![]() Not only does it require expensive content delivery networks, which are used to push content to users, but costs rise as each new viewer is added to the broadcast. What’s more, streaming an event can be costly. If you’re using multiple platforms to participate in an event - for example, tweeting and streaming - it can be a real drag to read about something that happened before you saw it. With major events, latency can be 30 seconds to a minute. Latency is the lag time between when something happens at a live event and when the viewer sees it. “We are about to do it again with our sights firmly set on making live video streaming actually work.” Latency and BenjaminsīitTorrent Live targets two big problems with streaming live events over the Net: latency and cost. “The people here at BitTorrent have changed the way the Internet works, and more than once,” BitTorrent blogger Christian said in a Tuesday post. BitTorrent Live does the same for streaming live video, the company said. “Sending content over the airwaves excels…if you want space aliens to watch your content.” If you want to cheaply reach humans across the globe, summon BitTorrent Live.BitTorrent on Tuesday announced at the Internet & Television Expo an application called “BitTorrent Live” that applies its distributed file-sharing technology to video streaming.īitTorrent is able to speed up file downloads by storing pieces of a file on computers throughout the Net and reassembling them when a request is made for the file. Cohen says he’s already been approached by TV studios who want BitTorrent Live to bring their shows online cheaply. That’s fast enough to support interactive elements like chat and Twitter feeds. The only catch is that viewing BitTorrent Live content requires a one-time download, and after that is just works quietly through your browser.Ĭohen tells me those not looking to profit from their streams will be able to utilize BitTorrent Live at no cost, “It fits the DNA of what BitTorrent is about because it’s open and free.” Meanwhile, those showing ads will pay a cheap licensing fee rather than the “millions of dollars” they pay now.Īn SDK to work with the proprietary protocol is in the works.BitTorrent is now asking content publishers to contact them at test their tech. 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. This disruptive P2P tech could open live streaming to publishers of any scale, such as independent artists, educators, and journalists.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. Established streaming vendors like Ustream and Livestream who charge per viewer and have limits should be afraid too. Netflix and Hulu could potentially use BitTorrent Live to reduce their costs. With BitTorrent Live, soon it won’t just be The White House and the Super Bowl streaming their content. The shift to online streaming has been stalled, though, because of the cost of set up, bandwidth, and servers compared to television infrastructure like cable wires and satellites that are already bought and paid for. 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. “My goal is to kill off television” Cohen said during the SF MusicTech demo session I hosted. Sports, news events, simulcast TV shows, education, video conferencing, or uncensored war zone broadcasts - this technology will power the future of video. Today, Bram Cohen, the author of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer sharing protocol, demoed his latest creation at the SF MusicTech Summit.īitTorrent Live lets any content owner or publisher stream video to millions of people at good quality and with just a few seconds of latency…for free or cheap. Television is going the way of the dinosaur, and the deadly comet is called BitTorrent Live.
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