Peercasting Ready for Primetime? 220
ZephyrXero writes "Have you ever wanted to run your own internet radio or TV station, but
thought the bandwidth would cost too much? While Wired
thinks Peer-to-peer broadcasting, or "peercasting", will be the future
of the internet (previously
posted); Peercast.org
says it's already here today. Peercast's software is available for Linux,
Windows, and Mac. You can
broadcast both audio and video without needing a whole lot of bandwidth
since each audience member also uploads back to the network. The Xiph Foundation
is also working on a similar project called "IceShare,"
but it's still in planning. Peercast,
still in beta seems to already be fully functional and ready for an audience (even you dial-up guys)."
Mercora (Score:2, Informative)
-dk
Re:Quick guess.. (Score:4, Informative)
During the day, you've got soaps, kids programming, and infomercials. What if you could simultaneously offer content for everyone else (not that I couldn't spend my days watching Days of Our Lives and Dora the Explorer, but I choose not to)? Or always having educational programs for schools available?
I'd love the ability to pull up my favorite show (which I missed because I was [on the road|working|watching something else|whatever]) at anytime. Without needing a PVR and without worrying about some broadcast flag...
Re:Bittorrent like? (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, the choice is very limited, but it will grow up I'm sure of it!
Great - another reason for the *AA to hate P2P (Score:3, Informative)
Y'know, they're pretty picky about net broadcast fees [usatoday.com]. Exactly how are they going to bill people? And exactly who will be billed?
I'm all for this, don't get me wrong. But like any good idea that promotes the *AA's products, moron music execs will be all over it since it bypasses one of their revenue models.
Enjoy it for now, because it's probably going away soon.
Yup. ASCAP (Score:4, Informative)
For a non-profit station they had a flat rate of something like $250/year. I suppose that's not that terrible, but since I wasn't making any money at all on the venture ~$20/month seemed a little steep to me. If you have any sort of revenue, they will charge you more based on your revenue.
If you want to do audio casting, I'd recommend Live365 instead. Because they volume license, the rates that you ultimately pay to ASCAP are lower than you'd end up paying on your own. One argument for using them, bandwidth considerations, seems to be fading, but it's definitely worth it just to avoid the legal hassle if your a hobbyist.
Re:Hmm. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good, Free, Content (Score:3, Informative)
It's not from Hollywood, so you won't see it on Entertainment Tonight or the E! Channel, and it won't be picked up by your local Fox affiliate, but it's out there on the 'net.
Every year thousands of film students graduate, and they create plenty of good indy films, full length and shorts. They're generally mocked by the public at large as artsy-fartsy nonsense, but there are plenty of good ones.
The Blair Witch project is a good example of a student project that made it in the "real world".
South Park is another good example. Years before the show, there was the "Spirit of Christmas" short. For every show that lives on or gets picked up like South Park, there thousands that dont.
Then there's internet-only stuff like Homestar Runner, and millions of other flash based toons.
There's a ton of "free" entertainment online, you have to find it yourself, since there's no billion dollar marketing engine behind it.
Re:A niche for parasites (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand it, BitTorrent (and by extension, IceCase which is layered on top of BitTorrent) solves this problem at the peer level using a tit-for-tat algorithm: people who aren't uploading packets don't get many download packets either. This seems like a much more robust solution than "blessed binaries" (which will be hacked anyway, and prevent people from developing their own clients)
Re:Good, Free, Content (Score:2, Informative)
Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com]
Megatokyo [megatokyo.com]
PvP online [pvponline.com]
8-bit theater [nuklearpower.com]
Red vs. Blue [redvsblue.com]
A lot of content is produced that way. Some of it even good one. Just beacause it's not video doesn't mean it doesn't count.
And let's face it, most of us would rather read a comic with a pile of crap fighting psycho-bears [schlockmercenary.com] than see some bald guy [schlockmercenary.com] parading in front of a camerafor half an hour, no matter what he actually did.
So much for PeerCast... (Score:2, Informative)
This is not "any show any time" (Score:3, Informative)
Peercast only allows you to watch what is being shown on any given channel as it is broadcast, much like regular broadcast TV.
The content shown is dictated by the operator of that channel.
Re:No adware or spyware? How can I verify this? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.peercast.org/code/