

Stream Torrents Instantly From XBMC - steeve
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174736

======
steeve
Also important to note that you can send magnet links from Chrome to it (a-la
Chromecast) via the Play-to-XBMC Chrome extension.

Supported platforms are:

\- Windows x86 x64

\- OS X x64

\- Linux x86 x64 (XBMCbuntu)

\- Raspberry Pi (Raspbian, OpenELEC, Raspbmc, Xbian)

\- Android 4.0+ ARM

~~~
Touche
Slightly offtopic, what is considered the best RPI distro for xmbc?

~~~
kyriakos
I tried both Raspbmc and OpenElec. I didn't see a significant difference in
performance. Using Raspbmc now. Unless they made some significant changes to
OpenElec the past 3-4 months they are more or less the same.

~~~
colinramsay
I pretty much did the same, I started with OpenElec because my pi shipped with
it, changed to raspbmc because I liked the fact it was debian-based. There
really doesn't seem to be much performance difference.

------
j_s
Additional links also relevant for this crowd:

[https://github.com/steeve/torrent2http](https://github.com/steeve/torrent2http)
\- turns magnet links into sequential HTTP downloads

[https://github.com/steeve/libtorrent-
go](https://github.com/steeve/libtorrent-go) \- Go bindings for libtorrent-
rasterbar

[http://www.rasterbar.com/products/libtorrent/](http://www.rasterbar.com/products/libtorrent/)
\- 'efficient, easy' torrent library

~~~
rakoo
Also worth the look:

[https://github.com/jackpal/Taipei-Torrent](https://github.com/jackpal/Taipei-
Torrent) \- Taipei-Torrent, a working pure go bittorrent application

Disclaimer: I participated in it.

~~~
steeve
Cool. How mature is it ?

~~~
rakoo
"It works" in the sense that you can use it as a cli tool to download/share a
torrent, much like aria2 would do. It implements many standard features
((multi) tracker, extensions, dht, magnet, ...), with the following notable
exceptions:

\- no peer choking \- no throttling \- no LPD/LSD \- no PEX

also, its output is quite verbose. All things considered, a very pleasing
experience with Go that works. Not used a lot though I'm afraid.

------
phreeza
I rigged up Azureus to do this kind of sequential downloading a long time ago
once, and it was quite neat, but I didn't share the patch because I reckoned
it would be bad for torrent health if everyone started doing this. Isn't that
still true, and with Popcorn and this popping up now, isn't it just a question
of time before seeders start recognising and penalising sequential
downloaders?

~~~
steeve
You are right, but there's a lot more to it (time randomization, hot spots
which are also the most shared etc..).

That's also why the addon is using libtorrent-rasterbar (as opposed to
peerflix), and tries _very_ hard to do the right thing as to minimaly hurt the
swarm (it does, but it tries to make up for it).

------
bduerst
Honestly, I feel this comes a little too late.

It would have been nice with RaspBMC, but I've recently switch to using Put.io
+ Chromecast. The fact that Put.io has almost instantaneous access to entire
torrents is kind of a dealbreaker.

~~~
stingraycharles
How legal is that anyway, since they're acting like a sort of proxy server for
torrent data.

~~~
bduerst
I think they're getting around it by being a strict torrenting service - i.e.
when you add a torrent that is already there, you get one single seed for the
entire file, and the person who originally brought it in is liable for sharing
it, not put.io

------
mikewhy
Disclaimer: I am the author of the channel.

Would like to mention SS Plex[1]. It doesn't use torrents, nor XBMC really,
but it allows you to stream and download content to a wider variety of
devices.

I say "wider variety" because Plex runs on everything XBMC runs on (via
PleXBMC), and transcodes files into a format the client supports.

[1]: [http://mikew.github.io/ss-plex.bundle/](http://mikew.github.io/ss-
plex.bundle/)

~~~
prawn
I've recently switched from XBMC on a hacked ATV1 to Plex on a MacMini and
been really happy with it so far. Having the Plex app on my Samsung TV and
then on iPhone and iPad is a great bonus meaning it's trivial to pick up where
I left off.

I always thought the "keep watching from a different device" thing was such a
gimmick, but I'll go from watching a movie on the TV, then to watching a few
minutes more in bed before sleeping then another few minutes over breakfast.

If my 18mo old is lazing in bed with us, I can pull up a TV show he likes,
give him some headphones and snooze for a bit longer.

------
spdmn
I've been using this for 2-3 months already. The fact you can send magnet
links from chrome is what sold me on its usefulness. Thank you dev.

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Shorel
Why can't I find it from inside XBMC ?

~~~
steeve
Because it's not in the official repo

~~~
Shorel
Of course I know.

My other comment is a hint to the developer ;)

------
mrindianteen
How is this different from the popcorn time app that was posted here a couple
days ago? Any reason this is better?

~~~
steeve
Disclaimer: I'm the author

Well, apart from the fact that it existed way before, it also serves a
different purpose:

\- Last version has 8 providers (as opposed to 1)

\- Appart from Win/Mac/Linux, it works on Android and Raspberry Pi

\- Tailored for TV (because XBMC)

\- You can send "magnets" to it via Chrome (see FAQ in post)

\- Leverages a better bittorrent library (enhancing the swarm healthiness)

~~~
Sektor
Would it be very hard to make this work with MediaPortal? I know that the two
packages started out quite similar but have forked rather drastically over
time. I only ask because despite trying to change over to XBMC a number of
times (almost every major revision) I've never been able to make it do what I
need it to do and MePo has a much higher WAF when setup well.

------
mafro
Anyone know what the XBMC theme is in those screenshots? It's somewhat more
appealing than Confluence..

~~~
dvcc
Looks like Xperience1080+:
[http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=150116](http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=150116)

------
taylorbuley
FYI, XMBC works great as a media server running on a Raspberry PI

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tbomb
My dreams have come true. (Commenting to save for later)

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starik36
Does it provide PeerBlock
([http://www.peerblock.com/](http://www.peerblock.com/)) style protection? Or
can it be integrated into it?

~~~
Seeless
Peerblock is effectively useless. There's no reason to waste time implementing
it.

~~~
starik36
Why is it useless?

~~~
glomph
Because it is trivial for anyone who wants to sample a swarm to get a new IP
address.

