BackBitTorrent Live: Can better tech give it an advantage?
The service will use a method for streaming that is different from that of most other video streaming services, but it'll not be any different for end users in terms of experience
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BitTorrent, also popularly known as ‘torrent’, has for long been associated with driving online piracy. But there is no doubt that the peer-to-peer (P2P) model redefined the way file sharing on the world wide web worked. Now, the people behind BitTorrent have announced BitTorrent Live, which is a “multichannel, live and linear video streaming platform". Simply put, a P2P live streaming platform, and a rather refreshing take on Live TV.
The BitTorrent Live app will be made available on the latest generation Apple TV streaming device later this week, and the apps for iOS and Android will be released sometime in June.
Initially, the focus will be on five genres—news, sports, music, tech and youth culture—and the channels will stream without the need for any subscription. The initial line-up of streaming channels include AWE, Clubbing TV, Fast & Fun, Fightbox, Filmbox Arthouse, Heroes TV, Newsmax, NUsicTV, OANN, One World Sports, OpenNews TV, Pursuit Channel and TwiT. BitTorrent confirms that these are just the initial package offerings, and more premium channels as well as subscription-based, ad-supported and pay per view (PPV) packages will be added.
The most common method of distributing files that are either streamed or downloaded from the Internet by users is using a server—the entire file sits on a single server, albeit at times with mirrors, and get downloaded as a whole. While this is ideal for most common file sizes, things become a bit more complicated when there are large files and many users are downloading the files at the same time from the same server. That is because the available bandwidth gets stretched a bit too thin, which leads to pauses in streaming and broken or slow downloads.
The technology that BitTorrent has pioneered all along is P2P. This is designed in such a way that it spreads the burden of bandwidth equally across all downloaders of any particular file—a file is split into smaller blocks, and those who are downloading also have the responsibility of uploading it for other users connected on the network. In fact, P2P downloads tend to be more consistent and stable on poor quality internet connections because there is auto-correction for any anomalies. While the likes of Netflix use the single server method for streaming video, BitTorrent Live is relying less on their own bandwidth capacity, because the more users log in, the more they share for other users. Perhaps this is the reason why BitTorrent is able to offer completely free streaming, since it doesn’t have to spend as much on bandwidth and content delivery networks, as say Netflix and Hulu have to.
For viewers like you and me, the experience of streaming a video will be no different from other live streaming services. Behind the scenes, your internet pipeline will be getting utilized to also upload the content that you are downloading, to feed the downloads of someone else—and the chain will continue.
When BitTorrent Live does go live in stages later this week, it will be available on Apple TV. The company says that apps for iOS, Android and Mac OS X will arrive in the next few weeks. What is interesting to note is that there is no mention of an app for Microsoft’s Windows platform, at a time when the Redmond-based company is talking up the unified apps platforms for PCs, phones and the gaming console. In fact, this app would have been a perfect fit for the Xbox One console, which is also a home entertainment platform in addition to having gaming capabilities.
While BitTorrent Live certainly has a robust technology foundation to build on, the challenge down the line will be content. If the service itself has to survive, and eventually comes across as enticing enough for premium subscriptions, they’ll need to get the big names on board—the likes of HBO, AMC, Fox and more.
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