PrivateHD | PHD | HD | 2017 Review

Name PrivateHD (PHD)
Category HD
Tracker Type Ratio-Based, Hit & Run is not allowed
Birthday May 2015
URL http://privatehd.to/
Getting In Easy
Signup Invite Only
Bonus Points Yes
Total No. of Torrents 12,000+
Total No. of Users 44,000+
Maintaining Ratio / Seed Difficulty Easy
IRC Details Server: irc.rizon.net Channel: #privatehd Port: 6667
Banned Countries None

Introduction

PrivateHD (PHD) is a relatively recent, and heavily underrated, High Definition (HD) private tracker. It’s one of the 5 members of the AvistaZ Network - the other 4 being AvistaZ (ex AsiaTorrents), AnimeZ, CinemaZ (ex EUTorrents), and ExoticaZ.

PHD was born in May, 2015, and has since achieved a commendable growth in user base, quantity & diversity of content, and user interface design. The tracker currently has 44,000+ users, and primarily specializes in HD content for English language movies and TV series in various resolutions (720p, 1080i, 1080p, 2160p) and rip types/sources (BDRip, BluRay, Full/Raw BluRay, HDRip, HDTV, REMUX, WEB-DL & WEBRip). The site also has a very small music collection in both FLAC and MP3.

Content

PHD currently has around 12,000+ torrents as follows:

TV series torrents: 4,000+
Movies torrents: 7,000+
Music torrents: 600+

While the numbers, especially for TV series, might seem relatively small compared to other HD & General trackers, do not let these numbers misguide you.

Television:
A large number of the TV series torrents are full seasons (2,000+) - and more importantly - full series packs (350+), as PHD has developed a solid reputation for uploading complete series packs for TV shows that finished airing. While full series packs are not allowed on some other trackers, PHD welcomes them, which, in opinion, is a very convenient and a much better way of obtaining a full series (as opposed to downloading episodes or seasons individually).

Aside from the usual P2P & Scene groups, many Usenet releases can be found on PHD as season and series packs. For continuing shows (i.e. shows that are still airing), individual episodes are usually grouped and uploaded in a season pack when a season has finished airing, and are deleted a week or so after that so as to avoid having duplicate content.

Standard Definition (SD) content is allowed only for complete shows (i.e. shows that have finished airing), AND only if the show aired fully in SD, or with some seasons in SD & others in HD. These SD-only and SD/HD mixed series packs can only be uploaded by Uploader rank and above.

PHD allows one format (resolution & rip type/source) per episode/season pack/series pack. For example, only one 720p WEBRip, one 1080p BluRay, one REMUX, etc. Different audio & video codecs are allowed for the same format (e.g. 1080p BluRay DTS & 1080p BluRay DD5.1 can coexists for the same release.

Movies:
Since PHD is still a fairly new tracker, the movie selection is not particularly large but is extremely active and experiencing a substantial growth rate on a daily basis. It has 800+ Full/Raw BluRay, 2,000+ REMUX, 6,000+ 1080p, and 1,000+ 720p movies. Most 720p and 1080p are BluRay encodes.

PHD does not allow SD content for movies, and only permits one format (resolution & rip type/source) per movie. For example, only one REMUX, one 1080p BluRay, and one 720p BluRay per movie. Movies, both old and new, are being added every day, with content diversity and encode quality being the primary focus. In due course, PHD will climb up the ranks of HD trackers known for their movie collections.

Music:
There isn’t much to say about the music section since it’s relatively quiet, less active, and small in size compared to the movies & TV sections. It has around 600+ albums in both FLAC & MP3 formats.

Internal Releases & Pre-times

EPSiLON (ex PrivateHD):
Internal REMUX group, which now has some of the best pre-times among all REMUX groups. EPSiLON releases both movies and TV series, is extremely fast and active, and, in due course, will be in the conversation for one of the top REMUX groups in all private trackers. Aside from EPSiLON, some users also release their own REMUX occasionally, but those need to be approved by staff.

HDBEE:
Internal Full/Raw BluRay group, still relatively young (around 5 months old), but like EPSiLON, it’s very active, and works with both TV & movie Blu-ray Discs. Pre-times are not the focus of this group.

UTR-HD:
Internal x265 release groups, which now calls PHD home after KickassTorrents (KAT) was taken down. While the demand for x265 releases may not be particularly high at the moment, the UTR-HD is one of the most active, and perhaps the best, x265 out there that focuses on encoding high quality 10-bit HEVC releases. UTR-HD does not only focus on new releases, they encode both old and new TV shows and movies, and pre-times are not the primary focus. Like HDBEE, the group is still young on PHD (about 5 months), but is growing by leaps and bounds.

Pre-times:
Apart from internal releases, the pre-times for other P2P & Scene releases (for both movies & TV shows) on PHD are among the best & fastest anywhere. Uploaders are active and very competitive among each other.

Tracker Specifics

Ratio Maintenance:
PHD is one of the easiest trackers to build and maintain a good ratio. This is mainly because there’s plenty of freeleech torrents - any torrent that’s 40 GB+ is freeleech. It used to be 30 GB, but was recently increased to 40 GB to help combat Hit & Run, and I personally think it’s a great idea. Freeleech torrents are marked with a Gold Star.

Another reason why maintaining a ratio is easy is because of the generous double upload credit you can earn (i.e. if you seed 10 GB, you’ll be credited for 20 GB). Download rules are detailed below:

- 20 GB > = No download discount (No icon)
- 20.01 GB – 39.99 GB = Half-leech (Half Red Star)
- 40 GB+ = Freeleech (Gold Star)
- Internal release [UTR-HD, EPSiLON, HDBEE] = Double Upload (Green Diamond). Internal releases always have a Double Upload status
- Featured = Freeleech + Double Upload (Gold Star).

'Featured' includes some user releases, some dying torrents, and torrents selected by staff at their discretion.
Freeleech/Double Upload status for this category has an expiry date

Members are generally required to maintain a 1:1 ratio on all torrents downloaded, or seed for as long as possible. Not defined minimum seed times exists at the moment. Hit & Runs are not allowed and may result in a warning.

Seeding:
At any given time, around 90% of all torrents are alive and seeded. From my experience, a lot of releases that are usually dead on other trackers are active on PHD, and dying torrents on other trackers are better seeded on PHD, regardless of their age.

Even if you’re trying to leech a dead – or dying – torrent, a 'Reseed Notification' banner will be displayed on the homepage of every user who has downloaded it in the past, asking them to reseed it. This works very well and happens automatically as long as there is at least 1 leecher in the swarm.

Speeds:
Speed has hardly ever been a problem for me on PHD, and they have improved substantially over time. A lot of users have very fast seedboxes, and even older content has excellent speeds. As mentioned above, the ‘Reseed Notification’ feature is very helpful in alerting users to reseed dead or dying content, so this also helps significantly with seeding speeds by boosting the number of seeders. Also, some torrents that struggle with speed maybe added to the 'Featured' torrents, so the double upload credit encourages users to seed, and helps with speeds.

Bonus Points & Invites

Bonus Points:
PHD as a reasonable bonus points system that rewards seeders based on a number of factors: total number of torrents being seeded, torrent’s size, and torrent’s age (taking into consideration the number of seeders).

Simply stated, the larger the torrent you’re seeding, and the older (and less seeded) they are, the more bonus points you’ll earn per hour. You can exchange bonus points for upload credit, invites, or you can gift them to other members.

Invites:
You can earn an invite by exchanging 2000 bonus points, which is not difficult to achieve.

Community

Forums & Discussions:
PHD has one of the most active communities out there, both in the forums and in the comments section for each torrent. Just like the main website, the forums are beautifully designed, and various topics – both torrent and non-torrent related – are discussed, with plenty of learning opportunity for all tracker- and torrent-related topics. You’ll find a decent number of members online on the forums at any given time, and many are willing to help and discuss a wide variety of topics.

Requests:
Requests used to be handled through a subforum, but like all other AvistaZ Network sites, PHD has now introduced a dedicated, and a very well-implemented reward-based request system. If you’d like to request something, you fill in the request form, and specify how much bonus points you’re willing to give the uploader.

Other users interested in your request can upvote it by contributing more bonus points, and you also have the option on increasing the bonus points by upvoting your own request multiple times. The requests section is very active, and users are excellent and very proactive in fulling requests. If your request is available somewhere, and a reasonable bonus points have been put up, chances are your request will be fulfilled.

Staff:
PHD has some of the most passionate, active, helping, and genuinely respectful staff on any tracker. They are very much invested in the well-being of PHD, and do a tremendous job moderating and meticulously reviewing every uploaded torrent to ensure that it meets the strict upload rules. The staff’s dedication is the main reason why PHD looks so great, and why all the content follows a very strict and consistent naming convention. Every uploaded torrent (except those uploaded by staff and certain uploaders) are marked as Unverified until they are confirmed by a staff member.

Notable Rules

No Lukring Policy:
Implemented recently across all AvistaZ Network sites, whereby a user must use his/her account to download and/or seed torrent data within 30 days of account creation, after which if the account is still unused it will be automatically pruned/disabled for inactivity.

Newbies restrictions:
Newly registered users are limited to downloading torrents that are at least 7 days old. Newbies also cannot upload torrents, and are limited to downloading 5 torrents a day until they are promoted to ‘Member’ rank. The easiest way to get promoted is to snatch active freeleech torrents that were posted 7 days ago or more, preferably with double upload credit, or cross-seed active torrents if you have them in your collection.

Nature of allowed content across the AvistaZ network:
PrivateHD – HD only, mainstream, English language (mostly USA & UK) movies & shows.
AvistaZ – Asian content from all across the continent of Asia.
CinemaZ – Content from Europe, Middle East, Africa, and South America. Non-mainstream, obscure English-language content.
AnimeZ – Anime and hentai, mostly Japanese. No Western anime allowed.
ExoticaZ – Asian porn.

What makes PHD special or different from other trackers?

While PHD does not offer many user classes, and/or class-based privileges, incentives, or perks like other takers, it has a lot of things that makes it stand out among other trackers, including:

User interface:
In my view, PHD has the most user-friendly design with the best user interface out of all private trackers. It’s not Gazelle-based, has one of the most effective advanced search options, is aesthetically pleasing, and looks & feels like it belongs in the 2010’s decade. The same cannot be said about most other trackers. Bear in mind that PrivateHD is still in Beta Mode (Beta 3.0), and the Admins are constantly working on improving things even further.

Full series packs, no random or movie packs:
Mentioned before, very convenient way of snatching full completed show. This isn’t allowed on a lot of other TV, HD, and General trackers, but is allowed on PHD for shows that have ended. PHD does not allow packs for continuing shows or movies.

Meticulously moderated for consistency:
You won’t find many dupes, inconsistent or incorrect torrent names, single episodes when packs have already been uploaded, bad quality, or any of the things you dislike about other trackers.

Access to other AvistaZ Network:
If you’re in good standing on PHD, you may be able to receive invites to the other 4 members of the AvistaZ Network. That does not mean you can demand or publicly ask for invites. Use common sense.

HEVC x265 content:
For users who are into x265, look nowhere else. There’s even a dedicated subforum to request these releases from UTR-HD.

Final Thoughts & Scores

In closing, this is the best new HD tracker out there, and has already outperformed a number of more established HD trackers. In time, it will steadily climb up the ranks of its category, and will have a much deeper range of content.

Tracker Scores

Content 8
Speed / Seeding 9
Pre-times 9
Usability / Interface / Design 10
Community / Forums 10
Staff 10
Overall Experience 10

P.S. If you find this review helpful, please LIKE & REP this post Enjoy the screenshots

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