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Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

iflix.io

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Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The drawback was that the source data needed to be a web friendly seekable format; you couldn't play an arbitrary video file. Maybe I should revive the VLC web plugin and the torrent input plugin :)

Plugins aren't a great solution, people don't want to install them.

I agree very much, which is why I did not push too much the VLC web plugin. Yet I don't know how to solve this problem, in any another way.

On the other hand, Popcorntime and other soft are getting installed by users, so maybe if plugins are easy to install, maybe they could work... (?)

Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#23
post #19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The drawback was that the source data needed to be a web friendly seekable format; you couldn't play an arbitrary video file. Maybe I should revive the VLC web plugin and the torrent input plugin :)

i was thinking about using the vlc web plugin :) for avi/vmw

Please report bugs :)

Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In PopcornTime, you can drag and drop arbitrary BT files.

This doesn't seem to work in the latest version.

If you're referring to Time 4 Popcorn, that's not it. It's also malware.

Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#25

I created (and later closed) a similar service using mega.co.nz instead of torrents. The main problem I see with your approach is that you serve video from your server (and presumably do the torrent fetch server side). This opens you up to liability, makes you responsible for DMCA take downs and puts the workload on the server. In contrast NimbusVid was entirely client side. The drawback was that the source data need…

This one is client-side:

http://www.popcornexpress.me/

It uses Bittorent's Torque plugin.

http://blog.bittorrent.com/2012/07/06/introducing-bittorrent...

Of course at that point you might as well install the real thing, rather than a plugin. It's a shame there isn't a standard web-based torrenting protocol. I imagine it's technically pretty hard to do, but even if it wasn't, now that MPAA is on W3C's board and owns it, and with Google, Microsoft and Apple also being in bed with them, there's slim to zero chance such a protocol will ever become reality.

Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plugins aren't a great solution, people don't want to install them.

I agree very much, which is why I did not push too much the VLC web plugin. Yet I don't know how to solve this problem, in any another way. On the other hand, Popcorntime and other soft are getting installed by users, so maybe if plugins are easy to install, maybe they could work... (?)

Popcorntime doesn't open up my browser to security holes for every website I visit.

Every plugin you install increases the surface area for attacks.

Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#27
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree very much, which is why I did not push too much the VLC web plugin. Yet I don't know how to solve this problem, in any another way. On the other hand, Popcorntime and other soft are getting installed by users, so maybe if plugins are easy to install, maybe they could work... (?)

Popcorntime doesn't open up my browser to security holes for every website I visit. Every plugin you install increases the surface area for attacks.

Of course. But plugins are now in separated processes and plugins shouldn't autoplay (a contrario from flash).

Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#28
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plugins aren't a great solution, people don't want to install them.

I agree very much, which is why I did not push too much the VLC web plugin. Yet I don't know how to solve this problem, in any another way. On the other hand, Popcorntime and other soft are getting installed by users, so maybe if plugins are easy to install, maybe they could work... (?)

The "right" way to solve it is for everyone to use seekable MP4 (or seekable WebM), especially since things like Chromecast don't natively support anything else. That's hard to do but possible if you provide a highly desirable service (people will start to complain for torrents in unsupported formats).

Re: Realtime streaming from torrents in the browser

#29

Haven't got this to work yet. I'd love to see a BT streaming solution not as a centralized service, but as a locally running app. Does such a thing exist?

My personal preferred suggestion: the Bittorrent Channel for Plex[0]. Plex is, effectively, a media indexing, library management, and transcoding daemon, that also provides plug-ins (Channels) to access virtual media items. In this setup, you have a streaming player (e.g. a Roku) and a PC running Plex--you access the torrent through the interface on the media player, and the PC will start downloading and transcoding the torrent and streaming the result to the media player.

[0] https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/102253-rel-bittorrent...

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