Is .tstream the next big thing for BitTorrent?
You can now get streaming video via BitTorrent using the .tstream format and SwarmPlayer. Nathan Taylor explains how it works and why it's big news for online video.
I was particularly interested to read last month about the new .tstream format, the product of the EU-backed P2P-Next project. Much like Joost with its P2PTV technology, P2P-Next has been working on a way to make BitTorrents streamable – that is, allowing people to play downloaded videos as they download, rather than waiting for completion. Normally, BitTorrents download out-of-order, so you can’t stream them.
How the .tstream format works
Already P2P-Next has produced SwarmPlayer, which can be used to play live and on-demand video streams from sources like the BBC. SwarmPlayer reads .tstream format files, which is a modified version of the .torrent format.
Like normal torrent files, .tstream files use swarming P2P to deliver the massive amounts of bandwidth required to serve video files to large number of people; but unlike .torrent files it tries to download the file in-order for live playback.
Why .tstream is big news
The promise of this technology is immense. A broadcaster can stream a high-quality television channel over the Internet without the massive source bandwidth that unicasting requires. That bandwidth requirement has always been the Achilles heel of Internet TV, and this potentially makes it go away.
It’s not as clean a solution as end-to-end multicasting, but it’s potentially pretty close (and it’s pretty apparent that the Internet is never going to support multicasting). Even small channels with little funding will be able to become Internet broadcasters – and in Europe at least the big boys are getting on board too. Given this, is now really the right time to be thinking about blocking BitTorrent?
What about that pesky ISP problem?
BitTorrent has had something of a legitimacy problem for some time. Like all peer-to-peer protocols, it’s heavily – almost certainly primarily – used for piracy.
I guess that’s why the government has been investigating various ways to filter P2P content at the ISP-level (you can click on this link to read the latest ACMA report on content filtering.
Yes, ISPs can block P2P
The report, it should be noted, isn’t a policy statement, but an investigation on the practicality of content filtering. When it comes to P2P, the summary is that they can practically block P2P traffic at the protocol level – although it’s unclear if they can do so with encrypted P2P traffic – but have no way to identify content, so P2P blocking becomes an all-or-nothing thing.)
Is it a good idea? No
I tend to think any such plan is a very bad idea. Blocking P2P traffic is not only heavy-handed -- it shuts down numerous possibilities for legitimate use. Legal content providers are already using BitTorrent for media distribution, and any attempt to filter those providers doesn’t really help anybody.
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