They are using what is called progressive download, which begins downloading a video to your cache at whatever point you select in the timeline. While we call those sites "video streaming" sites, they aren't technically streaming video. There is also an important distinction to be made between this service and services like YouTube or Vimeo. It doesn't bog down with more users, in fact, the more users accessing the stream, the better the performance should be. The best part about the distributed nature of BitTorrent is that it works in a completely opposite way to other streaming services. So what does this mean for you? While the service is in Beta right now, and I'm having a bit of trouble making any of the streams work, this has the potential to make streaming viable for anyone at anytime, absolutely free (potentially making a service like Ustream obsolete). While the service is going to be free for those not looking to profit, those selling ads will pay a licensing fee which is reportedly much, much lower than anything else out there. A 5 second delay is simply remarkable considering it takes all of the heavy lifting off of the original provider. The requirement from users is that they download a simple plugin that remains live while using the service (similar to the SoShare, the service we talked about last month that allows you to do a file transfer of an unlimited amount of data to any user/users up to 1 TB at a time). Cohen tells me he’s spent 3 years hacking on BitTorrent Live, “It’s a difficult engineering problem, and I’ve figured it out.” Now the protocol can offload 99% of the data transfer to users and achieve just a 5-second delay even with millions of viewers. Afterwards he explained to me in rhyme, “Television’s physical infrastructure is inevitably going to go away, but TV as a mode of content consumption is here to stay.” Essentially, people love what they see on television, but want it accessible from the web.īitTorrent Live sidesteps the infrastructure cost by having viewers stream the content to each other like they’d torrent a download instead of pulling video from a central source. Meanwhile in the UK, three more BitTorrent trackers have been blocked by ISPs as a result of a lawsuit filed by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a group which represents music copyright holders.“My goal is to kill off television” Cohen said during the SF MusicTech demo session I hosted. Thanks to all our early users for their support,” said Bram Cohen, the author of the BitTorrent protocol. “We’ve demonstrated scaling and improved stability during our invite-only period, and are excited to open our service up to anyone who wants it. It wouldn’t launch in Opera, and would frequently crash in Firefox, but nevertheless, at the time of writing, there were 13 working streams, broadcasting everything from traffic cameras to B Movies. The service is currently in beta, and will need some polish. ![]() Watching video requires users to install the BitTorrent Live app, but potential broadcasters will have to open an account too. With BitTorrent Live, anyone can create a resilient video stream that would be instantly accessible by thousands of people around the world. And it’s designed to make real-time reporting, and open expression available to all: eliminating bandwidth, cost, and infrastructure as broadcast barriers,” developer Justin Knoll told TorrentFreak. “It’s based on the principles of the BitTorrent protocol. In contrast, with BitTorrent Live, the quality and reliability of the broadcast actually improves every time a new viewer connects, since every new viewer becomes a miniature broadcaster and “amplifies” the stream. Big audiences need a lot of bandwidth to support them, and events like the Royal Wedding or Olympics require huge investments into infrastructure, something that is only feasible for a few companies. With traditional steaming technologies, the quality of the video degrades as more viewers tune in. It uses the familiar P2P structure to distribute the load among users and take the pressure off the broadcaster.īitTorrent Live is currently in open Beta, and available for testing. The long-rumoured BitTorrent Live is a platform that does away with the issues of buffering and democratises streaming by cutting down on video bandwidth and hosting costs. BitTorrent, the US company responsible for the eponymous peer-to-peer sharing protocol that has become the bane of copyright holders around the world, has launched a live streaming service that could revolutionise the way we consume video online.
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