BitTorrent Pirates Go Nuts After TV Release Groups Dump Xvid

Some Internet piracy groups decided to implement some new regulations and standards last week. Instead of releasing TV shows in the Xvid/avi format, groups responsible for putting major TV shows online switched to MP4/x264. Outraged by the lack of democracy, some BitTorrent users are directing their anger at bewildered torrent sites and even threatening to boycott releases. For those who understand, the whole thing is pretty amusing.
 
Every now and again, the world’s most famous piracy release groups get together and have a big old meeting to decide how they’ll carry out their future activities. At the top of the agenda is an item of utmost importance – how to change things around to ensure the highest levels of annoyance and inconvenience for BitTorrent downloaders.
 
Ok, so the last sentence isn’t true, but nevertheless that appears to be the current assessment of events according to some BitTorrent users. Worryingly, the interpretation from others is even more wide of the mark.
 
The problem stems back to a new document which details a set of standards TV show release groups such as LOL and MOMENTUM will have to live up to in order to comply with so-called ‘Scene rules’. Not complying with the format means that a release group’s work risks being ‘nuked’ – a term which means something has been rated second-class by their pirating peers.
 
The document – ‘The SD x264 TV Releasing Standards 2012′ – is extremely detailed and covers all sorts of technical issues, but the main controversy stems from the adoption of the x264 codec.
 
“x264 has become the most advanced video codec over the past few years. Compared to Xvid, it is able to provide higher quality and compression at greater SD resolutions,” the rule document begins.