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RSS And BitTorrent, Together At Last
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Mar 17, 2004 12:34 PM
from the oh-calculon dept.
from the oh-calculon dept.
eoyount writes "Wired has an interesting story about a really simple idea I wish I had thought of. Transferring large files across the Internet isn't easy for your average joe, but a combination of RSS and BitTorrent technology might just make it easier - Slashdot ran a previous story on the theoretical blending last year." (LegalTorrents is run by the strangely familiar simoniker, who wrote a short piece on the O'Reilly Network about how it was set up, and offers observations on how well the combination fares.) Update: 03/17 21:45 GMT by T : Ernest Miller submits two related postings he's written on RSS+BitTorrent, a combination he calls "broadcatching."
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RSS + BitTorrent = Broadcatching (Score:5, Informative)
Hack your TiVo for fansubs (Score:4, Informative)
Hell, you could modify an actual TiVo with broadband for exactly this sort of thing, and it needn't be limited solely to anime either. I'm sure it'll be popular with overseas watchers of American TV as well.
The international media and internet companies need to face facts and realize that Video On Demand is a reality and is already extremely popular - but that the shows people are demanding are not the ones the companies have been providing through their own limited, misfocused, and (most importantly) redundant services. Until we see simultaneous worldwide release of all media (including DVDs released simultaneously with the theatrical release) they will find themselves losing what should have been their easiest sales - those to impatiently eager fans.
Parent
Re:Hack your TiVo for fansubs (Score:4, Insightful)
Can someone is can make subtitles near to or exceeding professional quality ones for free? Translating, editing, timing, and typesetting? They can and they do. That is why fansubs exist. Do they bother with sound? No, because dubs are very difficult to get even close to comparable with the original language, if at all, but subs are easy and require only a little quality control. In fact, the original producers would be wise to cultivate and sponsor these international volunteers to do the the translations and editing for them (because timing and typesetting are the most technical parts but can be applied to all the translations). Plus, unlike sound subtitles require a negligible amount of bytes compared to the video.
Can someone distribute content for essentially no cost to the producer? Perhaps you ought to read the article again. Obviously the answer is yes. This is why digital fansubs are far more widespread and popular than the old VHS variety ever was. This is why the parent of this thread was referring to articles that describe how indy bands and movies can make themselves known and spread their work.
Are international menus hard/expensive to make? No, unless you make it difficult for yourself in the first place. Frankly, I'm really only interested in watching the show, and a lot of the overly flashy and slow menus out there only make things annoying. Do you even need menus for online distribution? No, since generally it's just a single movie/song/album/file. How about packaging? No.
What about when electronic distribution is not available, i.e. poor countries? Well, those guys on the blankets on the sidewalks seem to be able to manage. Certainly I've seen a few bootlegs from Hong Kong in my time with laugably bad english but probably decent chinese, and they manage. In both cases they seem to be catering to people who are priced completely out of the legitimate market rather than simply unable to access it due to a lack of translation. Which is where black markets have always taken over.
Parent
If file transfer is hard for the average Joe... (Score:4, Funny)
Not so bad (Score:3, Interesting)
The main problem people have using bittorrent is regressive internet connections. (Until IPv6 becomes ubiquitous this is going to be a problem for many of the internet's designed uses, not just swarming media.)
Im not so hot about RSS, but for things such a multicast or bittorrent- it really helps to get the content when everyone else is. So having a running subscription to a show you like, then have the download automatically kick-in as soon as it becomes availab
OK, newbie question (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OK, newbie question (Score:5, Informative)
You can find more information here [harvard.edu]
--
Real-time deal updates, over 400 a day! [dealsites.net]
Parent
Re:OK, newbie question (Score:5, Informative)
It's also seen as a effective way to replace e-mail mailing lists. Instead of getting your newsletters in your e-mail client, open them up in your RSS client which works on a pull basis rather than a push basis, but can still present the content to the user just like an e-mail program might.
It's very different than Active Desktop... that was just the idea of letting IE browser windows be part of the Windows Desktop level so that users could have a frequently-refreshed mini-page of content on their desktop.
Parent
Re:OK, newbie question (Score:3, Informative)
Go read Slashdot's RSS feed [slashdot.org] if you still don't get it. Basically it's just an XML document that defines story "ITEM"s as having a title, link, description and other fields.
Although it's cool... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Hrm, WoW is bing distributed by Bittorrent. Meanwhile, I get angry phonecalls from Vivendi to shut down Bittorrent."
Yay for technical advances, but can commercial interests fully embrace it without killing the "evils" of it?
The problem with bittorrent (Score:5, Informative)
Arguably, yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kjella
Parent
Re:The problem with bittorrent (Score:5, Insightful)
When you don't think of it in terms of people uploading movie files, and think in terms of companies using the technology to ease load on their web servers, now you're looking at BT the way the author intended!
Parent
Not everyone can contribute (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem with bittorrent is that by enabling efficient transfer of large files, people are transferring larger files. And the service providers simply do not have the capacity for everyone to be sending those large files. They may advertise unlimited access but kids they really aren't set up for it. To say nothing of the fact that the way the internet is structured now is no longer geared towards everyone being as able to send as well as they are to recieve.
Really, the internet and its billing structure should be geared towards billing by amount received, and not amount served, and widespread implementation of load-sharing protocols like bittorrent. It would be far more efficient and fair, and would encourage people to limit their consumption rather than penalizing inadvertently popular unsupported sites.
Parent
Re:The problem with bittorrent (Score:5, Informative)
If the download is not popular, than the orginator of the content can handle the bandwidth. Bittorrent's benefits kick in when something is popular, where there are simultaneous downloads at any given moment. If demand trickles back to one request every hour, than obviously the originator can handle it. Once it is no longer relevant, the orginator of the content can disable the tracker.
Bittorrent is a p2p network that works BETTER the more people are using it. Once everyone disconnects, then you revert to the worst case scenario, which is just straight downloading.
So don't worry, disconnecting after you finish is okay. You did your civic duty by sharing the bits while your download was in process. Enjoy your game guilt free.
I believe this is how bittorrent works. If I'm wrong, I'm sure I'll be corrected within - 3 - 2 -1 NOW
Parent
Re:The problem with bittorrent (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe...although it is much nicer if you let your u/l to d/l ratio is at least 50% - 100% is even nicer. You can can quit right after you finish, but it would be like only sharing 10% or so of your files on P2P networks that you downloaded. A step up from a true leech but not sharing completely.
Parent
Re:The problem with bittorrent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, I'm a "leech" - so what (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why not do a non-linear download? (Score:5, Informative)
No, seriously, try playing a partially complete BT download of an AVI with a player that doesn't look for the index (mplayer, DivX, etc.). The file is missing random chunks, not the end.
Parent
Uphill battle? (Score:5, Insightful)
Many ISPs and college campuses block P2P ports, BitTorrent included. I'm not sure that 'news' is a compelling enough reason to have many (or any) of them change their policies.
SuprNova.org ? (Score:3)
-molo
Re:SuprNova.org ? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:SuprNova.org ? (Score:4, Informative)
Too many good uses for Bittorrent to let the warez kiddies spoil it for us.
Parent
Bah. (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is effectively getting us to pay for website access/services, but instead of giving the money to the content creators we'll be giving it to ISPs instead and paying in bandwidth besides. So this is a bad idea.
Re:Bah. (Score:5, Insightful)
As for ISPs metering bandwidth, guess what, you have to pay for what you use anyway, otherwise the ISP doesn't stay in business. It doesn't matter whether its metered or a fixed $30 or $60 / month. It has to cover their costs. If you're complaining that your cost would go up with metering, its because you think that you use a lot more bandwidth then everyone else. So you're just trying to shift the costs to the people that don't use as much. Pot, meet kettle.
Parent
More ways for crap to flood in. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, remember when cable gained enough steam to warrant not one but many 24hr cable news networks? We are now blessed with an overabundance of crappy sensationalist "reporting". I do NOT want cnn/msnbc/fuxnews/etc. landing on my HD.
If an individual set up a feed for say, a favorite game or movie alone, I would subscribe. But most webpages I read, I gloss over quickly then am done with.
If I, and everyone else had subscribtions to all of the media content of their favorite websites delivered autonomously, the majority of it getting thrown out quickly...
think of the bandwith, the poor helpless bandwith, won't somebody please think of the child., er bandwidth!?
Good, but not perfect... yet. (Score:5, Interesting)
RSS+BitTorrent, is a step closer to a better web. It almost answers the problem of pointing your client at an actively downloaded torrent by steering users twoard a slimmer and more flexible protocol.
IMO, maybe some kind of 'standard' torrent directory/lookup that is guarnteed to be traded by all torrent clients is the right ticket; kind of like a DNS for media. The RSS+Torrent scheme is good, but all it does is displace the complexity of the matter onto a new protocol and rely on everyone hitting the same feed to begin (the problem Torrent is trying to eliminate).
It does however, make it easy to make distributing torrents a lot more dynamic. Neat stuff.
Already done - Konspire2b (Score:5, Interesting)
Konspire2b [sourceforge.net]
Essentially you subscribe to channels which push content instead of pulling.
Compared to Bittorrent [sourceforge.net]
This is an exhaustive analysis (with pretty charts) why under the above scenario (pushing content, as opposed to pulling), Konspire2b is much more efficient.
Re:Already done - Konspire2b (Score:5, Informative)
A scattered model gives BT as taking O(log(number of people)/(number of chunks) + 1) time for everyone to download the whole file instead of O(sqrt(number people)) as claimed in the article.
Parent
How long before ... (Score:4, Interesting)
???
Sorry if I seem like I'm trolling but these questions will be asked at some point
Re:How long before ... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this)
Parent
What a great idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing is, I ran into Andrew the other day, and he was just gushing about this new idea he had! I had no idea what he was talking about at the time. Guess I missed my chance to post a story on slashdot.
Almost Nirvana (Score:3, Funny)
RSS's "pull"/polling model is the real problem (Score:5, Informative)
This problem is easily addressed with multicasting. All a server need do is send a multicast datagram to notify all RSS syndicators that the RSS document has been updated, at which time the syndicators can fetch the new document.
P2P: The Meme War Continues (Score:3, Interesting)
In the right hand corner: Hackers Embrace P2P [yahoo.com]
This article is more Wired garbage. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand where they are coming from here. If I am going to pay to download music, which consists of relatively small files, I am not going to run a BT to help out an online music store.
When they start mentioning uses so far off the base of reality, the whole article starts to smell of BS. Especially since the slowest part of the MP3 experience tends to be copying music from the PC to the player.
Typically, I load new tracks on my ipod before leaving in the morning. I'll tag the stuff, then transfer it before I hop into the shower. As far as downloading goes, I can download a whole CD of music in ~10 minutes. The only way the article's method would be worth doing would be if you invested in huge libraries of online music purchases daily.
On that note: Please quit looking to solve problems that don't exist.
Re:This article is more Wired garbage. (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's say your favorite band just went on tour and as part of a promotion they decided to post a few songs and videos "bootlegged" from each concert.
Now, it might get kinda anoying to load up their page every couple of days and click on each link to download the media. However, they could post an RSS feed with BitTorrent links that you subscribe to just once. Everytime a new bootleg goes online, the RSS feed gets updated, and the content gets downloaded to your computer automatically.
Where would we be if everytime the Internet was mentioned 50 years ago, people ranted and raved about how the postal service already solved the problem of distributing content?
This is seriously cool stuff, you are just too closed minded to realise it.
Parent
is this the same thing as konspire2b (kast)? (Score:3, Informative)
A million years ago (1998?) Wired published a whole edition on Push as the Next Big Thing. It was the first time I was really aware of them being totally wrong. Or perhaps just a bit ahead of their time.
While I think this is a neater solution, there is another product that does exactly the same thing, allow you to subscribe to channels and received pushed content via incentive compatible (you get faster speeds if you upload more) swarms.
It's called kast [sf.net].
Bittorrent kind of sucks (Score:5, Informative)
* a file is seeded, and a
* that
* clients who want to download the file download the
* the user opens the
* the client downloads various chunks of the files from both the seeds and the other downloaders
The more people download a file, the better bittorrent is able to spread the bandwidth.
The downside is that if a file isn't seeded, it's no longer available. If a
Bittorrent's main problem right now, which is a client problem, is its upstream usage can easily swamp a home connection. That's just dumb client design.
Upload limiting works, but limits your download speed. The client develoeprs have to recognize that yes, sharing is nice and leeching is bad, but disrupting the users' connection is a Very Bad Thing.
Re:Bittorrent kind of sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that ideally, the most a user should see is bt://sitename.domain/file.zip, or something similar. The OS/browser should be able to handle that sort of protocol, and send it to the right application or use an integrated bit torrent client to get the file.
Correct me if I'm really wrong on this, or if it already exists. This would also be a welcome addition to Mozilla, I think.
Parent
Re:Bittorrent kind of sucks (Score:4, Interesting)
A decent client, of which there are many, will let you throttle your outbound.
Note that the way torrent works, if noone uploads, noone downloads. And the faster everyone pushes, the faster everyone gets. Its not so much an artificial thing as it is an economy of bandwidth.
And again, if you don't like sending full tilt, find a better client.
Parent
Re:BitTorrent (Score:5, Informative)
It allows for people to take advantage of bandwith by downloding bits of a large file from different users hosting a 'torrent.' At the end, all these pieces are put together. Yes, it is pretty good.
Parent
Re:Neato (Score:5, Informative)
No new browser protocol is needed.
The technology is already available at http://freecache.org/ [from the peeps @ archive.org]
I don't why many others have jumped on the bandwagon yet.
Parent
Re:Neato (Score:5, Informative)
Please note that you cannot submit a whole site to FreeCache as in http://freecache.org/http://www.rocklobsters.com/ This will not work as only index.html will be cached. You have to prefix every item that you want to have cached seperately.
Using the last THG article as an example, either the Slashdot story would need to point to each page individually via freecache redirection or Tom's Hardware would need to do it.
Not quite as transparent as incorporating BitTorrent into the browser.
Parent
Re:BitTorrent might be in trouble (Score:3, Informative)
I do know that Bram talked with the authors of Furthur [slashdot.org], an open-source JAVA P2P for legal content. A few members of the Furthur dev team also work for a company that once did buisness with Sharman Networks, so if anything, KaZaA source may be based on already GPL-ed software... but don't tell anyone that
Of course, all modern P2P is 'based' on Napster or Gnutella (take your pick), so it's all a mute point anyway
BitTorrent is not based on Kazaa (Score:4, Informative)
BitTorrent is open source (MIT license) and written in Python.
Kazaa is closed source, spyware-ridden dreck that was probably written in C++.
Parent
Re:BitTorrent might be in trouble (Score:4, Informative)
Also, Kazaa is in trouble not for it's protocol, but for running servers that allow piracy, it's just in Kazaa's case one automatically means the other, since the protocol is closed source. Of course, Bittorrent trackers that host pirated material are also susceptable to such troubles - but this has nothing to do with Bittorrent protocol itself.
Parent
Re:Tinfoil Hat (Score:3, Informative)
Would you like the GUI client or the command line one?
Yes, it works very nicely under Linux.
Re:Tinfoil Hat (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, yes...
Here [debian.org], here [rpmfind.net], and here [sourceforge.net].Parent
Re:Covered this previously just before christmas (Score:3, Interesting)
(I've noodled around trying to distribute RSS loads but it's hard to make it worthwhile.)
The
Other comments in the replies decrying corporate invol