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Researchers Test BitTorrent Live Streaming
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Jul 18, 2008 05:01 PM
from the pirating-without-the-pesky-evidence-trail dept.
from the pirating-without-the-pesky-evidence-trail dept.
An anonymous reader writes "TorrentFreak reports that the Swarmplayer, developed by the P2P-Next research group, is now capable of streaming live video in true 4th generation P2P style using a zero-server approach. With a $22 million project budget from the EU and partners, the P2P-Next research group intends to redefine how video is viewed on the Internet. The researchers have launched a streaming experiment where you can tune in to a webcam in Amsterdam, or a 5 minute weather report (not live) from the BBC. More details about how to set up your own BitTorrent live stream are also available."
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Submission: Researchers Test BitTorrent Live Streaming by Anonymous Coward
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Arrgh Matey (Score:5, Funny)
Its using BT so it must be piracy, right?
UGH (Score:5, Funny)
I don't understand why people keep making this association!
Pirates HATE torrents. I can't even tell you how many beautiful vessels we've lost to the fuckers. Ugh.
Sincerely,
The Racketeering Industry Association of America
PS: RAmen.
Parent
Re:Arrgh Matey (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed. I am waiting for a P2P technology that is so stealthy, nobody knows it even exists. Then I can be a Ninja and not a Pirate.
Parent
Open source? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this open source?
There's already a closed source p2p video system that was used, among other things, for the streaming of the Blizzard WWI event (Diablo III announcement). It's called Octoshape. How does this compare?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octoshape [wikipedia.org]
http://www.octoshape.com/ [octoshape.com]
Re:Open source? (Score:5, Informative)
http://svn.tribler.org/abc/tags/swarmplayer-1.0.0/ [tribler.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Quite often, the systems simply doesn't work. At some point, the client kept its connection up on the P2P network. Of course, this happened while I was out of town (I'm not the single user of the system) and didn't catch the issue until I came back home. In 3 days, it ate over 60% of my HS cable internet cap (100 GB up+down)
I see some issues here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I see some issues here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Very interesting concept, and I'm surprised nobody thought of it sooner. It could start a new p2p video service like the world has never seen. Instead of taking 2 hours to download the movie, then watching it, you can watch any movie on pirate bay, right now. The trick is just that everyone needs to be using a streaming client.
Parent
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Also the video file format itself has to support streaming. MPEG-2 would be fine. AVI wrappers would not work too well, as there are indexes or some such at the end of the file.
-molo
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The live streaming video didn't work all that great on my computer. Reason is probably that my internet connection right now is very substandard. The BBC weather report actually worked really well. It stuttered a little bit when it started, but as it went on, it never did it again. I would again attrib
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You could always have the torrent client compensate for that, too -- the indexes aren't that big. Just have the client fetch the end of the file first.
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The detailed statistics on their page [p2p-next.org] indicate "viewing quality: 99.79% pieces played, 0.21% lost.
It seems that the testers use broadband that can handle the 600 Kbps requirements + this algorithm is holding.
With front-page coverage the next 24h will be a make or break I guess...
The entire POINT is to handle slashdot effect (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire POINT of torrent-style protocols is to, not just handle, but take advantage of, the Slashdot effect.
The more participants in the torrent, the more robust it is. It is potentially faster for the new participants as well (though this depends on the dynamics of growth and the number of simultaneous downloads per playing node).
)The average latency will increase as the torrent grows. No way to avoid that.)
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The more participants in the torrent, the more robust it is.
Assuming the tracker can handle it.
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Re:I see some issues here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they just use multicast? This is what it was designed for.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
multicast requires that everyone be watching it at the same time. What I don't understand is why everyone keeps trying to s..t...r.e...a....m stuff over the internet. Maybe you don't have to have the disk space to cache it, but give me a quality download any day...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
multicast requires that everyone be watching it at the same time.
If it's a live stream, isn't that a given?
Otherwise, it could follow the same model as pay per view -- start a new multicast session every hour or so.
And assume it isn't a stream -- Multicast is still an advantage. Imagine they simply replay it over and over, at a reasonable download speed -- then bandwidth costs are close to zero, for everyone involved.
What I don't understand is why everyone keeps trying to s..t...r.e...a....m stuff over the internet.
Two reasons.
First, if it's actually live, it kind of has to be a stream. Otherwise, well, it wouldn't be live. Kind of the point, and that one's a "duh".
I d
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, RTFA ... Uggh. p2p'ing 1 minute buffers. What a hack. But the problem with multicast is that it requires isp support (which I know *we* don't have setup, and I doubt many do or are willing to do --- it's hard enough to get people to think about ipv6 and it has a lot more compelling justification), or non-trivial tunnel setup, where as this just works as is. On that basis, I have to admit grudging admiration for cleverness, but ugggh! It's still s..t..r.e.....a.m...i.n.g...
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Mod parent down. Proper use of Internet protocols (except HTML) is frowned upon here.
Seriously, for some reason people don't like multicast, I really don't know why.
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Re:I see some issues here... (Score:4, Informative)
Standard BitTorrent works because of the Tit-For-Tat incentive mechanism. The whole idea is that a peer exchanges pieces with another peer, so it can achieve a higher download rate than just getting pieces from the seed.
Now, I won't go into details, but the reason you get your files in some arbitrary order is because a BitTorrent swarm is just like a marketplace. Certain pieces are rare and might have long queues, i.e. many peers are interested in it and are competing for it. Other pieces are so common, most peers are not interested in it and can thus be exchanged with fewer peers. So the trick to achieving high download speeds is to obtain the right pieces that are still valuable for further trade, while not spending too much time on obtaining such a valuable piece.
Now, with video-on-demand (and live streams), the whole Tit-For-Tat system no longer works. In this situation, peers must obtain pieces in order for playback. The problem now is that a peer that wants the next minute of the video can only get it from a peer whose playback position is further ahead. The latter peer however is not interested in pieces from the former (since it already has these) and thus no exchange will take place.
So, the solution the Tribler team came up with is the Give-to-Get incentive mechanism. A peer will only receive pieces from others if it sends its pieces to those that are interested, i.e. peers that have seen even less of the video. This requires some feedback, so a peer that receives some pieces will have to inform others that it recently has received data from a certain sender. Thus, you could say that the Give-to-Get incentive mechanism is based on reputation.
Parent
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I don't know which client you're using, but most BT clients allow you to specify file priorities now (I use uTorrent). Seriously, if you can't prioritise individual files within your client, it's time to get a new client.
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Re:I see some issues here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I see some issues here... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:I see some issues here... (Score:4, Informative)
In the example, the streaming is actually taking place from 15 minute pieces. When enough of the current piece has been collected, the video starts playing on your machine. While you're watching the stream, the rest of the 15 minute piece is collected and shared. The next 15 minute piece is collected/shared when it appears. A while (I don't remember if it was 15 or 30 minutes) after you saw it, the older pieces are deleted from your machine.
This is similar to how some Internet radio streams work. You're actually listening to a bunch of short streams encoded in some audio format. The major difference here is that a slightly modified BitTorrent protocol is being used.
Parent
Welcome to (Score:2)
the future of how we do things.
$22 billion for what? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want broadcast, broadcast. Sending countless duplicates of the same data in unicasts is WASTEFUL!
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That's 22 million
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You realize that even traditional "broadcast" (e.g. streaming from youtube) has to send countless duplicates of the same data, right?
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He did explicitly call out unicast, which youtube is doing. He's not advocating the likes of youtube, or even saying this isn't an improvement. He's saying that networking explicitly designed multicast as an architecture for 'getting it right'. On a theoretical level, I have to see his point, on a more pragmatic level, good luck fixing all the stuff in the middle instead of just the endpoints..
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Right, but there really isn't a broadcast solution available right now. So if we think of "wasteful" as a relative term, neither way is more wasteful than the other.
Actually, with P2P, smart ISP's could keep peers on their side of the fence, and not have to clog up the tubes connecting them to others. I don't remember if that's what Sandvine is supposed to do or not, but I remember reading about it somewhere.
Of course, we could all use a proxy server to the same effect, but I don't think anyone wants to g
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Maybe he meant multicast.
Not so simple.. (Score:3, Informative)
First off 'broadcast' packets have poor meaning outside of a single layer2 network. In networking, broadcast means to send to everyone, whether they like it or not.
I presume you meant multicast, which is a bit more sane, but at the same time, I haven't been convinced that an at-scale situation would work with networks generally as configured today. I wager a good number of arbitrary routers out there would fubar multicast. This, of course, doesn't get rid of the duplicates, it moves some of the problem t
Well that depends on the ISPs, doesn't it? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want broadcast, broadcast.
When the ISPs all support multicast in a compatible way (or even support it at all) we can switch over to that. Unfortunately many have not chosen to do that - at least so far. (Not surprising, since many of them are broadcast media conglomerates. Multicast-for-the-masses would enable their competition on a shoestring-budget level.) Meanwhile, live torrents do the same job for the users without additional support from the ISPs.
Yes it's not "efficient". But the main cost
How is this different? (Score:2)
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Already existing (Score:2, Interesting)
They call it Zattoo
it's using encryptet contents over bittorrent.
Re:Already existing (Score:5, Informative)
They call it Zattoo
it's using encryptet contents over bittorrent.
I watched the World Cup Futbol championship on Zattoo [zattoo.com] and it was sometimes more "real time" than broadcast TV. How do they do that? This bittorrent prototype buffers for a full minute. And I notice the live stream isn't even doing any sharing (according to the status page).
Parent
Maby a good idea for the future, forget it today (Score:5, Interesting)
It really does not matter that it takes longer to download than it takes to view the video when viewing television series from tv-channels like eztv, which is why BitTorrent is so popular.
This BitTorrent streaming idea is great in theory and it will work great if we upgrade all end-user connections, backbones and so on. The future will be great! But I do not think the tubes are ready just yet.
It works. (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently, I am watching a live stream in moderate resolution at full frame rate from the roof of a building in the Netherlands.
It works.
I cannot even begin to imagine the ramifications of this if it is adopted by the "pirate" scene. I know its been done with closed source software before, but none of them work as fluently as this trial is. Live streaming television of any channel in the world, or at least, anyone who wants to hook up a capture card, for starters.
I think we're watching the Internet change, fundamentally and dramatically, before our very eyes.
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I cannot even begin to imagine the ramifications of this if it is adopted by the "pirate" scene.
That's because there really aren't any.
Ramifications, that is. Seriously, piracy is all about redistributing existed content. What would we have a live stream of, PirateBryan's ass?
Live streaming television of any channel in the world, or at least, anyone who wants to hook up a capture card, for starters.
Any show that people care about is online within an hour of airing. Maybe two.
And this wouldn't be as reliable as a straight download, either -- a straight download can die for a few minutes, and you lose nothing. You can download something in three hours that has a running time of two hours, for better quality. But this has to b
Will this ever be usable in the US? (Score:2)
US ISP's are throttling (oh, excuse me- giving the customer a "better experience") ordinary BT now. What are they going to do when this comes around to fruition? Will only Europeans be able to use it?
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2 things (Score:2)
Also, is it really necessary to have an encrypted link to the streaming instructions ?
Interesting parallels (Score:5, Insightful)
This is hilarious. The transport layer can theoretically handle this perfectly well, via UDP multicast.
But here we are, implementing a multicast-like streaming system higher in the stack to overcome the fact that most ISPs have disabled multicast at their routers. If something like this takes off, maybe this would actually encourage ISPs to enable multicast.
Also, I find this whole development awfully similar to the fact that many firewalls block everything other than HTTP on port 80, so now many apps have just moved to talking HTTP on port 80, or inventing pseudo-protocols on top of HTTP.
Ahhh, the Internet...
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