Streaming Video Torrents? Check Out Bitlet

by editor on May.07, 2009, under ReadWriteWeb

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.

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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.

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