Norwegian State TV Launches BitTorrent Tracker
Written by Ernesto on March 08, 2009The government-owned Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has set up its very own BitTorrent tracker to distribute their TV-shows. After a successful test last year they plan to release more DRM-free TV-shows via BitTorrent, using the same tracker software currently in use at The Pirate Bay.
For its tracker, NRK has chosen the beerware licensed Opentracker software currently favored by The Pirate Bay. One of the reasons NRK set up their own tracker is so they can gather more statistics on their viewers downloading habits.
“With our own tracker we will get better statistics and gather important data about how this technology works. And as we did with our early tests we’ll also try to share the knowledge as we grow this service,” NRK’s Eirik Solheim writes in an article announcing the tracker.
The decision to go with BitTorrent was an easy one according to the broadcaster, as tests with traditional downloads crushed their servers. BitTorrent on the other had allows them to distribute their shows to millions of people without having to invest in extra bandwidth or hardware.
“This type of distribution is reliable, cheap and popular with our audience,” Solheim told TorrentFreak. “The main problem is the rights issues. We hope to be able to make television shows with a creative commons license in the future. That will make it easier for us to allow full freedom for our audience,” He added.
NRK understands that the traditional distribution methods are changing, and that their viewers want to consume television shows wherever and whenever they want. The way people consume music and video has changed, and NRK doesn’t want to fall behind.
“It is important for us to start experimenting with new distribution methods. We don’t want to do like the music industry. Running around thinking that people will keep driving down to a record store when they can have the content delivered with the push of a button at home,” Eirik Solheim said in an interview last year.
It is great to see traditional broadcasting companies starting to experiment with BitTorrent and we hope that many others will follow. Making TV-shows available online will only increase the viewership, and with BitTorrent it can be done relatively cheaply too.
Previously: TorrentFreak TV Episode 6
Next: Anti-Piracy Law is ‘Reasonable’ Says Kiwi Music Chief
56 Responses
This is awesome, im glad to see that some country’s are atleast considering using bt to distribute media
I swore I just saw a huge pig, which looked uncannily like the oink piggy, fly past my windows as I read this.
Should be interesting to say the least.
This is wonderful news. Embracing bittorrent is a great way to gather customers too. This certainly would draw my attention if there were a low fee and quality programming, or no fee and ad-supported videos.
Give people an option and they will choose what works for them. Force people down a one way street and they will find an alternate route.
This is awesome how more and more producers are switching to peer-to-peer technology to distribute their media!
except these guys don’t have to make money. NRK is supported by taxes, forced on you whether you want their shitty programming or not
“We don’t want to do like the music industry. Running around thinking that people will keep driving down to a record store when they can have the content delivered with the push of a button at home,” Eirik Solheim said in an interview last year.”
Well this man gets the main idea. He shuld talk with guys from music industry maybe they will finally get it also.
“We don’t want to do like the music industry. Running around thinking that people will keep driving down to a record store when they can have the content delivered with the push of a button at home”
Someone has brains! ;D
Best of wishes to Norway and NRK.
PS: NubCakes suck donkeyballs.. so confused and annoying..
see he cost me a full second.. :(
stupid troll.. lol!
the important comment here, surely, is:
‘We don’t want to do like the music industry. Running around thinking that people will keep driving down to a record store when they can have the content delivered with the push of a button at home’.
the change in technology has been recognised, as have the needs and habits of the consumer. this is commonly called ‘moving with the times’, which is exactly what the record and movie industries etc dont want to do themselves or want anyone else to do!!
Norway has also embraced .odt-documents. As glad as I AM, for this, it has all been done arbitrarily. A torrent tracker costs money, in this case tax money. I’m sorry to say that this great step for US is a great misallocation of wealth for everyone else since they do not respond to supply and demand. Since they have no prices, they have no calculation, with no calculation, everything is arbitrary.
@2: +1
I hope BBC does this with the iPlayer soon.
This is a very important step in the right direction.
I’m proud of my country right now.
woo! more please :D
I see JTK and I had the same idea. I for one will be penning an email to the BBC requesting they take a peek at this and the distribution.
Good for them. Hopefully more will follow their lead. NFB in Canada for one. I could see this being a pretty successful experiment.
Iplayer already uses BitTorrent but its DRMd as some of their shows go onto DVD like Natural World.
Wow, that’s impressive. I wish my country wasn’t going the exact opposite way (France for teh looz).
I might aswell move to Norway someday haha !
They could just charge people for product placement inside the shows then release them on bt under CC and still make money. That way no ADDS. But product placement will probably make the shows crappy at certain points.
Should provide some good media attention toward BT technology for once..
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) has distributed shows via Bittorrent as well. And considering the amount of $$$ the CBC gets from the public purse, you could consider them Canadian State TV.
At last someone has the right idea…
I’m proud of my country right now.
Heia Norge
State? TV company? BitTorrent? *faints*
I guess I live on the wrong side of the North Sea. Hope BBC switches iPlayer over to use BitTorrent (they could even use streaming torrent technology for online flash viewing). Oh, and get rid of DRM too.
Hallelujah!!
These comments are hopelessly misguided,for a start it’s a state TV channel so it’s funding method is simplistic, no matter how the content is distributed doesn’t effect funding, for the BBC to do the same it could potentially lose a significant amount of its funding from those who no longer find it necessary to pay for a TV license, if it lost funding you couldn’t expect the same quality of shows. In the end funding has to come from somewhere and if the BBC released DRM free stuff on bittorrent trackers you wouldn’t pay a TV license. If they had adverts, you’d download from a secondary tracker where people would remove the adverts. So for the BBC to survive you’d have to go either for state funding, or for a hell of alot of product placement. In either scenario you’re going to lose out on objectivity, imagine newsnight funded by the government, or top gear with peugeot product placement.
NRK and BBC are both “state TV channels” funded through TV licences. They operate in the exact same way. There’s no reason why BBC could not follow NRK’s example, except perhaps that BBC rely more on DVD sales than do NRK.
NRK and BBC are both “state TV channels” funded through TV licences. They operate in the exact same way. There’s no reason why BBC could not follow NRK’s example, except perhaps that BBC rely more on DVD sales than do NRK.
michael has it spot on. Theres a reason why most people have heard of BBC, and not NRK
Although there is nothing stopping people from recording terestrial programmes and distrubuting to the rest of the world. Especially seeing how shit the US and Australian Top Gears were.
Eventually everyone will learn about obtaining these showings without a TV license but the convenience of switching on a TV on or waiting for it to download, atleast until HTPCs become more common and connection speeds become less dusty will keep people paying.
+1 to NRK now if other countries *cough* US *cough* would do the same my life might get a little easier.
“michael has it spot on. Theres a reason why most people have heard of BBC, and not NRK”
And that’s because one is British and the other Norwegian. Michael has it all wrong. This has nothing to do with TV licences, as NRK is funded the same way. In a few years funding for both BBC and NRK will have to come in some other way since the old paradigms of TVs and broadcasting are replaced by new consumer habits. Until that time, there is no reason why BBC cannot do what NRK can do, today.
we need some subbers for other languages :).
I just downloaded one and the quality is great, and it seems nice and laid back documentary style.
Great totally free stuff.
maybe i could rig up something with google translate/babblefish. anyone know such a system to create subtitles files in another language when closed captions are already existant?
“PS: NubCakes suck donkeyballs.. so confused and annoying..”
At first I thought you thought I sucked reason and I thought “give a sh*t”…
“see he cost me a full second.. :(
stupid troll.. lol!”
…then I realised you thought a comment effectively saying “the article is interesting” is a troll and I realised how ironic it is your calling me confused seeing as your failing to understand the simple joke and can’t see that comment any other way that literally. If you really can’t get the joke then your thick as paint. (that means dumb in case you don’t get that)
Our CBC decided to try distributing content through BT too. Alas, the programs still sucked and were not worth watching. In addition my ISP throttles all bit torrents so downloading crawled along at only 30kbps, where I normally download at 700kbps.
While our state tv station was trying to embrace a new technology, my ISP was strangling the new technology. Funny that.
@ NubCakes
Most of us here at the comment section on TF think you’re a troll. That has nothing to do with this specific article.
SNF – Stupidity Never Fails
At least NubCakes speaks his mind rather than repeating over and over the same line like a bunch of drones as most people seem to at this place.
I think many people here use the words “troll” and “MPAA schill” to anything that goes againts the unthinking group speak here.
Private Trackers For The Win. End The Reign of the Child Porn peddling Public Tracker Users!
Been saying this for years! the BBC should be using BT too.
That’s it. I currently live in Sweden but I will begin looking for a job in Norway TODAY.
This is pretty neat. It should be noted though that owning a TV in Norway means you have to pay a mandatory tax for NRK wether you watch it or not. They are suppose to share their content for free since we are already paying for it. And it’s by no means cheap.
This-is-fantastic!!!
Finally a TV-company who understands his consumers. Hopefully other companies will follow.
With fansubbing, their TV shows could suddenly reach a global audience. This is the road to the future.
this is great progress.
let’s hope more providers embrace torrent as a form of distribution
Lovely, there goes the neighborhood!
RT
privacy.at.tc
About time this happened in the Netherlands as well. The system used here is just utterly horrible; embedded WMV and Quicktime in terrible quality.
I keep reading here about the BBC using bit torrent…THEY ALREADY DO.
The iPlayer uses the bit torrent protocol to distribute its programming its just its strangled with DRM so people outside the UK (non licence Payers) cant see it.
This is what NRK will do, as was said until programming can be made under a common licence.
Awwwesome news !!!!
I hope some other European countries follow suit and understand the convenience and popularity of Bit torrent and set up such services.
If they keep on following big daddy USA path then they will never be able to popularize their tv shows and will keep on cribbing about lost market share.
By the way whats the website and when will they launch.
I hope TFreak will do a followup on this story !!!
Cheers to NRK !
@46
“The iPlayer uses the bit torrent protocol to distribute its programming its just its strangled with DRM so people outside the UK (non licence Payers) cant see it.
This is what NRK will do, as was said until programming can be made under a common licence.”
Umm, did you even read the article? NRK has not DRM at all on the content available via bt. That’s the whole point.
From the original article:
“Rights issues
We are providing full quality video files with no DRM. The biggest problem regarding this project is to clear all the rights we need to be able to distribute content in such an open system. NRK is a big content producer, but record labels, actors, external production companies and format rights owners usually have contracts that prevent us from distributing our content freely in the internet. We are in constant negotiations over these issues. And it seems like it should be possible to find a solution where NRK gets the rights it needs and the rights holders get the compensation they want.
In addition to this we look into new providers. Pump Audio, Magnatune and other companies with easier licensing systems are interesting sources.”
Kristian Z (comment 31), the BBC and NRK should switch to the same model as the ABC in Australia. Instead of relying on TV licences, the government should just allocate funds from the normal taxation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation#Funding
That way, there’s no unnecessary ability to opt-out, nor any way to cheat by claiming you don’t have a TV and not paying, but still downloading anyway.
welcome to bbc, itv, skytv, ch4 and son ch5 as purveyed bt is catch up tv in the uk and has been for some time. On ly dont put the bbc iplayer on your linux box it breaks it!!!!in an unethical way.
Simply awesome! I don’t bother to watch TV, but if I can get the shows I want via BT, I’ll definitely watch a lot more shows. I hope other channels worldwide will follow suit.
This is awesome.
finally, a step in the right direction….now lets see if CTV and Global here in canada would consider it for shows like little mosque…
I’m moving to norway now :D
/A swede
We have now provided professional english subtitles to episode 03.
And episode 04 has already been fansubbed. We have updated the article with links to the english subs.
FINALLY. This is what we need to see, the industries accepting and moving towards technology, not fighting to live in the stoneage!
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