Get BitTorrent on Your TV with Myka
Written by Ben Jones on March 21, 2008Until recently, if you’ve wanted to play videos you’ve downloaded on your TV, you either needed to hook it to your PC, buy an AppleTV, or use an Xbox. Now, one company aims to add another option – one which can get the videos itself, via BitTorrent.
The Myka box, is a small set top box, not all that dissimilar from the AppleTV although larger. Like the Apple product, it aims to be a video playback device for your television, able to pull video from computers on a local network. What makes the Myka different, however, is that it incorporates a BitTorrent client.
Incorporating torrent technology into a set-top box could be a very powerful driving force for the torrent community, bringing it into the homes and minds of many more people. Quite how Comcast will feel about it though, is another matter.
Technically, the box’s specs look good, with HDTV resolutions up to 1080i available. Of perhaps greater note is that it may be possible, with its h.264 support, to playback Blu-Ray torrents. Also, there has been suggestions posted to the Myka forums, that a Blu-Ray drive could be coming in the future. If so, it might cut into some of the sales the PS3 has been getting.
Hardware wise, the system seems solid enough. The only options, at present, are the size of the included hard drive. The OS, for those of you that care, will be a highly customised version of Linux. PAL versions, with SCART are also promised.
Legally, there are some worried about how the Grokster decision might affect things in the US. Selling a product which can infringe copyright was held in that case to be ‘contributory infringement’. Myka boss, Dan Lovy, told TorrentFreak “We’ve looked the legal side extensively. We are like a movie projector. It has kept the competition down though, to our advantage.”
Price-wise, its comparable with the Apple offering. The 160Gb model is $20 more expensive than the equivalent AppleTV but this may be felt by many, to be a small price to pay for access to the vast library of content available.
At present, we haven’t seen one in the flesh, so to speak. According to Myka, BitTorrent inc. is currently developing the torrent software, but we hope to bring you a full review as soon as possible.
Previously: German Court Decision Hands Big Win to File-Sharers
Next: BitTorrent Sites Show Explosive Growth
51 Responses
Looks awesome, if I had a HDTV I’d be all over this :-)
I hate these kind of boxes because they never have all the audio & video codecs you need to watch files you download. If you can load CCCP, QuickTime, and RealVideo then you got the uber streambox. Until then, I’ll just use a laptop with a bluetooth trackball mouse as a remote.
… if its based on linux and installed on a hdd that is accessible it should be entirely possible, and easy, to pull out the hdd and add whatever codecs and features you would want.
I don’t really see the point of this though when you can build your own with only a little more effort than it would take to buy
Good Idea but $460 for 500 gig model. I paid $60 for an upconverting dvd player that lets me plug in usb flash drive. Also what would a virus do to this myka?
i just wanted to add that you can buy a dvd player that supports divx, and just burn the .avi files directly to blank dvd, and it will play them fine. they run at most $40.00 and can be found at any big box store.
You can build a HD capable HTPC for so cheap these days, these devices are just novelties. I have a HTPC and a fileserver, its all I will ever need to stream content to anywhere in my house. Only thing I’m short on is harddrive space!
This looks sweet. I can’t wait until these get popular.
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[quote comment="315357"]i just wanted to add that you can buy a dvd player that supports divx, and just burn the .avi files directly to blank dvd, and it will play them fine. they run at most $40.00 and can be found at any big box store.[/quote]
Thats fine, if you’re just playing xvids, but if you’d RTFA you’d notice it does H264 as well. find a $40 DVD player that does that. Oh, and don’t forget the cost of the blanks, that mounts up over time.
A networked TiVo + Videora TiVo Converter works for me.
I want one!
this is looking really cool….
http://www.tech-nol.com
Sure we can all do it easier and cheaper, but think of how much this opens up the torrent market to those not on the leading edge of the wave like us… hopefully it is configured to leave their torrents seeding for a long time!
[quote comment="315356"]Good Idea but $460 for 500 gig model. I paid $60 for an upconverting dvd player that lets me plug in usb flash drive. Also what would a virus do to this myka?[/quote]
Lets do the math algebraically
Linux = no viruses = x
myka = Linux box =y
X+Y=Linux box named myka Linux!=viruses
A much better box is the popcorn hour a-100.
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/
Will play almost every video and audio codec (including mkv)and if you put in your own hard drive it has a bittorent client also.
Only problem with it is that there is a waiting list to buy one. About a 2 month waiting time to buy one.
This looks great. On my end I use a modded xbox most of the time which plays anything I throw at. The 360 I have also works but it gets an attitude sometimes.
What you’ve got to concider is we, as people who use torrents frequently, are not the market they are aiming this product as, as alot of us have already got our own system for getting our vids on a tv. What it doing is trying to add to the legal side of bittorrent by maknig it more mainstream, which is very good for the protocol
**our videos onto a tv
**what they are doing is
**making
[quote comment="315453"]**our videos onto a tv
**what they are doing is
**making[/quote]
wut
Apple tv is a darned joke and so is this! Thieves!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Considering it can play networked media, isn’t the size of the HDD somewhat irrelevant? can’t you just pull out the recordings and have it stream the videos from your other PCs?
Yes, this requires some basic networking skill, but if you’re going to give the thing the ability to stream over a network, you may as well design it with techies in mind.
I agree with bertz – the more mainstream these become, the better it is for BTorrent – think of all those non-tech-savvy users, seeding movie files for ages without lifting a finger (assuming the thing auto-seeds)
Wonder how this thing searches for the files.Won ton searching, d/l could bring viruses. A novice in bittorrents
would be better off letting someone in the know set this up.If there is such settings.
quick tute on s-vid cables:
http://forum.superfundo.org/index.php?topic=4668.0
What happens when the videos it finds are in Rar format? Or the only torrent it can find of a movie is on a private tracker? Or the torrent is stuck at 97% because there are no seeders?
nothing my http://www.popcornhour.com/ cant do already
ye tools…..you can get a divx player and burn your .avi’s to blank cd-r’s as data, then crack it on!
blank CD’s cost like 20c……why put it on blank dvd?:?
It reminds me of the LamaBox.
What ever happened to that?
RESPECT!
Looks pretty mental, if they can get all the niggly bits that are bound to pop up sorted out by x-mas I would be up for getting one!
Don’t forget about the other option:
You can now buy a Philips/DVD/Divx-AVI/JPG player… which allows you to watch downloaded AVI files through a menu…
And it costs some incredibly low amount.
There are other brands too.
We bought one and love it!
[quote]Won ton searching, d/l could bring viruses. A novice in bittorrents[/quote]
This thing runs Linux, therefore no chance of viruses.
[quote]What happens when the videos it finds are in Rar format?[/quote]
It either unrars them or can’t.
[quote]Or the torrent is stuck at 97% because there are no seeders?[/quote]
The same thing happens as to anyone who downloads torrents – it doesn’t complete. Simple.
[quote]ye tools…..you can get a divx player and burn your .avi’s to blank cd-r’s as data, then crack it on!
blank CD’s cost like 20c……why put it on blank dvd?:?[/quote]
Because blank DVDs cost the same (or less) and can hold 6 times more.
I don’t bother with this. I have a laptop with a ATi mobility radeon HD2900 which easily takes HD formats and attach it by the DVI to HDMI cable to my HDTV. It’s much cheaper than buying and Blu-ray player, as you only have to buy the external blu-ray disk drive.
[quote comment="315801"]I don’t bother with this. I have a laptop with a ATi mobility radeon HD2900 which easily takes HD formats and attach it by the DVI to HDMI cable to my HDTV. It’s much cheaper than buying and Blu-ray player, as you only have to buy the external blu-ray disk drive.[/quote]
so…
What you’re saying is you bought a laptop for about $1500 which can do the same job as this $350 box? This is surprising?
The point is, this is a standalone box. It’s going to be ready to go out of the box, and it should be simple enough for anyone to use.
Yes, I’m sure many of us could assemble boxes to do the same, might even be able to do cheaper, but whilst you can use it, will your grandmother be able to? That will be the big test of the Myka unit – its usability.
Also, speaking as one who trained as a design engineer, assembling a system from lots of pre-made parts that only go together one way isn’t really that much of an accomplishment, nor is using the box afterwards with the software you’ve decided to put on it. copmuter assembly nowadays is no more difficult than a 5yo’s jigsaw set.The trick is making it retailable and attractive to people.
Now please, no more e-penii waving of “I bought a $2000 computer and I can just plug a TV in and do the same, so I’m not interested” It’s irrelevent. I have 3-4 systems I could do the same with, but I’m still looking forward to this box.
[quote comment="315356"]Good Idea but $460 for 500 gig model. I paid $60 for an upconverting dvd player that lets me plug in usb flash drive. Also what would a virus do to this myka?[/quote]
…it said linux, not windows. show me a torrent with a virus for linux in it.
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have a look at this alternative!
http://sreedinesh.blogspot.com
This is going to be a major flop. The only people that would buy something like this are the people that use torrents already (this isnt going to open up bittorrent to the masses). We already have on demand TV, films etc. And anyone can buy a slingbox for a quarter of that price and stream everything hassle free anyway.
The people that would buy this are smart enough to have already set up a cheaper and workable solution.
Torrefntfreak is dead
That is awesome. I will probably get one when the price drops.
Ever since I started using torrents, I haven’t needed a tv. My computer monitors look so great, that I just play everything on my computer. Since I download all my favorite shows, I have no need for tv service so I canceled my cable subscription. If torrents continue to grow in popularity, I’m afraid boxes like these will become obsolete.
how the speed when playback . will it lag
in response to norm, no a monitor does not look great, and I dont know about you but i dont have a couch or recliner in front of my computer. Also there are those of us with nice stereos and movie projectors, and we hate watching movies on little ass computer monitors
On private trackers you don’t hit and run, you keep seeding, which most likely you can’t do from desktop. Check this out – http://www.vuzebox.com
[quote comment="315692"]
[quote]What happens when the videos it finds are in Rar format?[/quote]
It either unrars them or can’t.
[quote]Or the torrent is stuck at 97% because there are no seeders?[/quote]
The same thing happens as to anyone who downloads torrents – it doesn’t complete. Simple.
[/quote]
To me, a box like this seems aimed at people who aren’t well versed in the use of things like BitTorrent. I mean, it’s a box that you plug in and it lets you download TV shows and movies, then play them on a TV. Anyone who is knowledgable about BT will already be using a computer to download this stuff.
When a novice buys something like this, they expect it to work. Judging by my own experiences with BT, I’d expect this to have about a 50% success rate, if that.
A card reader/ext. hard drive adapter for a t.v. would be awesome.
seems overpriced 2 me i bought a 50 dollar hdmi upconrting divx dvd player with usb slot on just put xvids avi’s mpeg;s etc. on the flash drive and use it with my dvd player.
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Nice.
Networked Tivo and Tivo.net leverages exisitng equipment with no need to spend $$$
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tivodotnet
check out my blog
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I just plug my PC into my TV ><
But it seems nifty none the less
rayj you is a nasty bitch FREAK
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