Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source, P2P, Web, Windows x64
Tribler and Bitlet offer two takes on torrent-powered video streaming
by Lee Mathews May 5th 2009 at 10:00AM
BitLet, whose client-free torrent downloader we first mentioned on DownloadSquad two years ago, have been hard at work on a new project. Their torrent-powered streaming video service is now available for a public preview.
There's no standalone download required to use Bitlet, all you need is a browser with the Java plugin installed. As with any other torrent, your playback experience has a lot to do with the participation of your peers. Well-seeded videos buffer quickly and play smoothly while others may sputter and stall. Bitlet has a few example videos for you to try out including the Diablo 3 trailer and Mr. Cropperfield, a delightful animated short.
Right now, Bitlet can only play videos in the OGG format. To try it out with your own clips follow the instructions posted at the bottom of the page on how to convert your video and get it uploaded to a tracker.
There's no standalone download required to use Bitlet, all you need is a browser with the Java plugin installed. As with any other torrent, your playback experience has a lot to do with the participation of your peers. Well-seeded videos buffer quickly and play smoothly while others may sputter and stall. Bitlet has a few example videos for you to try out including the Diablo 3 trailer and Mr. Cropperfield, a delightful animated short.
Right now, Bitlet can only play videos in the OGG format. To try it out with your own clips follow the instructions posted at the bottom of the page on how to convert your video and get it uploaded to a tracker.
Tribler, on the other hand, is a desktop application that allows you to search for and stream just about any format your computer is capable of playing. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux - a Ubuntu .deb is provided as is the source code.
Search for something to watch and click the play button. Once you've buffered enough data, your video will begin. While Tribler's support for multiple file types is a big advantage over Bitlet, it still suffers the same drawback - less popular files still take forever to download which rather defeats the purpose of streaming. Keep an eye on the popularity indicator: more gray bars typically equals better download speed.
You'll also notice non-video results in some of your searches, like the one above for "Office." It's not a major problem, but it would be nice to see it addressed somehow.
Despite the unavoidable seeding issues with some torrents, Tribler and Bitlet are still very intriguing projects and it will be interesting to see how they evolve. Take them for a test drive, and share your thoughts in the comments!