Although they didn’t win the award, the evolution of Bitlet continued steadily. After its introduction it added features such as music streaming (currently utilized by mininova) and the ‘bookmarklet‘ which allows users to inject a direct download link into torrent search engines. Today Bitlet adds video streaming to this list, another long awaited addition.

The experimental video streaming feature allows users to stream video using BitTorrent and watch the file, even as it’s still downloading. The first release only supports videos in the Ogg format, but developer Daniele Castagna told TorrentFreak that he might extend this list, depending on how much time he can spend on the project.

In order to make Bitlet work with streaming video a few modifications had to be made, but its still good old BitTorrent technology under the hood. Daniele has put up a few example videos on the site and below them are instructions on how to stream your own files using Bitlet.

There are a few important conditions to fulfill in order to achieve an optimal streaming experience. Of primary importance is the need for sufficient seeds and peers to guarantee a decent download speed. Besides this, the playback time will depend on the quality of the video – the higher the quality, the more bandwidth is needed.

The streaming feature seems to be working well, and it’s actually the first live example of BitTorrent video streaming which doesn’t require the installation of any obscure third party applications. The only thing needed is an up-to-date version of Java, which most people already have installed.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Art Director Rob Sheridan explained to TorrentFreak last year.

In fact, when they released the album ‘Ghosts‘ for free last year their server couldn’t handle the high traffic numbers and downloads, so the linked to the torrents they had uploaded to The Pirate Bay instead. Thanks to The Pirate Bay, many fans didn’t have to wait till the server recovered, and the torrent quickly became one of the most downloaded files on the tracker.

With the release of their tour promo NIN/JA today, NIN decided to prevent similar server troubles, and the band now offers .torrent downloads for the higher quality (and size) downloads. The tracker used for the torrents is hosted by the band itself on the tracker.nin.com subdomain. The tracker is already being used by thousands of fans just hours after it went up.

Self-hosted BitTorrent trackers may become a new hype. Two weeks ago, the government-owned Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) had set up its very own BitTorrent tracker to distribute some of their TV-shows.

Thus far, we haven’t spotted NIN’s tour sampler on any of the public torrent sites, but it won’t take long before it spreads. The official website requires people to submit their email address in order to get the links to the DRM-free downloads. It’s well worth it though.

Update: Apparently the tracker at nin.com was also used for some of the previous releases, we were not aware of this.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners and R5 rips are counted.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Currently, WeStream supports OGG and MP3 encoded audio files, but more file types will be included in the near future.

There are a few important conditions to achieve an optimal streaming experience. Most importantly, there should be enough seeds and peers to guarantee a decent download speed. Besides this, the playback time will depend on the filesize of the tracks – the higher the bitrate, the more bandwidth is needed.

Below is an example of WeStream for a torrent from Mininova’s featured torrents section. By clicking on this link you can load it in your web browser.

From a technical viewpoint, WeStream prioritizes the bits at the beginning of each song, otherwise it will be impossible to stream anything before the entire track is downloaded. However, like most other BitTorrent clients, it also gives a high priority to rare pieces in order to guarantee an optimal swarm speed.

The applet seeds the torrents as long as you keep the browser window open. Daniele, the developer of both BitLet and the new WeStream feature told TorrentFreak: “It would have been easy to design the streaming client to be extremely selfish, and make it care only for its needs. Ideally, we tried to avoid it: Westream should behave as most torrent clients, with a slightly different piece choosing strategy.”

WeStream is a great tool for people who want to listen to some of the tracks before they download anything, or for people who want to let their friends listen to an album without having to send all the files over first. Above all, it is a great looking innovation from the BitLet team that shows how much is possible with BitTorrent. We might just see this implemented in some of the popular BitTorrent sites soon.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

This film tries to simplify its drug abuse message with an analogy of kids putting together a contraption out of Lego blocks. Although the metaphors often don’t make sense, the visual impact of the film is stunning and could easily be quite popular with individuals consuming illicit drugs. Also, like most anti-drug films, this could be a tempting introduction to drugs for some youths yearning to escape their “boring” lives or to rebel against their parents.

Perversion for Profit I (Ca. 1965)

Anti-pornography film produced by financier Charles Keating, linking pornography to the Communist conspiracy and the decline of Western civilization. Keating is pretty serious about it. Here’s a quote: “We must seek to deliver ourselves from this twisted, torturing evil. We must save our nation from decay, and deliver our children from the horrors of perversion.”

Perversion for Profit II (Ca. 1965)

Another quote form this anti-pornography film: “Now, you might ask yourself, why this sudden concern? Pornography and sex deviation have always been with mankind. This is true. But now, consider another fact. Never in the history of the world have the merchants of obscenity, the teachers of unnatural sex acts, had available to them the modern facilities for disseminating this filth. High-speed presses, rapid transportation, mass distribution. All have combined to put the vilest obscenity within reach of every man, woman and child in the country.”

Alcohol Is Dynamite (1958)

Teens Bud and Jack, eager to get some alcohol from the liquor store, ask the adult to buy it for them. Instead, the adult tells them a story of three teenagers who learn the hard way that “alcohol is a violent narcotic.” In true Sid Davis form, the story ends with one innocent teen being killed and one who becomes an alcoholic bum, leaving the others to deal with guilt from their night of reckless abandon.

Last Prom (1980)

A near epidemic of alcohol-related deaths on prom night spurred this film’s release. While alcohol does play a role in the graphic, yet fake carnage we see on the screen, you gotta wonder about that dangerous tunnel. Filmmakers realized that teens would fail to identify with even a slightly dated message; this film was later remade to update the fashions, although the story stayed the same. The school chorus soundtrack makes this film even creepier

Human Reproduction (1947)

Though this sex education film concentrates on presenting the anatomy and physiology of human reproduction in sober medical terms, its release kicked off a controversy in many American cities and towns over the legitimacy of sex education in the public schools. The film is narrated from the point of view of an adult who tries to decide how to answer his son’s natural questions about sex and reproduction. With excellent diagrams of the reproductive process.

As Boys Grow (1957)

Sex education film aimed at teenage boys, with the coach of a freshman track team as authority figure and teacher. How does the male reproduction system work, why does it work that way, and what can we do with that thing.

How Much Affection? (1957)

How far can young people go in petting and still stay within the bounds of personal standards and social mores? You like someone, he or she likes you, everything seems to be fun, but suddenly you find yourself in a position where your physical urges fight against your reason.

A Case For Beer (Ca. 1970)

An educational film about the dangers of selling beer to underage youth. The film is intended for convenience store owners, very informational indeed. Don’t be tricked, or you will lose your license and never sell anything again.

Thanks Archive.org and BEN

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The limewire blog interviewed Zlatin who’s handling the BitTorrent integration

What prompted the decision to integrate BT into the next version of the LW client?

We had been interested in supporting BT for a very long time but it wasn’t until the recent redesign of the LimeWire core that we were able to do so. We believe that supporting BT will benefit our users as well as the general BT community. It also enables us to do other novel features in the future.

What will this look like to the average LimeWire user, i.e. how will their basic experience on the client change?

It will remain almost the same. Major part of the effort was making sure that torrents blend seamlessly in the experience users have grown to expect from LimeWire. If you compare any Gnutella client with any BT client you’ll see their usage patterns differ in the same way; LimeWire however will look and feel the way it did before, and torrents will look like any other download. All they need to do is double-click on a .torrent file and the download will begin. No wizards, no queues to worry about, no advanced options to tweak, no overwhelming stats – it just works.

LimeWire has proudly flown the Gnutella banner for a while now, and to adopt BT is to adopt a network structure it has avoided in the past. Was there any resistance to this shift or do you see it as necessary evolution?

BT is not a rival network structure; it’s orthogonal to gnutella so there is no conflict on the network level. The main conflicts were the user experience (mentioned above) and the increased competition for upload bandwidth. Since the latter affects other BT clients, I’m sure it will be a point that will come up again and again in the future.

Writing a solid BT program is surely as difficult as writing an equivalent Gnutella-based program, how significant a push to both create and eventually maintain this new aspect is occurring? Are there any existing BT programs that you are using as models?

We’re using the existing BT clients as a model what not to do as far as the user interface is concerned! Network-wise there are some clever ideas we’ve snatched from Azureus and the mainline client.
At first we’ll release a “vanilla” implementation of the basic BT protocol and over time we’ll be adding the various extensions that were developed over the years. We can’t be more specific at this time because some of them are rather intrusive and/or controversial (like encryption). Furthermore, Bram’s vision of BT’s future appears to be different from that of other developers, and for the moment we’d like to stay out of any potential conflict.

What are the advantages of mixing the torrents and Gnutella downloads as opposed to keeping them separate?

The advantage to the user is obvious – they don’t need to run a separate program to download the torrent and can manage their downloads in a consistent and unified manner from a single place. Keeping them separate enables advanced management and the fine-tuning of various aspects of the torrent download. Power users will probably prefer that.

What does this mean for BT sites?

This is very difficult to speculate on because there are a lot of factors and dynamic involved, and torrent sites are a very diverse bunch. I imagine the most authoritarian ones will not be very happy because LimeWire may take away some of the centralized control they enjoy now. But then again how many of the users of such sites will choose to switch to LimeWire or how many new BT users (those LW has brought in the picture) will go to such sites is unknown. This will be another hot topic in the future, I’m sure.

A question from Daniel from thewebdesignjournal.com: “Great that LimeWire will support BitTorrent file transfers. BUT will LimeWire include a new way to actually find the .torrent files?”

We have a lot of exciting features in the pipeline so stay tuned…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.