Mininova Tests Torrent Streaming
Ah, so-called “piracy” to test government-funded research. Convergence is a beautiful thing.
The popular BitTorrent site Mininova is currently Beta testing BitTorrent powered video streaming. The new streaming feature allows users to watch videos instantly, streamed from .torrent files.
The Open Source “swarmplayer” which is used for the video streaming service is developed in collaboration with the Tribler team from the Technical University Delft and Free University Amsterdam. Tribler is also working together with the BBC and several other European broadcasters, and they recently received a $22 million grant for P2P research from the European Union.
The swarmplayer has also been demonstrated for a 100+ audience of media industry insiders in Geneva at the European Broadcaster Union event on Open Internet TV this week.
The secret sauce is in one of Tribler’s extensions to BitTorrent: Give-to-Get.
This algorithm is designed for Video-on-Demand, which cannot be supported with tit-for-tat in combination with the default piece picking policy. Give-to-Get provides more upload bandwidth to the peers which also donate upload bandwidth. The underlying principle of tit-for-tat is that bandwidth is bartered with the same peer. Give-to-get on the other hand also supports forwarding: receiving a chunk from one peer and passing it on to the next. By communicating at the micro-level about provided and obtained bandwidth and favoring helpful peers we ensure that leeching is not productive. Video-on-Demand service becomes available when sufficient peers in a BitTorrent swarm support this protocol extension.
Torrents and streaming are separately sticking it to Hollywood; imagine the MPAA’s headaches once the technologies combine with EU backing. Want to contribute to their pain? Register for the closed beta here.
Tags: Mininova, Torrents, TriblerRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Torrents
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