BitTorrent starting a TV service

• Peer-to-peer protocol instead of a CDN
• Going up against Amazon and YouTube

 

HOT on the heels of Amazon and YouTube, BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing protocol, is planning to launch a live streaming TV service. There will be both free and paid options.
 
The company claims it will have better performance than existing services that broadcast live channels over the Internet.
 
BitTorrent Live is "a multichannel, live and linear video streaming platform" based on a peer-to-peer live video streaming protocol that BitTorrent has been developing for a few years. The company said it will be available on Apple TV, iOS, Android, and Mac.
 
Live streaming services usually use HTTP Live Streaming and are "notorious for latency issues, also known as lag." The BitTorrent Live protocol is an attempt to solve that problem.
 
"Powered by our proprietary and patented peer-to-peer live streaming protocol, BitTorrent Live allows for large audiences to view live video with sub 10-second latency and without the need for an expensive CDN [content delivery network] or pre-provisioning," BitTorrent Inc. said. "With BitTorrent Live, every viewer is also a broadcaster. This allows the video stream to remain strong and for the broadcast to be as scalable as traditional Over-the-Air TV."
 
The service will have several free channels including news, sports, music, tech, and youth culture. The initial lineup consists of a bunch of not very famous channels including AWE, Clubbing TV, Fast & Fun, Fightbox, Filmbox Arthouse, Heroes TV, Newsmax, NUsicTV, OANN, One World Sports, OpenNews TV, Pursuit Channel, and TWiT.
 
BitTorrent Inc. faces a crowded field, but if it can solve the technical problems and obtain more desirable programming, the company could have a successful product on its hands.
 
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