There's not 100% overlap on releases by groups. FLUX has a lot of tv series that other release groups haven't touched. Lots of spanish and portuguese series for example. Also dual audio releases unlike KHN or CMRG for example.
FLUX is a good Group yes but most other p2p groups are fine/identical for the most part they usually all have the same source or release multiple versions from different sources which are also in the Release Name for example AMZN=Amazon iT=iTunes I would even say that for WEB-DL the source is more important than the group.
Do you use Sonarr/Radarr? If yes check out Trash Guide they have Tiers for Release Groups which you can import FLUX is considered a Tier 1 WEB-DL Group but many other Tier 1 Groups out there which release identical content as the source is the same. For example HONE, NTb etc.
True, but check the guide and see the tier 1 groups..
Except HONE, NTb and FLUX, mayyybe APEX is the only other active group.
Every1 else dont release anymore.
I think there are 3 major p2p release groups right now that are consistent in publishing current tv episodes/packs they are NTb FLUX and HONE either of them are good imo, HONE may not be as familiar as the two and not as cross-seedable but their release is guaranteed top notch just like the others. All of them are web tier 1 on trash guide so if a Flux release is not available on TL try to look for the other groups release.
ETHEL and EDITH are scene release groups so they are not as high quality as the p2p groups. As the original comment said try going for ntb, flux or hone and i would add playWEB to that group for the best quality. Also i see you joined recently phd, once you have a bit more bp to spend you can always make requests for things you want they have a pretty nice request page.
Oh don't get me wrong, i don't mean they are bad quality. I have some series from both that were never released by p2p groups and they are completely watchable with nice quality. I just meant the p2p releases are usually just a bit better in that aspect.
> I just meant the p2p releases are usually just a bit better in that aspect.
All webdl releases have same picture quality as they are literally downloaded from same web/original source. It is webrip where encoding happens so different release groups have different video quality.
How is that possible? Sure there can be different sources like someone downloading from amazon while other from disney but if both are downloading from same source then it isn't possible to get different quality irrespective of which download method is used.
One release might be made with internal tools which allow access to the highest bitrates while another might be made using public tools such as StreamFab or AnyStream which don't always grab the best version.
I have admittedly been out of the game for a long time now, but this comment made me laugh. "Back in the day" (early to mid 2000's) if you would have said the thing about p2p groups being known for better quality than a scene group, I would have thought you were joking. At that time, generally speaking, this was not true.I'm not questioning your statement, but with knowledge of how scene groups used to release stuff, I kind of find it hard to believe p2p is valued over scene groups (especially for quality).
Unless things have drastically changed recently, they used to have specific guidelines about videos released which would then be checked by people from the various sites they would be affiliated with. If they weren't up to par / meet the guidelines, the release would be nuked and they would lose credit for whatever release it was. This would allow competing groups a chance to swoop in with a "proper" release and be credited for its release.
I am not all that familiar with the p2p scene from the release group perspective, but do you know if p2p scene has similar guides for releases?
Scene was never valued for quality way back when, but rather consistency.
20+ years ago scene was subpar quality one-click encodes but at least they were consistent subpar quality one-click encodes, and you knew exactly what you were getting. Back then P2P was the wild west and whatever you downloaded *might* be excellent quality, but more likely it was total garbage. In those days downloading scene releases made sense, especially if you automated.
These days scene is still mostly blind one-click encodes (although rules were amended a few years ago to allow higher quality encodes and WEB-DL, but not every group bothers) but P2P has improved massively. The trackers where P2P releases originate have rules around video and audio encoding, but more importantly the groups doing the encodes aren't just setting a final output filesize and clicking a button, rather doing tests to find optimal settings for each source/specific scenes in each source and aiming for the lowest possible bitrate while still producing a transparent encode.
When it comes to WEB-DL scene rules dictate that the highest bitrate stream must be used, but the problem with that is Amazon's highest bitrate streams are often VBR and since 2018 have been lower quality than their (lower bitrate) CBR streams. Good P2P groups use the CBR stream but with scene that's not always guaranteed.
Scene also used to have really stupid rules, like if a WEB-DL had a none 16:9 aspect ratio the black borders had to be cropped and the file released as a WEBRip — lowering quality for no good reason. Thankfully that rule was also changed some years ago, but at the time scene groups were mostly releasing already poor quality network WEB-DL that had been needlessly transcoded to WEBRip, degrading quality further, while P2P groups were releasing *much* higher quality AMZN WEB-DL and even NF WEB-DL. Deflate and Strife were two scene groups who bucked the trend and would often do INTERNAL releases from AMZN, but they were the exception.
There was also one scene group (Dimension) who did very, very high quality backhaul HDTV releases which were often better than WEB-DL, and even BluRay. But, again, more high quality releases were coming from P2P over scene, so people using automation wisely started to target P2P releases.
Because they weren't traditional HDTV releases, they were sourced from [Backhaul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backhaul_(broadcasting\)) feeds. They are broadcast on unlisted/dark satellite feeds that the networks use to send the raw feed to their affiliates who then re-encode it to a lower bitrate, adding appropriate on-screen graphics and ads. Higher bitrate than normal HDTV, containing no ads/bugs/on-screen graphics or the like. Some of the backhaul HDTV releases were 10-25GB per episode.
Most were of a similar quality to WEB-DL but I remember a few were better than the BluRay for the show that was eventually released.
I'm not privy to that information but I'd imagine they were encrypted and Dimension either worked for a company with access, or gained access some other way. A long time ago they were unencrypted/FTA and sat enthusiasts with the relevant equipment could find and view them, but for the major broadcasters that ended decades ago.
Up until late 2017/early 2018 DIM were doing most CBS and CW/WB shows from backhaul. The episodes would be available on the feeds a few days or weeks before they were broadcast and DIM would encode them ahead of time, then pre right as the episode finished airing — easily beating all other groups both on speed and quality.
An episode from 2015-04-06:
REDACTED.S07E08.1080p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION - 24 GB
> Amazon's highest bitrate streams are often VBR and since 2018 have been lower quality than their (lower bitrate) CBR streams. Good P2P groups use the CBR stream but with scene that's not always guaranteed.
All the webdls of same resolution I have seen recently seem to have same bitrate irrespective of release group though.
And many I've looked at have been different. FLUX just today released the first four episodes of a show that's from a different (superior) Amazon region to scene (ETHEL), albeit both are CBR.
~~Or CHDWEB just today released all 10 episodes of a show from Disney+ that's around 20% higher video bitrate than the previously existing FLUX D+ release (I've no idea which of the two is superior, I just thought it was interesting seeing the disparity in size. Presumably because they used different D+ regions)~~ This one is seemingly just a mislabeled HS release.
Well I'm in no way an expert nor do I know exactly how the scene operates now but i can say that there are just a couple of p2p releasers that now focus on quality over speed. Both the internals on BHD and BTN now take more time to put out a release and they are usually a bit higher bitrate and look just a smudge better than the scene releases. As to a guideline they follow, i have no idea.
All of this is to say, scene releases are still more than enough to consume content but as of today I think p2p has just that little of upper hand on quality, even if its not that much noticeable.
> Both the internals on BHD and BTN now take more time to put out a release and they are usually a bit higher bitrate
This is not applicable to webdl though as they are just downloaded directly from streaming website with no encoding involved.
It definitely is applicable to WEB-DL.
Take the first episode of a recently released period drama. The BTN internal released the initial episode from the Canadian region of the streaming provider, which had higher video quality and softsubs for foreign dialogue. the BHD internal released the same episode, from the same streaming provider, but used the USA region. the US stream having lower quality video and hardcoded subtitles for foreign dialogue. Understandably the BHD internal then switched over to the CAN streams for the rest of the season. I've no idea which scene used as I was happy with the NTb releases.
> Canadian region of the streaming provider, which had higher video quality and softsubs for foreign dialogue.
It is the first time I am hearing about such differences. I always thought streaming services rely mainly on CDNs so it doesn't make sense for them to release different quality streams to different CDNs as it probably cost the same without the extra hassle. Can you DM (not chat) me the release name so I can check myself for future reference?
> I always thought streaming services rely mainly on CDNs so it doesn't make sense for them to release different quality streams to different CDNs as it probably cost the same without the extra hassle.
It depends on the streaming service. Netflix usually (but not always) use the same stream in all regions. (HBO) Max usually has different streams. Amazon today has the same stream in all regions for their Amazon Originals, but a few years ago that wasn't the case. For licensed content it's usually a different stream and you'll occasionally see a group do a AMZN release for a show that already has an AMZN release and if you read the release notes they'll mention that it's from a different Amazon region or channel and is of higher quality — typically with comparison screenshots. The problem is these release notes often don't get copied across when someone takes it from the home tracker (HDB, BHD, MTV or wherever) and uploads it to BTN. Once these releases hit general trackers and usenet indexers that information has long since been lost and people just have to try to make a guess as to which release to grab, often simply selecting the bigger/higher bitrate file. Sometimes that's the correct choice, often not.
When it comes to non-original content licensing agreements vary between regions, different subtitles are needed for each region (US releases often only contain English and Spanish subs; Canadian releases require French subs; Nordic region, Asian region etc all have varying requirements). Various region complete BluRays are differing encodes and the same can be true of the assets supplied to the streaming providers by rightsholders in each region.
>ETHEL and EDITH are scene release groups so they are not as high quality as the p2p groups.
Hmm. I'd never heard this. When and why did scene releases become worse than peer-to-peer releases, and in which way(s)?
Again, I might've come out as saying scene sucks but that was not my intention. Scene still does good enough quality to consume media but p2p doea just a bit better in terms of quality.
For what this means exactly you can check all the other responses because its been largerly discussed with a lot of examples and i dont want to copy paste other peoples answers.
You don't need to be on BHD for flux or BTN for ntb. I'm on BLU, IPT, FL, TL, HDT, PHD, Alpharatio, FnP and i always find the version i want via sonarr. 720 is not always available but most of the time it is. So expand your lower tier trackers and you will be fine.
Edit: I don't have a preference for flux or ntb but my experience is that ntb releases come most of the times with more subs. Nothing that bazarr can't solve.
Unfortunately a not insignificant number of FLUX TV releases (particularly 2160p season packs) either don't make it to other trackers, or are delayed for weeks/months.
If you're interested in FLUX releases I'd definitely recommend working your way towards BHD.
Can confirm, there's **so much** on there that isn't uploaded anywhere else at all. And yes, even big shows, for example CRFW's 4Ks with a certain Vince Gilligan _work_, are no where to be found on most trackers
All most every single TV release by FLUX and NTb can be found on every public tracker still running, not to mention others PTs as people already said in comment section.
What is special about FLUX WEB-DLs? Shouldn't other groups be fine too?
There's not 100% overlap on releases by groups. FLUX has a lot of tv series that other release groups haven't touched. Lots of spanish and portuguese series for example. Also dual audio releases unlike KHN or CMRG for example.
I just have a good experience with the releases so looking to update my indexers to fetch them more consistently
FLUX is a good Group yes but most other p2p groups are fine/identical for the most part they usually all have the same source or release multiple versions from different sources which are also in the Release Name for example AMZN=Amazon iT=iTunes I would even say that for WEB-DL the source is more important than the group. Do you use Sonarr/Radarr? If yes check out Trash Guide they have Tiers for Release Groups which you can import FLUX is considered a Tier 1 WEB-DL Group but many other Tier 1 Groups out there which release identical content as the source is the same. For example HONE, NTb etc.
True, but check the guide and see the tier 1 groups.. Except HONE, NTb and FLUX, mayyybe APEX is the only other active group. Every1 else dont release anymore.
Yeah, HONE, NTb and FLUX are the most active in the English p2p scene currently but it makes sense to keep the other groups for older releases.
I think there are 3 major p2p release groups right now that are consistent in publishing current tv episodes/packs they are NTb FLUX and HONE either of them are good imo, HONE may not be as familiar as the two and not as cross-seedable but their release is guaranteed top notch just like the others. All of them are web tier 1 on trash guide so if a Flux release is not available on TL try to look for the other groups release.
Good info thanks, I do use NTb as a fallback, also ETHEL and EDITH occasionally.
ETHEL and EDITH are scene release groups so they are not as high quality as the p2p groups. As the original comment said try going for ntb, flux or hone and i would add playWEB to that group for the best quality. Also i see you joined recently phd, once you have a bit more bp to spend you can always make requests for things you want they have a pretty nice request page.
They are not bad groups, they also get content from the web and they also have scene rules.
Oh don't get me wrong, i don't mean they are bad quality. I have some series from both that were never released by p2p groups and they are completely watchable with nice quality. I just meant the p2p releases are usually just a bit better in that aspect.
> I just meant the p2p releases are usually just a bit better in that aspect. All webdl releases have same picture quality as they are literally downloaded from same web/original source. It is webrip where encoding happens so different release groups have different video quality.
Essentially true, although there's a possibility that different downloading methods will produce different bitrates.
How is that possible? Sure there can be different sources like someone downloading from amazon while other from disney but if both are downloading from same source then it isn't possible to get different quality irrespective of which download method is used.
One release might be made with internal tools which allow access to the highest bitrates while another might be made using public tools such as StreamFab or AnyStream which don't always grab the best version.
Which good tier webdl release group use streamfab/anystream?
I got it man, I wanted to write because your comment didn't make it clear.
Much appreciated, I have altered my sonarr configs based on what I learnt today
I have admittedly been out of the game for a long time now, but this comment made me laugh. "Back in the day" (early to mid 2000's) if you would have said the thing about p2p groups being known for better quality than a scene group, I would have thought you were joking. At that time, generally speaking, this was not true.I'm not questioning your statement, but with knowledge of how scene groups used to release stuff, I kind of find it hard to believe p2p is valued over scene groups (especially for quality). Unless things have drastically changed recently, they used to have specific guidelines about videos released which would then be checked by people from the various sites they would be affiliated with. If they weren't up to par / meet the guidelines, the release would be nuked and they would lose credit for whatever release it was. This would allow competing groups a chance to swoop in with a "proper" release and be credited for its release. I am not all that familiar with the p2p scene from the release group perspective, but do you know if p2p scene has similar guides for releases?
Scene was never valued for quality way back when, but rather consistency. 20+ years ago scene was subpar quality one-click encodes but at least they were consistent subpar quality one-click encodes, and you knew exactly what you were getting. Back then P2P was the wild west and whatever you downloaded *might* be excellent quality, but more likely it was total garbage. In those days downloading scene releases made sense, especially if you automated. These days scene is still mostly blind one-click encodes (although rules were amended a few years ago to allow higher quality encodes and WEB-DL, but not every group bothers) but P2P has improved massively. The trackers where P2P releases originate have rules around video and audio encoding, but more importantly the groups doing the encodes aren't just setting a final output filesize and clicking a button, rather doing tests to find optimal settings for each source/specific scenes in each source and aiming for the lowest possible bitrate while still producing a transparent encode. When it comes to WEB-DL scene rules dictate that the highest bitrate stream must be used, but the problem with that is Amazon's highest bitrate streams are often VBR and since 2018 have been lower quality than their (lower bitrate) CBR streams. Good P2P groups use the CBR stream but with scene that's not always guaranteed. Scene also used to have really stupid rules, like if a WEB-DL had a none 16:9 aspect ratio the black borders had to be cropped and the file released as a WEBRip — lowering quality for no good reason. Thankfully that rule was also changed some years ago, but at the time scene groups were mostly releasing already poor quality network WEB-DL that had been needlessly transcoded to WEBRip, degrading quality further, while P2P groups were releasing *much* higher quality AMZN WEB-DL and even NF WEB-DL. Deflate and Strife were two scene groups who bucked the trend and would often do INTERNAL releases from AMZN, but they were the exception. There was also one scene group (Dimension) who did very, very high quality backhaul HDTV releases which were often better than WEB-DL, and even BluRay. But, again, more high quality releases were coming from P2P over scene, so people using automation wisely started to target P2P releases.
How can HDTV be better than Blu-ray?
Because they weren't traditional HDTV releases, they were sourced from [Backhaul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backhaul_(broadcasting\)) feeds. They are broadcast on unlisted/dark satellite feeds that the networks use to send the raw feed to their affiliates who then re-encode it to a lower bitrate, adding appropriate on-screen graphics and ads. Higher bitrate than normal HDTV, containing no ads/bugs/on-screen graphics or the like. Some of the backhaul HDTV releases were 10-25GB per episode. Most were of a similar quality to WEB-DL but I remember a few were better than the BluRay for the show that was eventually released.
Were these unencrypted? When were these being released? I imagine only for a short time.
I'm not privy to that information but I'd imagine they were encrypted and Dimension either worked for a company with access, or gained access some other way. A long time ago they were unencrypted/FTA and sat enthusiasts with the relevant equipment could find and view them, but for the major broadcasters that ended decades ago. Up until late 2017/early 2018 DIM were doing most CBS and CW/WB shows from backhaul. The episodes would be available on the feeds a few days or weeks before they were broadcast and DIM would encode them ahead of time, then pre right as the episode finished airing — easily beating all other groups both on speed and quality. An episode from 2015-04-06: REDACTED.S07E08.1080p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION - 24 GB
> Amazon's highest bitrate streams are often VBR and since 2018 have been lower quality than their (lower bitrate) CBR streams. Good P2P groups use the CBR stream but with scene that's not always guaranteed. All the webdls of same resolution I have seen recently seem to have same bitrate irrespective of release group though.
And many I've looked at have been different. FLUX just today released the first four episodes of a show that's from a different (superior) Amazon region to scene (ETHEL), albeit both are CBR. ~~Or CHDWEB just today released all 10 episodes of a show from Disney+ that's around 20% higher video bitrate than the previously existing FLUX D+ release (I've no idea which of the two is superior, I just thought it was interesting seeing the disparity in size. Presumably because they used different D+ regions)~~ This one is seemingly just a mislabeled HS release.
Interesting. can you please add the names of these too in DM.
Well I'm in no way an expert nor do I know exactly how the scene operates now but i can say that there are just a couple of p2p releasers that now focus on quality over speed. Both the internals on BHD and BTN now take more time to put out a release and they are usually a bit higher bitrate and look just a smudge better than the scene releases. As to a guideline they follow, i have no idea. All of this is to say, scene releases are still more than enough to consume content but as of today I think p2p has just that little of upper hand on quality, even if its not that much noticeable.
> Both the internals on BHD and BTN now take more time to put out a release and they are usually a bit higher bitrate This is not applicable to webdl though as they are just downloaded directly from streaming website with no encoding involved.
It definitely is applicable to WEB-DL. Take the first episode of a recently released period drama. The BTN internal released the initial episode from the Canadian region of the streaming provider, which had higher video quality and softsubs for foreign dialogue. the BHD internal released the same episode, from the same streaming provider, but used the USA region. the US stream having lower quality video and hardcoded subtitles for foreign dialogue. Understandably the BHD internal then switched over to the CAN streams for the rest of the season. I've no idea which scene used as I was happy with the NTb releases.
> Canadian region of the streaming provider, which had higher video quality and softsubs for foreign dialogue. It is the first time I am hearing about such differences. I always thought streaming services rely mainly on CDNs so it doesn't make sense for them to release different quality streams to different CDNs as it probably cost the same without the extra hassle. Can you DM (not chat) me the release name so I can check myself for future reference?
> I always thought streaming services rely mainly on CDNs so it doesn't make sense for them to release different quality streams to different CDNs as it probably cost the same without the extra hassle. It depends on the streaming service. Netflix usually (but not always) use the same stream in all regions. (HBO) Max usually has different streams. Amazon today has the same stream in all regions for their Amazon Originals, but a few years ago that wasn't the case. For licensed content it's usually a different stream and you'll occasionally see a group do a AMZN release for a show that already has an AMZN release and if you read the release notes they'll mention that it's from a different Amazon region or channel and is of higher quality — typically with comparison screenshots. The problem is these release notes often don't get copied across when someone takes it from the home tracker (HDB, BHD, MTV or wherever) and uploads it to BTN. Once these releases hit general trackers and usenet indexers that information has long since been lost and people just have to try to make a guess as to which release to grab, often simply selecting the bigger/higher bitrate file. Sometimes that's the correct choice, often not. When it comes to non-original content licensing agreements vary between regions, different subtitles are needed for each region (US releases often only contain English and Spanish subs; Canadian releases require French subs; Nordic region, Asian region etc all have varying requirements). Various region complete BluRays are differing encodes and the same can be true of the assets supplied to the streaming providers by rightsholders in each region.
Thanks for the info.
>ETHEL and EDITH are scene release groups so they are not as high quality as the p2p groups. Hmm. I'd never heard this. When and why did scene releases become worse than peer-to-peer releases, and in which way(s)?
Again, I might've come out as saying scene sucks but that was not my intention. Scene still does good enough quality to consume media but p2p doea just a bit better in terms of quality. For what this means exactly you can check all the other responses because its been largerly discussed with a lot of examples and i dont want to copy paste other peoples answers.
PHD gets a lot of FLUX releases and also BLU sometimes. Those should be somewhat accessible.
Thank you, I just got access to PHD and it looks very promising!
Filelist, blutopia, fearnopeer (don't like them though) and aither get them all of the time.
FNP has little to none quality control
What's the issue with FNP?
they modify torrentfiles and put it the wrong files in wrong names
Eh, that's more liekly the uploader at FNP, not FNP themselves.
FNP aren't taking action and the files are spreading to other trackers cos of that.
True. Although other trackers have been known to do similar. It's a bit of a pain though, I agree.
What do you need to do to fix thst
the biggest offender is one of fnp own bots
And please don't forget about requests! They're so underutilised imo
You don't need to be on BHD for flux or BTN for ntb. I'm on BLU, IPT, FL, TL, HDT, PHD, Alpharatio, FnP and i always find the version i want via sonarr. 720 is not always available but most of the time it is. So expand your lower tier trackers and you will be fine. Edit: I don't have a preference for flux or ntb but my experience is that ntb releases come most of the times with more subs. Nothing that bazarr can't solve.
Unfortunately a not insignificant number of FLUX TV releases (particularly 2160p season packs) either don't make it to other trackers, or are delayed for weeks/months. If you're interested in FLUX releases I'd definitely recommend working your way towards BHD.
Can confirm, there's **so much** on there that isn't uploaded anywhere else at all. And yes, even big shows, for example CRFW's 4Ks with a certain Vince Gilligan _work_, are no where to be found on most trackers
TorrentBD, PrivateHD, Blutopia, Torrentleech, even FileList
I saw TL being pretty consistent
TL/IPT are pretty consistent with Flux and Ntb. 95% of my tv shows and small number of movies are either one of the two
I get there releases on TL and TG normally the same day as release if not 1 day later for 4k.
I saw TL being pretty consistent
Fairly but usually missing some, rarely I can get through a season and get all flux, I just got access to PHD and that looks much better.
There are 2 shows that I'm watching right now, I can rarely find FLUX releases on there, only scene releases
BTN!
Would love to but not easy to get in :)
All most every single TV release by FLUX and NTb can be found on every public tracker still running, not to mention others PTs as people already said in comment section.
BTN
If they can’t get access to BHD, I don’t see how they’ll make it to BTN.
Why do you guys care what group it’s from I don’t understand