
BitTorrent unveils new live-streaming platform - vincent_s
http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/17/11689158/bittorrent-live-streaming-video-platform
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wesleytodd
Any good streaming solution needs to transcode multiple bitrates and formats.
You either need to do that on the source machine or across the network
somehow.

Doing it on the source machine is technically easier, but much more heavy
weight on machine. Doing it on the network means that the transcode is
happening multiple times, which can result in playback issues if you get a
source segment from two different transcodes.

I have thought about doing something like this because I work for a streaming
company, but have always come to some roadblock like the one above for a
"real" application of this technique. I wonder how they have solved this.

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wesleytodd
> "Powered by our proprietary and patented peer-to-peer live streaming
> protocol,"

And now I care about this much less...

source: [http://blog.bittorrent.com/2016/05/17/bittorrent-live-
multic...](http://blog.bittorrent.com/2016/05/17/bittorrent-live-multichannel-
app-for-live-and-linear-programming-unveiled-at-intx/)

~~~
cwkoss
Has BitTorrent (the company) ever developed anything that gained wide
traction? (Original client was developed pre-incorporation)

Looking through their Wikipedia page, it seems like a list of flops or
freeware. Are they actually profitable?

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Chris2048
is bittorrent in any way proprietary? Weren't there extensions?

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nflx
This is really good for the sports streaming community.

The current landscape is either a paid site — which is really only
[http://hehestreams.xyz](http://hehestreams.xyz) right now (but it's awesome)
— an AceStream link (quality suffers), one of the really janky sports
streaming sites where you get blasted with ads, or a YouTube link which likely
gets taken down before you can sit down and enjoy it.

AceStream, while good, doesn't have the backing of someone like BitTorrent.

Interesting read: [http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-fascinating-
local-c...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-fascinating-local-color-
from-illegal-nba-playoff-streams)

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undecidedly
So how long until hackers reverse engineer and open source it?

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oneloop
The guy says that BitTorrent is half of the internet traffic "by some
estimates". Does anyone have sources for this?

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toomuchtodo
Historically, 5-10 years ago, it'd be between 30-40% of total internet
traffic. Its come down close to ~7% in the last few years with Netflix, Hulu,
and other over the top services being available.

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aznpwnzor
Why isn't this a licensing deal to established content deliverers? It seems to
only alleviate provider cost. If this actually does solve a problem, why
wouldn't they just work on getting Netflix to buy into it?

~~~
erikpukinskis
Cost has totally different determinants at different scales. At the smallest
scales, fixed costs overwhelm variable costs. As you scale up and
architectural needs change, there are steps in the cost function. Just because
something is cost effective at one scale doesn't mean it's cost effective at
all scales.

Personally, I think peer to peer streaming is most interesting for open source
projects. You can host static code for free and then use something like this
to do streaming. The developer pays nothing, and bandwidth fees are born
entirely by the user.

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abimaelmartell
Yet another.

