sys_spec_sound=3
sys_spec_texture=3
sys_spec_water=3
r_PostMSAA=2
cl_crouchtoggle=1

2. Go to File-> Save As. Change ‘Save As Type’ to all files. Enter autoexec.cfg as the save name. Save the file.

3. Locate the saved .cfg file and move it inside your Crysis 2 home directory. Backup and replace any existing files if prompted to overwrite. Default is C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Crytek\Crysis 2.

4. Any settings you edit and save in the above file will automatically get applied every time the game is run. For example, if you set g_skipIntro=1, intro movies will be disabled. If you set sys_spec_shadows=1, shadows will be set to low.

P.S. – If you are worried by the excessive amount of blur, try changing the Edge AA setting.

General tips to avoid Crysis 2 crashes and random CTD

  • If the game crashes during launch, try changing your audio settings to Stereo (Go to Control Panel –> Sound, Select ‘Speakers’ and click the ‘Configure’ button, Choose ‘Stereo’ in the next dialog.) Crysis 2 is known to crash on some systems with surround sound.
  • Update your DirectX – Crysis 2 relies heavily on the Direct3D API. It’s highly recommended that you upgrade to the latest monthly runtime of DirectX which can be located here.
  • Apply the v1.1 day one patch. You can download it from here.

This article is a work in progress. Check back here for more updates.

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How about a sports torrent tracker with open signups? Sport Torrent is a specialized private tracker which indexes content related to a number of different sports such as Rugby, Cricket, Football, Basketball, Baseball, Tennis, Boxing, Motorsports and more. The site covers almost all major tournaments and events including the Cricket world cup, 6 nations rugby, Champions league, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB alongside many other premier series around the world. You can find and download full match videos, highlights packages, TV documentaries as well as other sports related resources on Sport Torrent. Although this tracker does not seem to be a hot topic on BitTorrent forums and blogs, it’s a very decent sports tracker with lots of members, torrents and activity. If you are interested in signing up, registrations are currently open.

Sport Torrent

Despite the lack of a celebrity status on BitTorrent forums, Sport Torrent is one of the largest dedicated sports trackers currently online. It has close to 18000 registered members and indexes over 3500 active torrents. Don’t expect this tracker to have the download speeds of SCC but vast majority of the torrents here are well seeded and have adequate speeds.

Being a niche tracker, Sport Torrent tracks a lot of unique content. This is thanks to the sites’ many internal encoders, uploaders and cappers who capture/record and upload events aired on cable, satellite, terrestrial television and other sources. As said earlier ST covers almost all major sporting events and features daily highlights packages, full matches, etc from ongoing events such as 6 nations Rugby and Cricket world cup 2011. You can get a better idea about the sort of content tracked on Sport Torrent by looking at the screenshot below:

3-24-2011 8-00-49 AM

Although most of the specialized sport torrent trackers are usually invite only communities, Sport Torrent is an exception. The site has regular open signups and is accepting new members as we speak. If you are a fan of sport, go ahead and check it out.

Site Name: Sport Torrent (http://www.sporttorrent.com)

Signup URL: http://www.sporttorrent.com/index.php?page=signup

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Shogun 2, the latest installment to the Total War franchise from Creative Assembly has been released. From the several hours of game play experience I had with the title, it seemed to be an improvement in almost all aspects over its predecessor. Hell, I would even go as far to say that this is the best game in the Total War series. In terms of technical aspects, this franchise is not particularly renowned for stability but is well known for random crashes and showstopper bugs. Thankfully this time around the developers seem to have taken their time to release a well polished title with minimal glitches. Either way here’s our mini troubleshooting article for Total War Shogun 2 – it covers some of the issues for which solutions are not commonly discussed.

Shogun 2 black sky and no water bug

Some ATI graphics card owner might encounter this annoying glitch where the in game sky will look black and water rending will look messed up. This issue seems to be related to a new graphics driver release by ATI and can usually be fixed by rolling back to a previous drive. Simply uninstall the current version, download an older version from here (choose your GPU, search drivers and check ‘previous drivers’ link at bottom of drivers page) and install.

No sound, stuttering, noise or other audio issues in Total war Shogun 2

These can happen due to a number of reasons but here are two of the most common solutions you can try:

Fix 1:

  1. Open Control Panel –> Sound.
  2. In the ‘Playback’ tab, select ‘Speakers’. Choose ‘Properties’.
  3. In the Speaker Properties window, switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab.
  4. Under the ‘Default Format’ drop down, choose 24 bit, 48000 Hz (Studio Quality) option.
  5. Close all Windows by pressing Ok. Run the game

Fix 2:

  1. Go to Control Panel –> Sound
  2. Select ‘Speakers’ and click the ‘Configure’ button.
  3. Choose ‘Stereo’ in the next dialog.
  4. Click Next on every window in the wizard. Hit finish at the last step to save changes.

Where are the saved game located?

If you want to access your saved game files (either to play the game on a a different computer, give them to a friend or upload online), savegames are located in the following directory:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Shogun2

DirectX related issues and fixes

By default, Shogun 2 does not feature support for DirectX11- this will be provided in a future patch. Therefore, it’s recommended that you upgrade to the latest monthly runtime of DirectX9 which can be located here.

Where to find solutions for other Shogun 2 related problems?

We will update this article as we get more fixes/solutions coming our way. In the meantime, you can check the official forums for tons of other useful tips and user submitted questions and answers.

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It’s been ages since we last featured a kids torrent tracker on this blog. In a world where there aren’t many specialized kids trackers around, TEKKEN is a welcome addition to the BitTorrent scene. The site tracks lots of cartoons and animation (TV series as well as DVD), live action TV shows, kids games, kids movies, music and educational content including both scene and P2P releases. TEKKEN is a Romanian torrent tracker and naturally has localized content which are of Romanian origins. However, that’s no reason for English speaking users to not to visit the site – it indexes a lot of English as well as other foreign language content (mostly subtitled) including German, French, Spanish and other releases. TEKKEN is not a private tracker that’s generating a huge buzz on BitTorrent forums but it seems to be an underrated site not only kids but all fans of modern and classic cartoons would enjoy. For those interested in signing up, registrations were open at last check.

Tekken Logo

TEKKEN is one of those trackers that made a silent entry into the BitTorrent scene. It’s a relatively new site which launched just a couple of months ago and we don’t often see reviews and open signup links for this site on discussion forums or blogs (not yet anyways). However, this has not hampered TEKKEN from recruiting members – as of 23/3/2011 it had a user base of 2150+ registered users which is pretty impressive for a animation/kids themed niche tracker.

Content on TEKKEN is unique. They have over 1200 torrents of which many of them are encodes or uploads exclusive to the tracker. This includes cartoons (both modern and classic), animation, live action series, kids themed movies, music, games as well as some educational content such as maps, encyclopedias, etc. As we mentioned earlier, there are both English and foreign content indexed on TEKKEN. Vast majority are English releases which have non English subtitles which can be turned off during playback. Some are of course dubbed with a non English language. You can identify these releases using tags on torrent title – tags like RoSubbed usually mean optional subtitles while RoDubbed and similar tags mean they are dubbed in a language other than English.

TEKKEN Index

Registrations for TEKKEN are currently open. Currently, there is no max user cap mentioned so it can be assumed that open signups would continue for some time. If you are a fan of classic/modern cartoons or if you have children (or if you are a kid :p) and looking for some kids themed content, this is without a doubt a great tracker to have.

Site Name: TEKKEN (http://digitalfotoart.dyndns.org)

Signup URL: http://digitalfotoart.dyndns.org/signup.php

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One of the most influential figures behind the success of What.CD music torrent tracker is leaving the site. The SysOp who goes by the name ‘Whatman’ will step down not because of legal threats or internal conflicts but due to lack of free time to run the site. Needless to say, Whatmans’ contribution to What.CD and to the BitTorrent tracker community in general has been massive. He was one of the key figures behind the development of Gazelle, a tracker codebase with advanced features pioneered by What now used in dozens of private torrent trackers. Additionally, Whatman took the lead in developing Ocelot, a BitTorrent tracker software that uses server resources optimally and efficiently. His absence will no doubt be a blow to What.CD but the tracker would continue to function normally under the current staff team. Quoted below is the complete ‘farewell speech’ by Whatman, originally posted on What.CD forums:

...Is a long time on the Internet. In that time, I've watched this site grow from a tiny tbsource site, buckling under the load of a few dozen users. to its current form - a record-breaking Internet juggernaut with over a million torrents. I've been with this site as it's moved country due to copyright threats, thwarted database crashes and hacking attempts, developed two cutting-edge codebases from scratch, hosted thousands of independent releases from artists worldwide, and passed milestone after milestone, carving its way into BitTorrent fame. It's been one of the greatest experiences of my life, to not just watch this development as a passive observer, but to play a central role in it.
Unfortunately, times change. I've always been willing to give all of my free time to this site, but as of several months ago, free time has become a luxury of the past. The less time I spend here, the less qualified I am to decide the future of the site and lead it in that direction. In these past few months, these duties have been impeccably overtaken by the current management, and I feel entirely comfortable leaving the site in their more than capable hands. It is thus, with great regret, that I have chosen to resign from my long-standing post as sysop of this site.
To all the current and ex-staff: Even though we've occasionally differed in opinion, you guys are some of the nicest and most intelligent people I've ever had the good fortune to meet and work with. I'll miss all of you.
To the users: From the casual downloaders to the hardcore rippers and uploaders, this place is an ecosystem that needs all of you to survive. We couldn't have gotten anywhere without you.
To anyone I've ever insulted, hurt, or ignored (I hope there aren't too many of you): I extend my deepest apologies. I've always tried to maintain a level head, but I'd be lying if I said that the stress, responsibility, conflicting requests from different camps, and huge volume of PMs didn't get to me at times.
I'd love to write more, but this has been hard enough already. If nothing else, I guess, I'd like to be remembered as the badass who coded ocelot.
It's been a hell of a ride, What. I know you'll do fine without me.
--WhatMan

What.CD has come a long way from being one of OiNK’s piglets (the other being Waffles.Fm) to become the world’s largest music torrent community with over 1 million indexed torrents. Running a BitTorrent tracker, especially one that’s the size of What.CD, is not easy – it takes a lot of time and dedication on the part of SysOps to hold it all together. As you can obviously see from the success of the site, Whatman was one of the best Sysops a tracker could have - more than 150000 members What.CD would no doubt be grateful to the services he rendered over the years. Hopefully the development of Ocelot like projects will continue even after Whatman’s retirement.

P.S. – If you want to read more about Ocelot BitTorrent tracker, read this article on Hacker News.

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Back when DivxStage launched in 2009, very few people would have thought the site would become as successful as it is today. Not only has it survived for more than two years in cyberspace with a top 15000 Alexa ranking, but in 2011 it’s known as one of the best destinations to watch or host streaming media online. At a glace, DxS might look like yet another video hosting service. However, that isn’t entirely true. Users are able to browse or search through the majority of files uploaded to the site, making it a great place to find and watch full movies, TV shows and other video content online. Video playback on DivXStage hosted media is powered by DivX Web Player, a HTML5 based online video player created by Sonic Solutions. Uploading and watching streaming video with basic privileges is free on DivXStage and a premium plan is available will added benefits.

DivXStage

DivXStage launched couple of years ago, advertising itself as a hosting provider for media files. And even today, most people know of for its hosting capabilities only. Perhaps the following in their FAQ may have helped create this mindset:

Can I search for files other people uploaded
Currently we do not allow such service because not everyone likes to share the files they upload. Our service aim is either to give you a way to share large files or to keep them as a private backup.

Despite the above statement in FAQ, DxS does allow users to search its database (at least a part of it). Open the ‘Directory’ tab and try searching for a movie that recently got leaked online. Chance are that you’ll get multiple results for the search, including scene releases as well as P2P encodes of the complete movie.

DivxStage Index

As we mentioned earlier, playback on DxS hosted videos is powered by DivX Web Player. It’s not the best online media player out there but a lot of DivX sites including StageVU and DxS use it (download the free version from here). You need a pretty fast internet connection to get the best out of streaming and if you run into issues such as never ending buffering, videos not being played back with black screen, etc, the troubleshooting articles located here and here might help.

Uploading and watching streaming video with basic privileges is free on DivXStage. However, they do have a premium plan which removes advertisements, enables high speed streaming and allows video downloading (there are several browser extensions making this already possible on the free plan).

Site Name: DivXStage (http://www.divxstage.net)

Registration URL: http://www.divxstage.net/register.php

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By popular demand, here’s another giveaway for Merlin (ML) BitTorrent tracker. Despite having already given over 2000 invites to this private torrent tracker specializing in science fiction and fantasy content, there still seem to be a lot of people out and about looking for a way to get in. If you are one of those folks – you are in luck. The special signup key posted at the end of this article will allow another 1000 new members to get in – the best part about this giveaway is that you do not need to provide ratio proof, profile links or anything of that sort - you’ll get to create an account immediately with no wait time involved. For those of you hearing about this tracker for the first time, ML is a private community specializing in Science Fiction and Fantasy themed TV shows, documentaries, games and books – it is a project by the same crew behind ACiD, one of the older private trackers in existence.

Merlin Logo

As we have discussed several times before, ML is a relatively new torrent tracker that launched about a year back. It’s been an invite only community from the start and is yet to have an open signup as of today. However,the user base on ML is pretty solid thanks to official IRC and E-mail recruitment as well as various recruitment schemes on external forums and blogs such as this. In addition, lots of members found ML through its sister site ACiD which is one of the older private trackers in existence.

ML Screenshot

The screenshot above should give you a pretty clear understanding of the sort of content you’d find on ML. It indexes TV shows, documentaries, games, books and other stuff related to science fiction and fantasy genres. There are individual torrents as well as packs including some unique encodes uploaded by the site’s internal encoders. As of 19/3/2011, there were over 700 active torrents indexed on ML.

Coming back to the special open registration for FILEnetworks readers, the signup URL and key below will let you instantly create an account on ML, without having to go through the usual interview process. Once you get in, please make sure to read and respect site rules.

Site Name: Merlin (https://www.merlins-loft.org.uk)
Signup URL: https://www.merlins-loft.org.uk/Main/?act=Signup&id=12&hash=2058e52f9d3ecc1ca932fd83b17a6707
Signup Key: 6guqqs

Special thanks to ML staff.

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Whenever a niche forum or a torrent site goes down, the loss is strongly felt by its users. For most niche sites, alternatives are hard to come by and most of the loyal members often rely on a single site to download their content. Users of the direct download link forum ForeignMoviesDDL felt no different when they saw their favorite site’s homepage replaced with an advertisement ridden, parked domain web page a couple of days ago. Many assumed the worst but good news is that ForeignMoviesDDL is not raided or shut down. The site apparently ran into some trouble while trying to renew their domain and this has resulted in them being moved to a new location. Despite this small hiccup, FMDDL still still very much online without any loss of data. If you are hearing about this forum for the first time, it’s a great site specializing in rare, non mainstream & foreign movies from across the world.

ForeignMoviesDDL

With over 15000 registered members and over 10000 indexed releases, FMDDL is one of the largest sites of its caliber. However, most people who stumble across its homepage do not even know what the site has in store for them. By default, FMDDL’s homepage looks like that of a regular release blogs’. There’s nothing much special there but its forums is where the actual magic lies. Once you register and log into the forums, you’d find that it’s a fully equipped discussion board with categorized threads offering direct download links to thousands of movies (DDL links are often files hosted on Hotfile, Rapidshare, etc – they all work great with JDownloader).

If you are wonderin what sort of content is indexed on FMDDL, the following description is quoted from our previous review of the site:

Speaking of the content indexed on FMDDL, it’s all movies. However, don’t expect to find the latest Hollywood blockbuster flicks here. Indexed films are categorized into 5 mains sections based on the region they originated from; North America, UK, Australia and New Zealand (English, non mainstream movies), South America & Africa, Europe & Russia Southern, Western & Central Asia and finally Eastern & Southeastern Asia . There is also an additional category titled ‘Silent Movies, Documentary & Others’ which is pretty much self explanatory. Each of these forum sections have a main index ‘stickied’, making it easier to find what you are looking for. An individual thread for a specific movie is usually pretty detailed with screen captures, plot summary and of course, download links.

The screenshot below highlights some of the downloads sections & movie collections on ForeignMoviesDDL:

Foreign Movies DDL Forum Index

Despite the domain change and brief downtime, registrations for FMDDL continue to remain open. If you are movie fan on the lookout for rare, non mainstream or non English movies from various regions across the world, this is a great site to have.

Site Name: Foreign Movies DDL (http://www.foreignmoviesddl.org/forum)

Registration URL: http://forum.foreignmoviesddl.org/ucp.php?mode=register

Release Blog URL: http://www.foreignmoviesddl.org/

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The street date for the highly anticipated Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is getting nearer. The game is due to be released on the 17th of March in Europe and on the 22nd in North America. However, those familiar with the file sharing scene may know that the game has already leaked online – it was initially released by a Russian P2P pirate group and then by the well known scene group SKIDROW (SKIDROW’s modified exe seems to be more or less stolen from the Russian release, but that’s another story). Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is yet another game that uses the controversial UBISoft DRM – have pirates once again beaten this protection which was at one stage claimed to be uncrackable? They seem to have. But does the pirated version come without issues? No.

We’ve been getting mails from various folks asking us about differences between pirated and legitimate versions of AC: B. Since we do not have the time to reply to these mails individually, here’s a brief rundown of things that as of this moment does not work in the leaked release:

  • Downloadable content (DLC) is locked. Da Vinci and two other single player missions that come as DLC cannot be unlocked.
  • It is not possible to use the investments system. To do this, you need to go online and need to have a legitimate version of the game.
  • Shop quests do not work. These quests unlock additional content and as of this moment these do not work in the pirated version.

While none of the above are critical to successfully completing the single player campaign, they still are important features of the game. If you want to enjoy the above, right now the only way is to buy a legitimate copy of the game (which is not too bad a deal – AC : B is a huge game which has many hours of gameplay). Otherwise you’ll have to wait till when/if a scene/p2p group releases a better fix for their release.

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If you are one of those folks who like to tweak the hell out of every game you play, this post is for you. The newly released Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood seems to be quite a hit amongst gamers and this article explains where you can locate the game’s main configuration file – this file can be used change a lot of settings which are by default not changeable from the in game options menu or configuration utilities. In AC : B, the location where this file is stored has changed from previous games in the series. This has resulted in an increased number of our readers sending us mails asking where it is- see below on how to open the configuration file and manually edit settings.

  1. Install the game.
  2. Navigate to the folder  C:\Users\USERNAME\Saved Games\Assassin's Creed
  3. Locate the file ACBrotherhood.ini and open it with a text editor such as notepad.

You can now edit various game settings by changing values assigned for strings. Please note that entering incorrect values can cause your game to malfunction or not start at all – back up the .ini file before making any changes so that you can revert in case of failure. Once done editing, save and close the file and start the game to see the effects.

Note that saved games for AC : B are also stored in the same directory (C:\Users\USERNAME\Saved Games\Assassin's Creed)

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Although we post monthly roundups of private torrent tracker open signup updates, the same cannot be said about Direct Download Link (DDL) forums. We have so far featured over 75 DDL forums of various niches on this blog and here’s another recap of some of the most recently discussed ones. Just like BitTorrent, these sites are another frontier in file sharing – they allow users to find and download large files including movies, music, games and other content hosted on one click hosting sites (or cyberlockers, as they are called these days) such as RapidShare, HotFile, Megaupload, Netload, FileServe, Duckload, etc. Since there is always demand for exclusive content, we have chosen to feature in this post some specialty sites indexing rare and unique files ranging from music videos, HD Movies to classic magazines. As usual, updated forum statistics, links to registration URLs as well as links to full site reviews are included with each entry.

While all of the sites mentioned below are currently open for registration, we request our readers to have a look at the full site review before registering. Full review has all the information you need including screenshots, content details, internal encoder group info (if any) and will help you decide if you really need to become a member of a particular site or not. Hopefully this would reduce forums getting filled with would-be-inactive members who signed up just because they can :p

Bolt.CD
BOLT Logo 
Site Name: Bolt.CD (http://bolt.cd)
Registration URL: http://bolt.cd/board/register.php
Stats: 660000+ members and ~350000 threads
Description: Bolt is a huge direct download link (DDL) forum or a link sharing community where you can download everything from movies, music, software, games, E-books audiobooks to TV shows, music videos and even magazines from one click hosting sites. Bolt is several years old and claims to be world’s first link sharing forum. Refer to full review below for more information, 
Full Review: [Click Here]

SoundArea
SoundArea 
Site Name: SoundArea (http://forum.soundarea.org)
Registration URL: http://forum.soundarea.org/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=register
Stats: ~275000 members and 500000+ threads
Description: SoundArea is a direct download link (DDL) forum which indexes download links to full music albums, single tracks, radio shows and even music videos. The site is huge, both in terms of user base as well as content – if you download music online, this is a destination you’d not want to miss. Check out the full review for a detailed overview.
Full Review: [Click Here]

MVDDL
MVDDL.Net 
Site Name: MVDDL (http://mvddl.net)
Registration URL: http://mvddl.net/forum/register.php
Stats: ~16000 members and 125000+ threads
Description: MVDDL is one of the largest music video download forums currently online (read full review for screens). The site, which started soon after the demise of Keitex forum, is home to many ex-Keitex members and indexes a huge variety of both scene and non scene Mvid releases hosted on one click hosting services.
Full Review: [Click Here]

MVHive
MVHive 
Site Name: MVHive (http://www.mvhive.com)
Registration URL: http://www.mvhive.com/forum/register.php
Stats: 1000+ members and 3500+ threads
Description: MVHive is another forum which started after the shut down of Keitex, probably the most popular music video download site back in its time. MVHive indexes scene releases and is also popular for their many user encoded music videos which are not usually found anywhere else.
Full Review: [Click Here]

TVFreeLoad
TVFreeLoad 
Site Name: TVFreeload (http://forum.tvfreeload.org)
Registration URL: http://forum.tvfreeload.org/ucp.php?mode=regy
Stats: 30000+ members and 10000+ threads (stats for year 2010)
Description: TVFreeLoad is easily one of the oldest and largest TV shows DDL forums currently online. It maintains a huge database of direct download links & online streaming links for TV shows, movies, documentaries, sports, anime and even some lossless music - this is a highly recommended forum if you intend to download any of these content for free. Read the full review for a detailed overview and screenshots.
Full Review: [Click Here]

CouchTater
CouchTater 
Site Name: CouchTater (http://www.couchtater.com)
Registration URL: http://www.couchtater.com/register.php
Stats: 16500+ members and 9000+ threads
Description: CouchTater is another direct download link forum for TV shows. Links to both single episodes as well as complete seasons of popular US based shows can be found here. It’s not as large as TVFreeLoad but still a decent forum. Check out the detailed review below for more information.
Full Review: [Click Here]

CoreBay
Corebay 
Site Name: Corebay (http://www.corebay.com)
Registration URL: http://www.corebay.com/register
Stats: 38000+ members
Description: Corebay is a music DDL forum which primarily focuses on a specific genre; Electronic music. The site indexes thousands of links to full albums, single tracks, mixes and livesets of techno, tribe, drum & bass, jungle, dubstep, terror, noise, hardcore and all sorts of other sub genres of electronic music. For more information check out this article.
Full Review: [Click Here]

AfterPre
AfterPre 
Site Name: AfterPre (http://afterpre.com)
Registration URL: http://afterpre.com/signup.php
Stats: Unknown
Description: AfterPre is a unique DDL indexer that resembles a private torrent tracker (check full review for screenshots). The site looks and behaves and exactly like a private BitTorrent tracker running on a TBDEV script, only instead of torrent links it offers direct links for files hosted on cyberlocker sites. AP Used to index a lot of uploads but nowadays it’s limited to XViD and MP3 releases only. 
Full Review: [Click Here]

TranceElite
TranceElite 
Site Name: TrancElite (http://www.forum.trancelite.net/)
Registration URL: http://www.forum.trancelite.net/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=register
Stats: 5000+ members
Description: TrancElite is a relatively new DDL forum that indexes trance music – this includes scene and p2p releases plus a ton of lossless tracks. TE indexes both new and classic music albums, singles and not only that, it even has links to livesets, mixes and weekly radio shows from famous DJs.
Full Review: [Click Here]

RetroMags
Retromags 
Site Name: RetroMags (http://www.retromags.com)
Registration URL: http://www.retromags.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=register
Stats: 700+ full magazines
Description: Retromags is a DDL forum specializing in old video game magazines – their goal is to digitally preserve popular video gaming related magazines (issued prior to 1999), for a new generation to enjoy them. If you want to read some classic scanned magazine issues, check this site out. More information can be found here.
Full Review: [Click Here]

What’s the best download manager for use with DDL Forums?

We strongly recommend you use JDownloader. This download manager is optimized for handling multiple one click hosting site links (commonly found on forums listed above) and includes a host of other features that will make your life a lot easier. The software is  free and comes without adware. To read more about JDownloader and download it for multiple operating systems, refer to this article.

Looking for more forums?

In case you didn’t read our previous DDL forums updates, you can go ahead and check the previous updates here and here (includes details about 21 forums). Most of the sites featured in these updates are still open for signup. In addition, you can see our latest reviews in the DDL Forums section accessed from here.

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Have you ever seen a private torrent tracker managing to recruit nearly 20000 members in the beta phase itself? Well, CGPeers has done just that. CGP is a BitTorrent tracker specializing in computer graphics and animation – it’s a project by the same crew who run the huge direct download link forum CGPersia (see end of post for links to full review). Just like its big brother, CGPeers specializes in graphics design and animation tutorials, models, textures, premium plugins, full software for graphics authoring and animation and other similar themed content. Powered by the Gazelle codebase, CGP sports a nice, clean look and provides users with features such as advanced search, fast navigation and detailed torrents descriptions. After being in development for more than 7 months, CGPeers has now entered its semi beta phase – public registrations are currently open and interested readers are welcome to check the site out.

CGPeers Logo

Despite still being in beta, CGPeers has managed to recruit around 19000 members. This almost magical feat was achieved mostly thanks to promotion through CGPs big brother, the CGPersia DDL forum (which already has a massive user base of 140000+ members). Wondering why the need for a separate BitTorrent tracker when you already have a successful forum going? Here’s the explanation:

CGPeers is a new torrent site introduced by the creator of the CGPersia Forum. The goal was to create a home where CG enthusiasts can freely share their passion through the wonders and convenience of BitTorrent. Why BitTorrent? BitTorrent offers many advantages over traditional sharing methods. For example, Being able to download content quickly without having to pay for "Premium" accounts. Or no longer having to worry about your upload(s) being deleted. Welcome to the world of peering.

Most of the files related to computer graphics and animation such as texture packs are pretty large in file size. These are usually spanned across multiple DDL links on CGPersia and some might consider this a hassle to download. These issues are non existent on CGPeers tracker – it already indexes over 1000 releases in 6 categories (Full Applications, Plugins, Tutorials, Models, Materials and Misc) including some packs which exceed 30GB in file size.

CGPeers Index

Registrations for CGPeers is currently open – anyone is free to create an account without the need for an invite code. Keep in mind that this site is still in beta – you might run into undiscovered bugs or glitches. However, we didn’t encounter any issues during our test run it seemed to be a pretty stable site. If you have any interest in the fields of graphics design, computer animation, etc. you might want to check this tracker out.

Site Name: CGPeers (http://cgpeers.com)

Signup URL: http://cgpeers.com/register.php

Also From CGPeers Crew:

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It’s been a couple of months since we last conducted an invitation giveaway so it’s about time we did another. This time around it’s not a low profile tracker either, we’re giving away 250 invites to one of the best movie trackers around, PTN. As some of you might already know, PTN is a ratio free movie torrent tracker that’s been around for several years. It has mostly been a closed community and is yet to have an open signup – the site has strong rules against unwanted publicity and so far member recruitment has only been done through invite applications and select forums and blogs. PTNs invite application process however has a reputation for being tough to get through. This is where our invite giveaway comes in – it’s an official event organized with help from PTN staff targeted exclusively at FILEnetworks readership and therefore, usual entry requirements do not apply here. In other words, you do not need to go through the regular external applications process to get an invite.
UPDATE: We have received well over 250 valid requests. Please do not send any more E-mails – this giveaway is now over. Stay tuned for more in the future.

PTNLogo_thumb21_thumb8[1]

Before we move onto the invite giveaway, here’s some information about PTN tracker. As most of you already know, PTN is a ratio free torrent site specializing in movies and movies only. The site currently has a registered users base of around 4000 members – note that almost all of the users are chosen by site staff – PTN has tight rules regarding publicity and employs an ‘always closed signups policy. This helps them weed out unwanted members and retain only the most active users contributing to torrent health. As for the torrent index, there were around 6000 torrents of all shapes and sizes indexed on PTN as of 12/3/2011. These included individual movies as well as movie packs.

A notable highlight on PTN apart from its content is the custom user interface and the numerous usability features it offers. It was just recently the tracker underwent a massive overhaul with the launch of PTN v2 – v2 added dozens of new features ranging from off page improvements such as faster loading times to new visual features such as IMDB style browse pages. For a detailed overview of PTN features and screenshots, we strongly recommend you read this article.

PTN index 
Image: Revamped main torrent index was one of the major features in PTN v2

As some of our long time readers would know, this is our second PTN invite giveaway. The last one, during which we gave away 100 invites, was done back in September. Although the giveaway was limited to 100 invites, we got an overwhelming response from our readership which resulted in our E-mail inbox getting assaulted with over 1000 requests (we ended by sending 200 invites instead of the promised 100). This time around we have somewhat increased the amount of invites to 250 in an attempt to meet this huge demand. Future giveaways are also a possibility at this moment.

How to apply for a PTN invite

As stated earlier there is no invite application involved – all you need to do is to send us an E-mail with the following format:

  • Subject of the E-mail should be ‘FILEnetworks Blog - PTN 02’. We use an automated software to filter the mails so don’t get this wrong.
  • In the body of the mail, please include a link to a profile page on a private tracker of your choice– for example http://trackername.org/user.php?id=2447424 (you can visit the profile page on most trackers by clicking on the username located next to your ratio stats).
  • In the body of the mail, include a link to a screenshot of the same profile page you included in previous step. Note – screenshot should be un-edited and un-cropped. Please do not send images as attachments – upload the image file to an image host and include the link in the body of the mail.
  • Send your email to invites[dot]filenetworks[at]gmail[dot]com
  • Do not send multiple requests.

Please allow 10 days for your invite to arrive – we have to send them out manually and it’s a time consuming task :p Currently the giveaway is limited to 250 invites – As usual, these will be sent out on a first come, first served basis. If you manage to get in, please do respect the site’s rules. Relaxed entry requirements does not mean you will be immune to rule violations – staff will probably hunt down collectors, cheaters and hit & runners and ban them immediately after the giveaway. Good Luck!

Special thanks to PTN staff for the excellent support given.

Note: Our Twitter Followers and FaceBook Fans should have received a heads up on this giveaway. You can follow us on Twitter or LIKE us on Facebook to receive updates in advance.

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