
Khan Academy and BitTorrent Partner to Distribute Educational Videos - audreyw
http://www.hackeducation.com/2011/02/11/khan-academy-and-bittorrent-partner-to-distribute-educational-videos/
======
citizenkeys
If this adds legitimacy to the BitTorrent protocol, then the greater good is
served.

As for the BitTorrent app ecosystem, that's a real chicken-and-egg situation.
People are looking for Khan Academy videos and then use BitTorrent to
facilitate that. Not the other way around.

------
thefreshteapot
If you listen to this interview by Techzing with th creators of a "web tv
show" Pioneer One, they talk about how releasing it on Bittorrent has given
them access to many new people and new lead gen.

(Also I note they mention in it in the blurb)
[http://techzinglive.com/page/643/102-tz-interview-pioneer-
on...](http://techzinglive.com/page/643/102-tz-interview-pioneer-one-the-no-
budget-tv-series)

Assuming Khan do a "nice bit of self branding" at the start or end of the
video with the link, then I can only see this being a plus, it also keeps the
videos more in the public domain, instead on youtube, for instance... I
believe ultimately it will bring them more exposure.

------
pjscott
This is good news for the people who watch these videos sped up. It's amazing
how much more engaging some speakers are when you watch a video at, say, 1.4x
the normal speed.

~~~
twink
That's also what I do with the podcasts I listen to. 1.35x is my default
though ;-)

The files go from my podcatcher directly into sox for conversion. Sounds a lot
nicer than the speedup mechanism provided by my mobile media player.

time sox --single-threaded -S "${FILE}" -t wav - tempo ${TEMPO} | lame -h -V 4
- ${NEWFILE} || exit 1

id3cp --v1tag "${FILE}" "${NEWFILE}"

Does anyone know of a way that doesn't need a conversion to WAV first?

------
oofoe
Three words... "substantial non-infringing use".

Very nice.

------
jokermatt999
They already have all the video files in a .torrent on their website. I
downloaded part of it the other day to brush up on trig.

~~~
justlearning
the torrent file is at : <http://code.google.com/p/khanacademy/downloads/list>

------
Kilimanjaro
I rather see academic books for free on the web, I am not much of a video guy,
no time even for a one minute youtuber. Kudos to the Khan Academy for their
effort, but more is needed in the free ebooks arena.

~~~
talbina
Wouldn't it take you more time to read a topic in a book than view a 5 minute
video?

~~~
apl
Generally not, no.

Khan's fairly good at explaining stuff, but I have to view all of his material
at double speed -- otherwise the repetitions and "uhm"s would be too
bothersome. Same content could be delivered in half the time if written and
read.

~~~
pstuart
Bingo! The quality of the information is high but the presentation quality is,
ah, um, has room for improvement.

Transcribing the narration and converting the "chalkboard" to
text/svg/flash/whathaveyou would be a huge win.

~~~
eru
You could give it a try.

------
hsmyers
Seems like this puts Khan Academy at risk given the idiots at Homeland
Security--- guilt by association with BitTorrent

~~~
soult
I don't think that it will become a problem. BitTorrent enjoys widespread use
for legal purposes like distributing Linux distros, open data, etc. Homeland
Security hasn't caused any trouble for legal downloads yet.

The bigger dangers are firewalls and ISPs that throttle or block BitTorrent
traffic.

