pirates Pirates Frustrated After TV Release Groups Swap .MP4 for .MKV.

[Reefa]

After years under a previous regime, several prominent Internet piracy groups have adopted a new set of TV-release standards. The rules will go into effect this weekend, but several groups have already made the switch, frustrating many bewildered pirates who must now play .MKV instead of .MP4 files.

 

While pirates may not appear to be the most organized people, the groups that make up the top of the piracy pyramid abide by strict rules.

 

Every so often they agree on a new set of standards, which determine what a proper release should look like. Most recently, new changes were announced for TV show releases, and these are set to go into effect this coming weekend.

 

The new rules are announced in lengthy documents, one for HD and one for SD TV-releases.

 

“Since the last revision of this document in 2012, TV-X264-SD has grown and become a major section that many people contribute to and depend on. This new revision aims to update the standards from 2012 to standards suitable for 2016 and the future,” the intro to the SD version reads.

 

The rules are intended for Scene groups only. These groups don’t share their work directly to the public, but between themselves on so-called “topsites”. However, most of the time their releases are also the source of TV-shows that end up being shared on public pirate sites.

 

This means that hundreds of million of people around the world will be affected by the changes, albeit indirectly.

For the most part the rules deal with technicalities regarding release formatting, tagging and various audio, subtitle and video settings. These changes are hardly noticeable to outsiders, except for the “container” part.

 

 

Instead of using .MP4 as the file format, all releases will be .MKV moving forward. This is the Matroska container which has been the standard for HD releases in recent years.

 

Some groups have already made the switch over the past few days, causing confusion among BitTorrent users.

 

“SUDDENLY everything (well many things) is MKV instead of MP4,” one downloader writes, adding “There is no way a way a whole bunch of encoders woke up today and suddenly decided to use MKV instead of MP4. Does anybody have any idea Whats going on?”

 

Others complain about not being able to watch MKV files on their video players, or branding MKV as inferior.

 

“All I can figure is that since things were just fine the way they were, a couple of people decided to screw everything up for everyone else,” another frustrated TV fan notes.

 

Several P2P TV-distribution groups, which are not part of the Scene, were also taken by surprise. However, TorrentFreak is informed that they won’t convert their releases to MP4, as some people have recommended.

 

Instead, the ETTV group advises TV-show downloaders to convert the videos to MP4 themselves if they want, pointing them to the free Rebox tool that can do this in a few seconds.

 

“SD tv shows will soon be released in mkv containers. If you’re an mp4 fan you can remux the mkv files to mp4 in 2 simple steps in less than 30 seconds with the app link below,” ETTV writes.

 

 

Interestingly, there were also massive complaints in 2012 when the SD standards changed from .AVI to MP4. At the time some people were literally outraged, vowing to ban certain sites and groups.

 

Whether we will see a repeat of this backlash will become clear after April 10, when the rules go into effect.

 

This time around it may not be as bad. Many video players support the MKV format and a lot of downloaders were already familiar with it, since HD shows have been released this way for years.

https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-frustrated-after-tv-release-groups-swap-mp4-for-mkv-160408/

 

[steven36]

LOL  many are still crying about about them switching to x264  from XviD . And really MP4 is just container not a codec format .the scene dose everything in x264 all you have to do is drop the MKV in YAMB and it will remux it it to MP4  .I like MKV better though works much better for adding subtitles  and chapters in reality  MP4 is inferior to MKV

[VileTouch]

here's hoping that means h265, as it doesn't have the artifacts 264 introduces (unless you do something very stupid while encoding that is)

[steven36]

2 hours ago, VileTouch said:

here's hoping that means h265, as it doesn't have the artifacts 264 introduces (unless you do something very stupid while encoding that is)

H.265 is just done by some p2p and web groups . No way the real scene will switch to H.265 anytime soon because they have rules , H.264 is  the mainstream slandered  overall because many people  players dont play H.265  and they don't want to be stuck behind a computer watching videos .Same reason the scene done XviD tell 2012 tell compatible H.264 Blu-Ray players became cheap .  And even now in 2016 some p2p groups still do XviD and it gets lots of downloads i guess still a lot old TV players still out there even today . 

 

It was not tell windows 10 that Microsoft put a native player in Windows that could play x264 you needed the codec installed  . And XviD with mp3 played  in WMP  natively so many non tech  savvy people still seeks out XviD  Its not been that long ago most  were installing AC3filter just to listen to the 2 cd DVDrips by the scene  because AC3 is not native in WMP ether  . It seems a million years ago when everyone still installed codecs  on windows that was tech savvy but those days came and went  with everyone migrating to VLC and Potplayer  and now most any free player dont need codecs . 

[GRiM]

Just a bunch of idiotic self-entitled p2p n00bs crying, nobody else.  

[GateMate]

I see nothing wrong here. People will be butt hurt over something that is given to them for free

[steven36]

22 minutes ago, GRiM said:

Just a bunch of idiotic self-entitled p2p n00bs crying, nobody else.  

Any body that knows anything about how to encode videos,  knows how to switch containers without re-encoding. i know of several open source tools that can do it easy. And only the scene does porn and HDTV SD  TV shows in mp4 container The  small pre retail releases. All Movies and even retail TV shows have been done in MKV since 2012

 

Before the scene was doing x264. I was watching x264 by p2p groups that was MKV  . So yeah they are just looking for something to cry about because unlike XviD its the same codec format .

[ck_kent]

I think those who are complaining are Apple users.

[steven36]

2 minutes ago, ck_kent said:

I think those who are complaining are Apple users.

Apple people dont got no reason to cry

 on MAC OSX they can just install QuickTime Plugin Perian. There's  also 5KPlayer and here's more

http://www.cisdem.com/resource/top-10--free-best-video-player-for-mac.html

 

10 Best iOS MKV Players

http://www.redmondpie.com/10-best-ios-mkv-players-for-iphone-and-ipad/

 

Just noobs that dont know how to Google  the tools they need to remux  the mkv to mp4 for there old devices . Lets break out the old VCR  lol.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sylence]

when you decide to be a pirate you gotta kiss convenience good bye.

MKV is a great container working with both H.264 and H.265. H.265 as the successor of H.264 is better because of the compression ratio resulting in smaller videos but retaining the same quality. whatever you do just keep rolling out Full Blue-ray movies (m2s formats) 

[SnakeMasteR]

First World Problems, clearly.

[steven36]

Most  of these noobs dont know,  the people that make these releases and rules  its a internal group effort ,  the scene dont really like there releases  posted on P2P or the web no ways. So its not up to people who don't belong in the scene .  If any of these groups ever got caught fooling around P2P they would ban from the scene It happened  before with  teams TWiZTED.DEFACED

http://scenenotice.org/details.php?id=2039

 

  They could give 2 shits about what you want or dont want. They rather you didn't download there releases at all.   Its a few complaining  that still use PS3  and use old TV players to watch TVShows  that dont support  mkv container . If there too lazy to find and use a free program too direct stream copy them over too MP4 they need to ether upgrade there players  or  go buy there media from Itunes or Amazon and stop being a pirate.  Being a dumb pirate will just get  you caught  anyways. Its not problem with PCs at all , be it Apple , Windows or Linux as long you got the right codecs , player or plugins anything will play . 

[DKT27]

This would have been a big thing if they were all switching to H.265 instead, but switching from mp4 to mkv is not.

 

About H.265, good thing I bought a media player with support for it. Funny thing is, I am yet to convert my videos to H.264 and such.

[steven36]

13 minutes ago, DKT27 said:

This would have been a big thing if they were all switching to H.265 instead, but switching from mp4 to mkv is not.

 

About H.265, good thing I bought a media player with support for it. Funny thing is, I am yet to convert my videos to H.264 and such.

It took the scene 10 years to implement  H.264  this happened in 2012 they tired to implement  it before and it failed 1st thing they banned from it  were DviX,  then 10 years latter XviD  . Maybe they will move to some other format in about 6 more years if its still around . Most every thing comes from the scene anyways.  some is re-encoded  or retaged by P2P . Only a few good p2p trackers  and groups have there own sources .

[BDX]

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy output.mp4

[Nutmeg]

On 4/9/2016 at 9:58 PM, DKT27 said:

This would have been a big thing if they were all switching to H.265 instead, but switching from mp4 to mkv is not.

 

About H.265, good thing I bought a media player with support for it. Funny thing is, I am yet to convert my videos to H.264 and such.

What type of media player did you buy?  I was looking into an android TV box, MXIII, as I found it to be good and cheap for my needs according to a video review on youtube.

[DKT27]

2 hours ago, Nutmeg said:

What type of media player did you buy?  I was looking into an android TV box, MXIII, as I found it to be good and cheap for my needs according to a video review on youtube.

 

I bought a slightly expensive Indian copy of MXQ S805.

 

It's something I will recommend and yet call bad. I mean, in front of computers, this thing is absolutely nothing. It has Android 4.4 that feels outdated, I somehow I cannot install apps from Google Play. The thing looks bad in UI. Navigating things from remote is really hard to do.

 

So, first, why I bought it, reason is simple, I do not have an HDMI based TV like a lot of people in my country. So this particularly had support for HDMI and also RCA ports, found in almost all the TVs. But, at RCA resolution, it looks crappy when compared to, lets say, 1080p computer screen.

 

But I will still recommend it, why so. Reason are many, first of all, its cheap. It can play H.265, I have not checked it though. Android 4.4 is not new, but hey, it's Android. You can sideload apps on it, through usb drive or though your computer though ES File Explorer's SMB. Now, why I also mention is that why one might be buying it not for Android, but for Kodi in it. Once in Kodi, you forget all the above mentioned problems, you can make Kodi as you want, screen overscan, audio, video, with navigation being relatively easy, high number of Kodi plugins. It completely changes how to look at it. To fix the navigation problem, I am thinking about buying something like this. It's just an example, but I think it will fix all the problems in handling things. In addition, if you do not like the Android UI, you can always use another UI on it.

 

One more thing, people as saying that this thing uses a WiFI dongle inside and not really a WiFi card, which effects it's range and speed. So make sure the box is relatively near the WiFi router if you want to stream in high resolutions.

 

Now, inspite of all this, I would say that if your TV has an HDMI port, then go for Nexus Player or any of those famous HDMI sticks. They might have new Android and might be better. If not, then, these players are considered the best I think.

[Jordan]

Both MP4 and MKV are just containers, but MKV is more flexible and carry chapters + multiple audio/subs elementary streams.

Complaining about switching from mp4 to mkv is a non sense!