![]() You could even host a live Q&A after the screenings, and show them all across the web, without any hit on performance, and at no cost to the filmmaker or the viewers.Ĭohen has been teasing the service for a while now, but once the bugs are worked out, BitTorrent Live could very well could disrupt the status quo and truly democratize streaming. If everything works out as it should, the potential is there to hose live screenings of films online and show them anywhere, at very high quality. While Cohen is aiming for this to replace infrastructure for live TV content on the web, I could see filmmakers using it beyond just streaming live events. A traditional streaming network, like Netflix, does not work in this manner, and delivers video in realtime, and adapts the stream in realtime based on performance. 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. For more information, see the BitTorrent blog.īarcelona vs.“My goal is to kill off television” Cohen said during the SF MusicTech demo session I hosted. Supported platforms haven’t been announced yet, but given that OTT News was available for the Apple TV, iOS, and Android, it seems a safe bet that at least those platforms will be supported. The channels offer linear programming, but will also feature live events.įollowing the launch, BitTorrent Live plans to offer subscription-based, ad-supported, and pay-per-view premium tiers in addition to the base free tier. A free tier of programming will be available at launch, with channels including Fightbox, Heroes TV, NewsMax, One World Sports, and TWiT. At the time, the company said that the app was a “test case for live-streaming.” That app used the same technology as BitTorrent Live, so it has been proven that it does indeed work.īitTorrent Live will offer both live and linear programming across topics including news, sports, music, tech, and youth culture. BitTorrent Live gives broadcasters back the model that made broadcasting.”Įarlier this year, BitTorrent launched OTT News, an app that offered live coverage of election news. ![]() “Streaming broke that model because every incremental viewer cost the broadcaster money. “The power of broadcasting has always been around building a huge audience,” BitTorrent Live VP of media Erik Schwarz told Digital Trends. MLB live stream: Watch baseball from anywhere for free Luxembourg vs Portugal live stream: Watch free from anywhere Scotland vs Spain live stream: How to watch for free from anywhere
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