RaceThe.Net – New general tracker from HDME crew

A few months ago, BitTorrent community saw the birth of a new HD torrent tracker – HDME (Open). Despite a rather non-hyped launch, HDME quickly became one of the more popular HD trackers amassing over 8500 registered members in a short period of time. It’s only been 5 months since these guys have come online and they’ve been expanding ever since launch. However this article is not about HDME – it’s about the latest addition to this tracker family, RTN. RaceThe.Net, is a brand new General/0Day torrent tracker that tracks movies, music, games, E-books and other scene/p2p releases (not just HD content). RTN is the second HDME spinoff, the first one being Velvet Touch which launched last June.

It’s not everyday we review a torrent tracker that is only one day old. However RTN is brand new and was launched to the public yesterday (3rd). The site currently tracks over 50 torrents and has 320+ registered members. These stats are great considering the fact that there hasn’t been much publicity given to RTN’s launch as of yet.

A point worth mentioning is that RTN carries the exact same layout as HDME sans minor changes. One of the good things about this is that RTN retains the cool looking torrent index with the big category icons that I'm sure was one of the reasons for HDME’s popularity. A screenshot is shown below:

In addition to scene/p2p releases, RTN shows signs of interest in torrent packs – there is a separate category for those and already several packs have been uploaded on the first day itself.

If you want to become a member of RTN, signups are currently open. All new members will get 5GB free upload credit upon registration.

Site Name: RaceThe.Net (http://racethe.net)

Signup URL: http://racethe.net/signup.php

Related Articles:

• HDME – New BitTorrent Tracker for HD Movies and TV Shows

Spider 2.3.11 – A lightweight audio player that resembles old WinAmp

For those looking for replacements to their default audio player, here is a good candidate. Spider Player is a lightweight yet feature rich audio player for Windows that somewhat resembles the look of old WinAmp (v2). The player takes very little system memory when launched – something you don’t see often on modern media players. It however has a powerful set of features including streaming audio support, internet radio recording, support for playback of 30+ file formats, converter, CD ripper, 10-band equalizer, crossfading support, skinning support and more.

Developer Description

Spider is a free, feature-rich, and easy-to-use audio player for Windows based on "Bass audio library" from Un4seen. This program has Unicode support, powerful tag editors for different file types, music ripping support, CD-text support, CD extractor, easy to use song lyrics editor, internet streaming, skins support, support for different interface languages and more.

Download

There are two versions of Spider Player; Basic and Pro. The Basic version is free and the Pro version costs $20. However most of the features of Pro are already available in the free version sans a few limitations on recording.

[Click Here] to download latest version of Spider Player from official download page

TemplateP2P invite applications now online

If there are web applications developers (PHP, Flash, Flex, etc), SEO buffs, web designers, graphics designers, templates/scripts addicts, 3D animation gurus or even photographers among our readers, here is some great news. TemplateP2P, a must have site if you are into any of the fields mentioned above (doesn’t matter if you are a professional, student or a hobbyist), now has an online invite application in place. This should come in handy for those dying to get in, considering the fact that TP2P is a closed community that opens public registrations once or twice a year (and they just had an open signup last June so don’t expect another for quite some time).

With the opening of invite applications, several other changes have taken place at TP2P. For example regular members of the site can no longer send invites – you now need to be VIP or above to have that privilege. Main reason for these changes as we understand it is the staff’s disappointment with all the invite selling and trading going on. However with the new system in place one thing is for certain - you wouldn’t have to beg for TP2P invites (or buy them) again. However you’ll have to prove your skills in your area of expertise to get into the site. There is a quite a lengthy explanation posted on TemplateP2P forum about the new system

"We are working on a whole new system for new members. It's an Application / Test. Potential new members will fill it out and their applications will be reviewed by myself and the two Global Moderators. It's not your average membership application. There will be multiple steps and multiple pages. The first page explains the whole process.

The second page is general information that you might find on a normal membership application. The third page is where you pick your test. We will have several different tests covering different but relevant topics. The applicant will pick the topic they feel most confident with. Once selected, their custom test will be shown. This is not multiple choice or true/false. It's ESSAY format! I hated school essays, but they seemed to test my knowledge more than standardized tests. We don't have a set grading scale for admission or acceptance, but we will only select applicants who can form Clear Proper sentences and who answered the questions intelligently. This will hopefully bring in lots of new GOOD blood and filter out the bad."

Right now the invite application (Step 2) has 8 categories to choose from: Website Design, Website Coding, Graphics Design, Templates & Scripts, The Scene, Hosting, SEO & General Filesharing. However for the moment tests are only available for the fist four categories – you can choose any one of these in Step 2 and proceed from there.

It’s all good but why would anyone want to submit applications and go through ‘tests’ to join a forum? Well below is an screenshot of the members only area of TP2P which should give you a hint:

All of the categories visible above (there are ones that aren't shown in the screenshot) usually have premium content that is not freely available on the net. It’s not only the content – this site has a helpful community of over 8000 active members. You can read more about TP2P in our recent review of the site which we posted back when it was open for signup.

Site Name: Template P2P (http://templatep2p.com/forum/)

Invite Application URL: http://tp2p.7twomedia.net

Special thanks to T.J for the heads up.

Wolfenstein (2009) private multiplayer beta leaked on BitTorrent

Fresh news for folks who are awaiting the release of latest Wolfenstein title with bated breath- a private multiplayer beta version of the game has leaked online. The release which is named ‘Wolfenstein.2.MP.BETA.iNterNal-ST’ appears to have leaked from a P2P source and is readily available for download on a number of different public BitTorrent trackers. Of course, accompanied with ~700MB of game files is a NFO file which gives some instructions on how to play the leaked version.

Judging by the reaction of fans in various gaming forums, the leaked build appears to be playable over Hamachi. If you want to have a sneak peek of how the game looks, someone has posted a game play video containing footage from the leaked version, on YouTube [Click to View]. Anyway I sincerely hope this will not be how the game will look when it’s released to the public later this month. Graphics of the MP beta look downright crappy and honestly I think Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory has better visuals. On a side note, the leaked version appears to be playable even on relatively low end video hardware.

Watch the Twitter Updates

This is again a reminder to all our readers that some of our minor updates will be communicated only via our Twitter feed. We’ve found Twitter to be an incredibly useful tool when it comes to relaying info about quick open signup updates, leaks and other interesting info that do not have enough content to be posted as individual articles on the blog. Who knows, in the future we might conduct mini-invite giveaways via Twitter as well.

 

However, this doesn’t mean that having a Twitter account and following us is a must to get all our updates. You can watch real time updates from our Twitter feed on the right hand panel of this blog itself – look in the ‘Latest Tweets’ widget:

Also note that new post updates are also integrated to the Twitter feed. Should be useful for folks who are too laze to subscribe to RSS.

[Click Here] to visit @filenetworks on Twitter. You can follow us by clicking on the follow button.

BitTorrents.Ro (BiTT) – Not down anymore, signups open

The past few weeks have not been too good for international users of BitTorrents.Ro (BiTT), one of the most popular Romanian General/0Day trackers. Although inaccessible from some countries, the site actually was not down as many had speculated. BiTT was suffering from international peering issues, rending some users in certain regions unable to connect to either the site or the tracker. However all these annoying issues now seem to be fixed – should be exciting news for all since BiTT is a huge tracker with good download speeds and a sh1tload of torrent packs.

As of 1/08/2009, BitTorrents.Ro tracks over 25000 active torrents with around 2800 torrents on free leech. However, new members cannot download all of these torrents – anything added in the last 10 days can only be downloaded by Power Users and above. Basically it’s a tougher version of the ‘wait time’ concept adopted by some private trackers. Until you get promoted to PU (25GB upload with a ratio of 1.05+) you cannot download anything in the “Last 10 Days’ tab on the browse page.

However you will have access to over 24000 torrents indexed in the ‘Old Torrents’ section and the ‘Free Leech’ section. As depicted in the screenshot above, switching between categories and subcategories in the Browse page is pretty easy. Once you get over the annoying starting period, BiTT is a pretty cool tracker to have. The site is rich with content (both scene/p2p) and most of the indexed torrents have ample activity around them leading to good download speeds. And it’s worth mentioning that this tracker has lots and lots of torrent packs, ranging from movie collections to PC game packs:

If you are an English speaking user, don’t get too worked up about the ‘RoSubbed’ tag on some torrents. They just come with harmless optional Romanian subtitles – audio is English.

Another great thing about BiTT is that it’s almost always open for signup. You can create an account for yourself at any time, if interested.

Site Name: BiTT Torrents (http://bittorrents.ro)

Signup URL: http://bittorrents.ro/signup.php

Note: If you still cannot access the site and if you think there is nothing wrong at your end, please contact adresa.de.mail.personala[at]gmail.com

Win7codecs – Play MP4, XViD, MKV, OGG, DIVX, AMR and other files on Windows 7

I generally dislike most codec packs because they tend to install hundreds of decoders for a number of uncommon file types I may never play on the PC. On Windows XP and Windows Vista, I’ve been using CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack) which pretty much took care of all my multimedia playback requirements with minimum bloat. Now that Windows 7 is out (I mean leaked), lots of folks would be looking for a decent codec pack to use with the OS – one that wouldn’t degrade performance by installing unnecessary crap but one that would allow playback of popular file types. Well here is something you can try – Win7codecs.

As you may have noticed, Windows 7 comes with built in support for several widely used audio and video file formats. Unlike most codec packs, Win7codecs does not blindly replace any of the existing codecs  - it gives the user the option to choose between decoders, in real time. Check the screenshot below:

Notice that it even allows PowerDVD9’s MPEG2 codec to be used in playback. However, if any 3rd party codec packs are found on your system and if Win7codecs has an updated version of the same codec, it’ll remove the older version before continuing with the new install.

Additionally, installation of Win7codecs would not re-assign any of the existing file associations (most of us find it annoying when applications do that):

It does not contain a media player and it does not associate file-types. With this package installed you will be able to use any media player, limited only by the players' capabilities, to play all movies and video clips.

Of course, Win7codecs is free of charge and is NOT bundled with any form of adware, spyware or any other crapware. In short, it’s a decent codec pack to have if you use the PC to play multimedia files (including downloaded movies and music).

Download

[Click Here] to download Win7codecs 1.25 from Softpedia (Developer page does not offer direct download)