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Mininova trialling Torrent video streaming
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 21st March 2008
The Swarmplayer software offers a YouTube-like interface to BitTorrent-distributed video files.
The service is powered by the open-source Swarmplayer software which was jointly developed by the Technical University Delf and Free University Amsterdam. Tribler – the team behind the Swarmplayer – is working closely with various broadcasters including our very own beloved Auntie Beeb and has just recently been given a rather impressive £11 million grant from the European Union to carry out research into peer-to-peer technologies.
The site is currently looking for volunteers to beta test the streaming service – interested parties should post to this thread on the Mininova forums. It's a closed beta, so if you're not picked you'll have to wait just like the rest of us for the official launch.
The thought of instant video streaming from .torrent files – a BitTorrent YouTube, if you will – must have anti-piracy groups sweating. It's one thing for a pirate to have to install a BitTorrent client, find a search engine, download a .torrent, open various ports on their firewall and router, and wait for the file to trickle down; quite another just to hit 'play' and sit back to enjoy free high-quality video playback.
That said, the interest shown by broadcasters including the BBC shows that the technology has very definite commercial possibilities: currently the streaming version of the BBC's iPlayer software uses scads of expensive bandwidth, and it's not even that popular. If the Beeb could offer something which appears to all intents and purposes as simple to use as the Flash-driven iPlayer interface but which uses BitTorrent to distribute the video – much like the original Kontiki-driven iPlayer did – the corporation would stand to make significant savings on data transit costs.
That said, we'll have to wait to see if the BitTorrent protocol, which wasn't written with real-time streaming in mind and works best when downloading chunks of large files in a fairly chaotic sequence, can really be adapted to time-sensitive data transit.
Hoping to get in on the beta, or do you just use YouTube for all your video streaming requirements? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Comments (10)
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Well they would have the "master" servers which will be the main seeders i guess. Just the people watching it will also be helping seeding while they watch. It wont eliminate the BW costs, but it will cut them down drastically.
I live the iPlayer stream, I was stuck at work the other saturday waiting for automated backups and other month end stuff to finish, so I watched Ashes to Ashes, its nice getting paid to watch BBC programs :p and I dont even have a TV at home or a TV licence :o
If the content was over 30 mins, then I guess this would cause selfish people unknowningly to seed more!
copies for me but I hope this works out and the MPAA gets it stuck up their dark hole
I mean, that's basically what this is trying to be (if im reading correctly), except there are already standards in place
The hardware side:
Myka sneaks BitTorrent into the living room
...
The box hooks up to the internet via LAN or WiFi, includes a 80GB, 160GB or a 500GB drive for storage and runs a torrent client on Linux. Outputs include HDMI, composite, S-Video and SPDIF, and codec support is substantial. You can add storage via USB, and pull video off your computer if you're not in a downloading mood.