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Adobe Flash To Eliminate Bandwidth Costs With P2P

Adobe is getting serious about their implementation of peer-to-peer technology to assist Flash-based video streaming and applications. The upcoming release of Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 will enable publishers to dramatically reduce bandwidth costs by outsourcing media distribution to users.

flashThe Flash team from Adobe has been working on their P2P Flash implementation for a while, but with the release of the 10.1 player it can really make a difference for online media distribution.

Kevin Towes, Product Manager of Adobe Flash Media Server told Beet.TV that the upcoming release of the Flash player will include new P2P technology that will “significantly change the way we think of media delivery.” According to Towes, this technology could in some cases completely eliminate bandwidth costs.

The system Adobe is offering to support P2P Flash is called Stratus. It is offered to developers free of charge and can support both live and on-demand video streaming. Besides video, Stratus can also be used for Flash based multi-player games and other forms of real time communication.

For broadcasters and video services, Stratus has the capacity to eliminate a significant amount of bandwidth costs. Instead of serving the media from a central server, users will provide the necessary bandwidth. Adobe’s Stratus system serves as an intermediary in this process, managing the communications between Flash players much like a BitTorrent tracker does for BitTorrent transfers.

Towes explained that Stratus users will first have to agree to participate in a P2P-enabled Flash swarm, similar to how they are now asked to indicate whether Flash can use their webcam. If users do not want to share bandwidth, the broadcaster has the option to offer a regular stream, a degraded stream or no stream at all.

Adobe’s Stratus project is not the first to combine P2P technology with Flash. Last year, during the inauguration of President Obama, CNN used P2P-assisted technology to send out the live stream to a million viewers worldwide. This required users to install a browser plugin called Octoshape, which then made the Flash video P2P compliant.

Other initiatives to serve on-demand and live streaming have been showcased by the Triber research team, who use a BitTorrent-based solution that does not require any central servers. Tribler is currently working with several European TV-broadcasters to test this technology in the real world.

The impact of Adobe getting seriously involved in P2P streaming could be a real game changer though. One of the main advantages Adobe’s Flash has is that nearly every computer has it installed, which should facilitate the adoption rate among content providers. One less hurdle to take, and a significant one.

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  • anon

    weeeeeeeeeeee!!!

  • HR

    will they also significantly reduce the price of their stuff?

  • VPN

    Just a thought but whats this going to mean to ISP’s that P2P throttle?

  • missingxtension

    Time for the content provider to really start blocking the ports. Its different when it the user taking banwith, but its commercial interest.
    In other words, its going to compete with their iptv based networks.

  • Anonymous

    I bet adobe’s thinking “thank f*ck. At last something flash does that html5 doesn’t.”

  • Bpy6

    That could be a good thing if well implemented. I have to cast numerous demonic spells to make most p2p streams work properly.

  • anon

    the death of flash then seems every ISP throttles p2p to death!

  • steven

    “live and on-demand video streaming”
    What does that mean, is it possible to watch a movie torrent live on the website.

    That would be amazing and might increase the traffic in the whole p2p world significantly…

    I mean this feature already exists, but only some client like bitled are supporting it.

    But as we know the most of the people dont want to install a torrent client.
    They want to immediately watch the movie on the interent like on http://www.youtube.com

    PS: Sorry for bad english

  • 3nigmatic

    what it means is that from this point on is that if you choose to participate and you have a limited bandwidth from your ISP you will go broke! Rogers comes to mind
    This may mean that you can support certain websites but don’t forget that they get cash from the advertising+ reselling your forum information to people who send out junk mail…ever wondered how it gets into your email box?

  • gas

    ISPs throttle traffic that is recognized as p2p traffic, they simply need to change the algorithm.

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  • Flash Guru

    Anyone who thinks that Flash is just about video and animation DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT!

  • C0RR0SIVE

    Yea, limited bandwidth users, if they are stupid and pick this route, will be SCREWED with bills…

    There is a reason for scheduled downloads….

  • AntiHero

    I hope they plan on paying me for using my bandwidth to feed their customers. Like Adobe needs to save money anyway? They Monopolize the whole graphic design industry.

    I hope they choke on their filet mignon.

  • Mark

    As much as I dislike Flash, (There’s no comprehensible way why a bog-standard 480p video should take up 90% of a 2GHz Core 2 Duo)

    This is definitely a step in the right direction.

  • Parker

    Youtube should P2P as well… it’s getting slower these days

  • Jon Goldman

    Peer2Peer capability can do so much more than save bandwidth. It will enable users to experience social, interactive features that mimic our real-life social interactions much more than we see today. We’ll move from one-many streams to one-many-many experiences where content is beamed out to users like today but users can connect with each other around this content (“many-many”). As CEO of Qlipso (www.qlipso.com), a multiuser content sharing platform, I recognize the power social interaction can bring to people’s online media experiences, and we welcome the new features Adobe is including in Flash 10.1, as they will enable better socilaizing around the Web’s Flash-based content.

    Jon Goldman, CEO Qlipso http://www.qlipso.com

  • Anonymous

    This p2p thing better be an option for users, else it will fuck users with limited bandwidth. It sounds like a core function from what Adobe are describing, though.

  • duane

    I like this a lot.

    Adobe sees the competition from HTML5 starting to pile on, so it’s innovating to keep ahead.

    It’s what we always say: adapt or die.

  • Em

    Finally, something worth coming from Adobe in a long time.

    As long as that’s used to power free content, I’m not against it!… come to think about it, YouTube is filled with ads that are supposed to help with costs of keeping up its servers, but if we – the viewers of that free content – can contribute to ad-less content, why not?

    Think about it!

    We already pay a flat fee to ISP’s for internet on a time-based subscription… it’s time to put that wasted bandwidth to good use.

    Let more tech involve P2P and we can stick it to the MAFIAA!

  • freenet

    will be awesome if p2p users will get access to HD flash and regular users dont hahaha

  • morikaweb

    nice but I dont think adobe has thought this through. Most ISP’s in north Amarica restrict or outright block peer to peer traffic. The ISP’s couldent care less if the traffic is legetimate or not, if its peer to peer its evil and must be stoped.

    So how exactly will a system like adobe wants work with all the ISP’s trying to stop them?

  • omfg

    thepirateflashbay ? ;)

  • John

    @ Jon from Qlipso

    Thank you for that Jon from Qlipso.

    Your comment confused me at first because I was unaware that TorrentFreak was providing adverts in the actual comments themselves, as well as down the side.

    But now I see that you, (Jon from Qlipso), aren’t actually paying TorrentFreak to advertise at all. In fact your just advertising at the expense of their bandwidth and user experience.

    So, Jon from Qlipso, could you try and refrain from doing that again?
    If you really want to advertise what it is you do on TorrentFreak, I would suggest e-mailing one of the admins and arranging a deal for a box on the side.

    It could say something like…
    “Hi, i’m Jon from Qlipso, and i recognize the power of social interaction.”

    Then you would be contributing to TorrentFreak instead of detracting from it.

    ~~~~Brainwave~~~~
    Hey, maybe you could even have a Flash-based box with Stratus technology in it!
    After all you understand the power of social interaction Jon from Qlipso. One to many to many.
    You’re basically like Jesus aren’t you Jon from Qlipso. You’re just one man, giving many copies of his fish and bread to others – but they can also share that fish and bread between each other. You’re a digital saint.

    … I think i see an ad-campain coming along don’t you Jon from Qlipso. Some sort of animated, Jesus-containing, Flash box which distributes your message about being a guy named Jon from a company called Qlipso to the masses.

    No need to thank me. I’m just a student who’s putting off revising for his university exams.

  • John

    It would be a lot easier to put off revision if you e-mailed me back about how TBP’s server physical location is unknown… then I could start putting together a plan for my own torrent site.

    I’m thinking “The Mini Kickass Piratoid Hunt”.

    dot com.

  • Don Booth

    Excellent feature. Thank you Adobe.
    Now we face the “upload” bottleneck. That is, upload speeds are about ten times slower than download. It means that, for example, we cams look terrible.

    It would be nice if upload speeds were the same as download.

    Don Booth
    Toronto

  • Nobody

    Never ever will i share my bandwidth to make greedy coorparate ***holes even richer! If they wanna have a part of it, they have to pay me for it. Basta!

  • progr

    Flash is dead. Period.

  • me

    @ 14 May 19, 2010 at 16:41 by Mark

    [blockquote] As much as I dislike Flash, (There’s no comprehensible way why a bog-standard 480p video should take up 90% of a 2GHz Core 2 Duo)[/blockquote]

    right click video and disable hardware acceleration

  • leomajko

    Totally against this. I’m already limited in bandwidth, if Flash starts using it all to send the video to other people, I’m screwed.

  • Anon

    Haha! Eliminating costs for publishers by pushing it into users. I know those with limited bandwidth will SOOOO hate this!

  • Ninja

    Bw capped at 60Gb per month (down+up) and download = 12 upload speed.

    Thanks but no thanks. At least for most of the sites. There are the ones that are worth helping.

  • Hom3r

    @27 If you read the article, you would see it prompts the user before using the P2P steaming.

  • axet

    does it has linux suport? die adobe!

  • Cognoscenti

    Hey Adobe,

    How about hardware acceleration for us linux users?

    Thanks dickheads,

    Cognoscenti

  • Pingback: Next Adobe Flash will use P2P « SYSTEMA

  • Hamzone

    Interesting idea

  • Hamzone

    there is no way youtube will support P2P, they’ll lose their database

  • Gwiz

    So let me get this straight….push the cost of bandwidth onto customers. Then keep prices of the products the same… so there is more money for the Media Cartels to sue their own customers and advance their agenda of a controlled Orwellian Internet. Not so sure I am going to embrace this trend.

  • Sean

    Who cares if it makes them richer?
    It’s progressing technology for the better.

  • Anonymous

    i dont mind sharing if its free. but paying for content and still have to use my bandwidth, noty

  • Crash

    Good, good

    Anything that helps legitimise torrenting is a great idea.
    The idea of one server dealing with so many users with an installer is just old-hat.
    When a download has such a great demand as Flash, that’s the perfect situation for using a torrent.

    http://www.xbomber.co.uk

  • InterWebz

    Wow P2P… must be illegal. Better get Hollywood and start suing.

  • Kriss

    Please do not report on stratus without questioning adobe.

    This is a time when adobe is fighting against apple and claiming to be open. Now is the perfect time to push them in areas where they are in fact treating others as badly as apple is treating them.

    Stratus is bad, it is bad for the same reasons that not having flash on the ipad is bad.

    Stratus is propriety code lock in, offered as “free” until adobe decide it isn’t free any more.

    I personally am not prepared to pay that cost. It is the same cost that you tube was not prepared to pay and why most video streamed to flash is not streamed via adobe approved media servers.

  • Whatever

    I’d rather have them finally getting 64-bit support working (which is announced for 10.1) so i don’t have to change browser to watch TF tv.

    (A side note: when is it coming back ?)

  • Huggybaby

    Flash 10.1 is turning into vaporware. First GPU acceleration and now this, after several betas we get a new feature announcement but still no release. Why not save the p2p functionality for 10.2?

  • Anonymous

    Not quite sure yet if this will help or hinder the bitstreamr project.

  • Anonymous

    Well, p2p streaming player is not an adobe idea for sure.

    http://torrentfreak.com/eztv-trials-streaming-080726/

    The question is what will happen with the reduced costs… will the companies reduce the prices of their products or they will earn even more money now?

    On the other hand, open source solutions does exist http://www.scvi.net/stream/soft.htm so it is just a matter of time to be used and finally for everyone to understand that with a such a low cost of broadcasting “piracy” can be reduced by reducing their prices to 1/10th or even more.

    Now the greedy bastards can not hide or claim that they cant cut their prices because of the high cost.

    Give to the people fair prices and simple solutions and they will come back. Stop being greedy and start thinking logically and morally!!!

  • Anonymous

    Stop being greedy and start thinking logically and morally… and people will follow your example!!!

  • offtopic & phase fate

    what effext will these decisions have on countries like brazil? will these areas be left out of the loop? maybe someone here or even TF thenselves give an update or some info on that?

  • Me 2

    So in the future I need a netlimiter to cap flash ;)

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  • Anonymouse Coward

    Has anyone considered the security issues of your flash client spewing out the fact you’re watching that you-tube video to anyone set up to listen?

    Imagine all those “Girls Gone Wild(tm)” videos streamed online…

  • ????

    wtf is all this are you guys morons ???? “yea adobe is using p2p!” this is not good basicaly you will provide the stream so they can save some $$$ il stick with flash 10 ty very much and i suggest ppl to turn off auto update

  • Ettore

    Anything that will force the iPad into extinction is a great idea to me; there’s 0 chance that POS can handle doing more than one thing at once.

    If anything, it will be a great way to “force” ISPs to stop throttling that traffic. Nothing like Comcast being able to say “video doesn’t suck on our service” as a big f-u to AT&T or whatever. Replace the two company names with whatever you want. Then it’s just a matter of making your torrent traffic look like flash P2P traffic (should be pretty easy) and we’re off again !

  • Ridiculous..

    One more reason not to install shitty flash. Haven’t come across many sites that were of ANY value that required flash to work. Usually it’s some BS ad garbage.

    I certainly won’t be wasting my bandwidth making some company richer by reducing their spam costs.

  • Thoughts

    Flash is indeed very shitty. Streaming low quality videos shouldn’t take nearly this much cpu resources as it does. Flash should be replaced with more efficient _open-source_ alternative.

  • ChristListenToTHISGuy!!

    @Jon from Qlipso

    Thanks for the corporate twat-speak. Come back when you’ve learnt how to be a human and talk normal. People don’t EXPERIENCE “social, interactive features”, they just use them. Maybe one day you can experience being a human instead of a corporate robot talking shite.

  • david

    Stop posting so many negative comments. This is a great feature of adobe.

    Torrents can be streamed and this is a great feature, fuck torrent client.

    I say this is the new technique of sharing files…

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  • Gwiz

    @ 56 May 20, 2010 at 13:28 by david

    “Stop posting so many negative comments.”

    Excuse me? The purpose of a comments section is to hear from as many views as possible – including those that don’t necessarily coincide with your own views. It’s called a discussion. Grown-ups have them.

    Now head on back to what ever Adobe fanboy site you came from.

  • lol

    Instead of whining at Adobe about your limited bandwidth you should whine to your isp, limited bandwidth is so 80-90′s.

  • mister_playboy

    I have zero interest in letting Adobe make use of my upload bandwidth.

  • Rokay

    Real p2p technology with Flash is already available.

    Check: play2p.com

    Adobe’s solution is not this.

  • Eilif

    Yeah, imagine that, youtube has over 200 Mil vids for example.. (im sure that they have more than that.)

    However, if they are going abandom their bandwidth and move to p2p.. how about the less popular vids? i mean, for example, gaming vids, fishing, and bowling, or something that normal people watches,

    YOU NEED UPLOADERS FOR EVERY VID, SO PEOPLE CAN WATCH THEM..

    im 100% sure that people will seed only for most popular vids.

    And don’t tell me about something global bandwidth box that people seeds to.

    In oder to make the “seedbox” to share bandwidth to every videos. WILL TAKE VERY MUCH BANDWIDTH AND RAM! You cant make a global seedroom.. there must be seeders for every videos!

    you dont find any system that shares bandwidth for all available torrent files.. (no matter is there seeders or not) Every torrent has their own seeders.. that’s same with the P2P streaming.

    And how about other user’s that are being Throttled by their ISP?
    Are you gonna watch HD video with 50 KB/s speed? rofl.. its impossible unless u wait for at least 40 mins for 4 mins vid.

    i could tell countless or reasons more. but this chatbox that im typing to has some type of limit. (Probly error)

    im 100% sure that youtube wont fail on this.. if they do.. haha xD

  • Nancy

    Very nice
    —————————
    Checkout my 4 Private pics ,, i’m 18 btw ;)

    h ttp://adf .ly/2Rlb

    Remove the 2 spaces

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  • Anonymous

    lol’d @ 2

  • Aeon

    First a native Linux version, now P2P implementation. Adobe, I take back all the bad things I’ve said about you in the past. You’re making great strides towards an open internet underneath it all, whilst making the web prettier, more functional & efficient. Great job!

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  • gnusay

    I’ll still be using Gnash

    Adobe is NOT welcomed here!

    http://fossunet.com/pg/groups/3578/html5-supporters/

    GNU/Linux forever!!

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  • K.

    html5 does p2p :)

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