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Streaming Video Torrents? Check Out Bitlet

Written by Jolie O'Dell / May 7, 2009 5:38 PM / 18 Comments

Illegal movie and TV show downloaders, rejoice. Soon, you will no longer have to wait and hour or two to start watching your favorite obscure dramedy series. Streaming torrent site Bitlet.org is preparing for instant gratification beyond your wildest dreams: Streaming video from torrent files.

About a year and a half ago, we reviewed the site, which then allowed users to download torrents without a BitTorrent client and allowed users to instantly stream audio and other non-video content from those torrents. In the closing remarks from that post, we noted, "Presumably, the same idea can be applied to video -- imagine: streaming video distribution over BitTorrent. Very cool." And behold, Bitlet has made this suggestion very real and quite simple, as well.

For a batch of demo videos, Bitlet has transformed the entire downloading and viewing process into a two-click, 30-second process. Click the link for the video content you want to see, and click the play button. A child or other technologically confounded person could use it with the greatest of ease. Elegant, no?

Although the service is still in an experimental stage, users are invited to test out the service and view sample videos at the Bitlet video page. This page also gives instructions for those "brave enough" to distribute content through the site.

Standard torrent caveats apply: Less bandwidth, higher quality, and fewer peers/seeds will make for more lag time. Nevertheless, it's a great implementation of Bitlet's technology (queuing bits sequentially so users get the first parts of the content first) and the implications are exciting.

As the folks at TorrentFreak wrote, "Although current bandwidth prices are dropping, most video services such as YouTube are paying millions of dollars for traditional server side streaming. Especially high quality video is costly to stream, and peer-to-peer technology can certainly make a huge difference there."

We can't help but wonder how this news will go over with the entertainment industry, especially in the aftermath of the conviction of the Pirate Bay crew. In addition to offering a serious incentive for users who currently use other torrent clients, Bitlet will be in direct competition with legal streaming video sites such as Hulu.


Comments

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  1. For some odd reason, my browser shuts down whenever I attempt to visit that site. Would anyone know why that is?

    Posted by: Dmitriy | May 7, 2009 6:29 PM



  2. To the media and film industry: Stop fighting what you can't stop and join the world of p2p and what you concidered to be illegal shared content - and find ways to monetize what you have. I'd suggest you give a call to the CEO of Hulu if you have no idea where to begin ...

     Posted by: Vincent Author Profile Page | May 7, 2009 11:05 PM



  3. I guess SwarmPlayer http://trial.p2p-next.org/ will have to move faster now. Bitlet have the key advantage of being directly embedded in the page which, for most users is fundamental. The only problem being... asymmetric connections in most countries.

    Posted by: Utopiah | May 8, 2009 2:52 AM



  4. You can already use a similar technology called qxtream:

    http://www.qxtream.com

    Althought is in alpha, and works for megaupload content, so the quality is far way better.

    Posted by: streaming | May 8, 2009 6:02 AM



  5. Unfortunately the problem of throttling still hampers this.

    Until telecoms agree to stop interfering with modulating throughput and DPI, innovation like this won't really take its rightful place.

    Posted by: Television Spy | May 8, 2009 7:01 AM



  6. If the RIAA had their way we would all still be watching Black & White TV.

    They are just anti-technology and waaayyy behind the times.

    Posted by: Gill Bates | May 8, 2009 9:12 AM



  7. I just use bintube.com

    works great ;-)

    Posted by: youme | May 8, 2009 10:52 AM



  8. How will this work effectively? The main problem I see is that most of the people downloading are going to prioritize the beginning of the file (so they can start watching). If everyone prioritizes the beginning, and it has to be in sequence to allow streaming, it seems like the whole seeding and distribution would be very slow, at the very least when you start downloading it. Does this really give improvement over just downloading the file, with all the waiting you are going to have to do?

    Posted by: Joseph | May 8, 2009 12:42 PM



  9. Your this is a torrent site that you can use to stream movies?? So it kinda works like DivX but better?? I can understand how this might be slowed down with this new system. I mean divx still makes me wait a while before I can strat watching, my bittorrent is bad enough, now with streaming aswell, my computer may turn into a trash heap lol!

    Nicholas @
    http://www.nicholasfinnegan.com/

    Posted by: Nicholas Finnegan's Need Self Esteem | May 10, 2009 6:47 PM



  10. Good to know about Bitlet. But how to prevent spam in the name of BitLet?

    Posted by: Kolammal | May 13, 2009 12:48 AM



  11. have you guys tried using megaupload tools, with a coupon?are they just cool with it?

    Posted by: coupon fan | May 16, 2009 6:57 PM



  12. VIDEO

    Posted by: chat Author Profile Page | July 5, 2009 2:51 AM



  13. looks promising...

    Posted by: torrent lover | September 5, 2009 6:16 AM



  14. They are just anti-technology and waaayyy behind the time

    Posted by: yonja | September 11, 2009 9:18 AM



  15. When anti-technology changed so behind the time

    Posted by: yonja | September 17, 2009 11:58 AM



  16. have you guys tried using megaupload tools, with a coupon?are they just cool with it?

    Posted by: bedavasohbet | September 17, 2009 12:00 PM



  17. Until telecoms agree to stop interfering with modulating throughput and DPI, innovation like this won't really take its rightful place.

    Posted by: sohbet odalari | September 17, 2009 12:01 PM



  18. thanc you sejlaklka lere you is and

    Posted by: sohbet | September 17, 2009 12:14 PM



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