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Torrentocracy = RSS + Bit Torrent + Your TV 172
lerhaupt writes "I've started a project called Torrentocracy which is the combination of RSS, Bit Torrent and your Television. It's written as a plugin for MythTV (the homebrew Linux PVR project). This means you can not only easily find out about new torrents from various enclosure enabled blogs, but you can also start the torrent download process with the click of your TV remote control. Are RSS aggregators which support torrent downloads the next greatest thing since web browsers? What is the significance of hooking this directly to your TV? Here's a screenshot."
Sounds Wonderful (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory pr0n joke (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't you doing that anyway?
Re:Obligatory pr0n joke (Score:2)
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:4, Insightful)
You would have to leave your PVR/whatever on to seed, but as you might of noticed, your computer continues to function with your monitor off.
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:5, Funny)
Plus, if you use the switch on your monitor, you can get some awesome boot times!
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:1)
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:5, Funny)
Sad but true: we have a client who prints out emails so he can fax back the reply...
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:2)
I'll see your "high up manager" and raise you a CEO
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:2)
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:2)
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:2)
No! Turning off your monitor and turning off your computer are the same thing. Anyone who's ever worked phone tech support can tell you that.
Plus, if you use the switch on your monitor, you can get some awesome boot times!
Ironically, this isn't far from true in the case of some monitors. I have an Apple 20" Cinema Display [apple.com], and the computer's power switch if the monitor's switch, since it connects via the Apple Display Connector.
Furthermore, there is no power switch on the monitor! The only way I can t
Re:Sounds Wonderful (Score:2)
--
7 Gmail accounts availiable. [dealsites.net]
Psst. Buddy. (Score:5, Funny)
Just a thought.
Kthx.
From "The Matrix" (Score:5, Funny)
"No Lieutenant, your webserver is already dead."
Re:From "The Matrix" (Score:2)
Just about spit coffee all over my monitor when I saw it.
Good show!
Interface (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't look at the screen shot though. been
Re:Interface (Score:5, Funny)
When I sit down in front of the TV I become a veg. Anything not easy is just plain to hard to do.
Damn, that's true. Why is it that I can write shell scripts and debug Perl, but have never been able to program my VCR? Selective stupidity - or lack of tin-foil hat? ;)
Webserver go boom (Score:3, Funny)
Bad rep (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad rep (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad rep (Score:5, Interesting)
Bit torrent, however can serve up the 400+ mb file within an hour and the developers can just set up the link to the seed from their site. It carries an air of legitimacy greater than you can achieve by saying "or look for the file on eMule".
Comparatively little use of BT for Warez (Score:5, Interesting)
BitTorrent has successfully been used to provide everything from ISOs for distros to large commercial game demos.
The use of BT for transmitting illegal warez etc has been minimal mainly because BT requires a larger number of people to be interested in the particular warez than most P2P software for a download to work.
Its worth remembering that the primary use of BT is to get large files out to large numbers of people as soon after a given date as possible (while using the minimum of initial bandwidth).
What the article is actually getting at tho is that the PVR can be used to easily start a BT download on another (perhaps headless) machine to which the TV/PVR is networked.
Its convenient and useful but hardly revolutionary in this case.
Re:Bad rep (Score:1)
Michael Moore's going to release Fahrenheit 9/11 with bittorrent.
http://www.denounce.com/archives/000055.html
Re:Bad rep (Score:2)
Smirk (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdotters: Cool. (Click)(Click)(Click)
Slashdot: Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!! [[[[Crush]]]]
Server: (Dies)
Guy: Well now that you've killed my server... I guess my project can't continue.
Slashdot: Thanks for letting us know about your project.
Computer + TV card (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Computer + TV card (Score:2)
Shutting off the TV != Shutting off the PVR (n/t) (Score:1)
Filter bypass..
Re:Computer + TV card (Score:1)
Non-dubbed Futurama, for example. Have you ever seen the German version? It's horrible.
i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:1, Insightful)
if this is to work on a television, maybe torrents should start to be paired with PAR files to create a far more robust method of fetching large files.
sure these might need to be seeded and torrent files too, but as the PAR files could be dramatically smaller (i.e. 15% of size depending on size of parity) than the full torrent file, they could be published on the sites of the copyright owner (in the case of legit works where the company is using torrents to s
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:5, Informative)
This doesn't make any sense. Torrents are completely reliable -- they already have block and file level hashing and automatic re-downloading of blocks in case of transmission errors, etc. The only time you won't get a complete torrent is if there are no complete copies of the file being served. Adding error correcting codes (e.g. PAR files) would make the total file larger, and only recover from incomplete torrents that are _almost_ complete (i.e. would have been complete if the PAR file hadn't made it 15% larger). Just make sure that anything you're downloading has a couple of seeds before starting the download.
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2)
For large files being legitimately distributed, this isn't an issue, as the publisher can (and obviously should) leave up a permanent 'seed' server.
"When's the last time you had a large file you were getting from an FTP site just disappear mid-download..."
I'd say that if you're running an FTP site, the BitTorrent equivalent is running a
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:5, Informative)
What this has to do with PAR2s are obvious: the entire effective functionality of PAR2s is already integrated into BT, automatically. It's not something that users can turn on or off, it's an integral part of the protocol.
The cause of your problem is likely that your torrent ran out of seeds before you finished downloading. Look at the "distributed copies" number your client gives you. That represents how many effective copies there are of a torrent. (Say client A has the first 50% of a torrent, and client B has the second 50%. Those are the only two peers. That's 1.0 distributed copies, since even though neither peer has a full copy, the two of them together do.) If the number is below zero, you will never be able to download the entire torrent unless a seed pops in.
As BT clients advance, this is becoming rarer. There's a "super-seeding" option of some clients which helps get out sparsely-seeded torrents as fast as possible by refusing to send the same chunk more than once.
If this is a problem for you - trying to get poorly-seeded torrents - you might want to try out Azureus. It preferentially grabs complete files inside a torrent first, and you can tell it which files to try for.
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2)
I think this is precisely what the problem may be... I generally am downloading what people call 'world music' and it's not as widely seeded as your usual porn, bootlegged britney and what not and troublesome to find.
Hence I've seldom managed to retrieve an entire file.
I only persevere because you lot keep raving about it
I'll look into Azureus
Cheers
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Conincidentally, being able to prefer one file over another is one of the reasons that we have poorly-seeded torrents to begin with.
The mainline BT client does not support this becuase it interferes with it's rarest-first algorithms. It will download the pieces that are in danger of falling off the network before it will download a more common piece.
I agree that preferring files may be a useful feature from the user's point of view, but it's still a selfish thing to do, and makes the 99%-and-no-seed problems worse and more frequent with it's use.
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2)
You are are exactly right about the seeding effect of not sending the same chunk more than once. Well, after the root (or anyone else) has sent every chunk at least once then you are *forced* to resend the same data. Redundant and inefficent.
If you use PARs then you are not forced to resend the same data. You can start spiting out PARs instead. That's better than attempting to guess or discover which chunks are the rarest to re-seed those. I
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2)
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2)
I read last night this is a bug in the cable modem and linksys has a firmware patch out for it. But, linksys support said you can't flash your own firmware and the
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:1)
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2)
I do not know what causes this problem, but what I let it do is start downloading until it get right up to the last bit letf, then I stop the torrent.
it is usually good at this point and you can use it.
Re:i love the idea of torrents but ... (Score:2)
Dangerous New Bomb (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... (Score:4, Funny)
what's the ocracy? (Score:3, Funny)
Easily Tracked? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thoughts?
GroupShares Inc. [groupshares.com] - A completely free stock trading community!
Re:Easily Tracked? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Easily Tracked? (Score:3, Informative)
Let's take these one at a time.
As with any web site, Google knows the IP addresses of anyone using the site. So they can know who searches for pr0n or mp3's, etc. But they can't know whether you actually went to the site they provided an URL to, and performed a download, as that's between your web browser and the file server.
KaZaA knows the IP addresses of the computers you're connected
Re:Easily Tracked? (Score:3, Insightful)
A good advancement, but not a totally new trick (Score:5, Informative)
Now you've done it, Thanks for all the work Isaac. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now you've done it, Thanks for all the work Isa (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Now you've done it, Thanks for all the work Isa (Score:2)
Re:Now you've done it, Thanks for all the work Isa (Score:2)
Code is law...
Sometimes that's the weight that has to be carried.
-davidu
Re:Now you've done it, Thanks for all the work Isa (Score:5, Funny)
"...MythTV will be indistinguishable from "Movie Pirates" in the MPAA's eyes..."
Ahem. They prefer to be called [dieselsweeties.com] buccaneer americans. [dieselsweeties.com]
I mean honestly, the insensitivity of some people.
Great plan (not) (Score:3, Funny)
They have a word for that, its called appeasement [reference.com].
They tried it with Hitler before World War II. It didn't work.
Re:Great plan (not) (Score:2)
That being done, I simply meant that MythTV is one of the Linux applications that is easy to use, fully funtional, and has a professional look and feel. This would be one of the last projects I would like to see die under the weight of litigation. There are few linux applications that I can install on an x-box, put it in front of my mother, sister and brother, and hand them a remote and they can figure it out. It simply delive
Re:Great plan (not) (Score:2)
Re:Great plan (not) (Score:2)
Re:Great plan (not) (Score:2)
Congratulations.
Re:Great plan (not) (Score:2)
Why not just learn logic, or not argue?
Re:Great plan (not) (Score:2)
No, it was created by people who are sick of smug idiots like you who refer to Godwin's law but don't actually understand it.
Why don't you read Godwin's law? If you did you would realise that it doesn't say "anyone who mentions Hitler in a debate is automatically wr
Re:Great plan (not) (Score:2)
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
And I seem to understand it better than you.
Note it doesn't say anyting about "losing.", just at some point a Hitler/Nazi related comparison will be made given an infinite thread length.
I mentioned Godwin's law because you made a comparison to my so-called appeasement to the MPAA and the appeasement of Hitler.
Is that not acomparison involving Hitler? It doesn't say the
Re:Now you've done it, Thanks for all the work Isa (Score:2, Insightful)
MythTV users are alre
Caught on google (Score:2, Informative)
Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legals (Score:3, Interesting)
1. I thought torrents randomly sent chunks from all over the file, rather than as a stream. Wouldn't this make no sense unless you wanted to wait forever for the program to be completely downloaded ?
2. Given the large amount of copyrighted programs made available on torrent networks, isn't this an effort to make mainstream what might be otherwise illegal ? Does it make sense to put this amount of effort into support of what might be intended to be an illegal activity for most ?
I would have RTFA but its slashdotted, so I couldn't confirm for myself how torrents are an appropriate medium, and whether the issues of widespread support for copyright violations are addressed.
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:1)
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:5, Informative)
If you think about it, if torrents were purely sequential they would be very slow since if say 10 people started torrenting from 1 seed they would all be fighting over the same blocks and couldn't help each other.
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:2)
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:5, Insightful)
In a previous post [slashdot.org] I talked about a similar problem when TiVo suggested a similar feature. I think this would apply here too. This doesn't change the DVR recording model, which is schedule something and watch it later. The only thing that this adds is that it makes the Internet a like a TV channel, from which you can set up something to record, and then watch it later. It's not *exactly* like a TV channel, but it still fits the DVR model.
The person/people who are creating this tech have got to pull off a trick. They've got to figure out how to make sure that the only content available is distributed with the permission of the copyright holder. If they can do that, then they have a much more credible case that this is not intended to be a tool which is intended for copyright violation.
I don't mean to suggest that copyright is a good thing. But it exists in today's world. It never ceases to amaze me when we (the slashdot crowd) get up in arms when someone violates the GPL (i.e. violates copyright) and then we turn around and violate copyright when it comes to music or movies or ... The point is that we can't ride whatever side of the fence is most convenient. Either copyright should be enforceable and we support others rights to enforce their copyrights or copyright should not be enforceable and we allow GPL violations without restriction. Which means that if we want a solid GPL, then we should also ensure that this tech does everything to respect other's copyrights.
$.02.
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:2)
I have always thought of the GPL as the base line between free and propritary. The GPL is the most restrictive license that should ever be accepted, with BSD or public domain being the least restrictive. basicly saying all software sh
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:2)
I think you may have missed my point, which is this: that as long as there are enforceable rules governing what can and can't be copied, if I expect you to abide by my application of those rules then it's entirely reasonable that you would expect me to abide by your application of those rules.
Personally, I don't think that the distinction that you make between copyright and copyleft exists today. Copyleft is a license
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:2)
Step 1: Pick a program to record.
Step 2: Wait for the program to become available.
Step 3: Watch the program.
Those 3 steps both describe the way this system would presumably work and the way a PVR already works with traditional broadcast TV. The only difference is whether step 2 represents waiting for the n
Re:Appropriateness of torrents for this, and legal (Score:2)
http torrent (Score:1)
Think about it: no more Slashdotting - just set your site up on a tracker the first time, and it's automagically covered under high load.
Re:http torrent (Score:3, Informative)
Completely anonymous too. Albeit slow as a snail on valium.
An increase of users is supposed to equal an increase in speed. Unconfirmed.
Re:http torrent (Score:1)
Re:http torrent (Score:2)
Re:http torrent (Score:2)
But even if they can determine if a certain bit of content is on a particular nodes' store they can't through Freenet prove that that node requested t
Re:http torrent (Score:2)
the name, man, the name (Score:1)
I, for one... (Score:2, Funny)
Freecache! (Score:2, Informative)
Only now it's too late, ofcourse..
problem w/idea of a massive PVR/torrent system (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The inconvenience. As another poster indicated, BT downloads RANDOM chunks, so you'd have to wait until the entire file is downloaded until you can watch it.
2. The bandwidth. If this BT concept became as ubiquitous as PVR's will be in the future, the home ISPs would collectively have a heart attack. Now, I don't own my own ISP, but from what I understand just about all of them could never put up with every, or a significant amount, of their subscribers utilizing their upload amounts. They sell you those great 3mbit/1mbit (or whatever) lines, but if you consistently use the 1mbit line for WHATEVER reason, many ISPs (comcast anyone?) will automatically flag and cap you once you cross a data transfer amount (an amount they refuse to disclose to you). Granted, torrents are a great idea for spreading popular files, but it is a system that requires (or at least thrives on) people kicking back whatever they can into the system.
Anyone else see that as a serious problem?
Re:problem w/idea of a massive PVR/torrent system (Score:2)
Your usage is equal to one download and one upload of each show you want. Sure video takes a signifigant chuck of data, but if that is not "reasonable personal usage" then their terms of service need to state that watching video is not acceptable usuage of internet service.
Of course consider the irony and anti-competitive
Re:problem w/idea of a massive PVR/torrent system (Score:2)
Yes and no. True, you using your full upload capacity doesn't necessarily affect someone next door insofar as cable would. However, you still have to worry about the choke points - if all DSL users hooked up to an ISP started slamming their upload, they could quite possibly overwhelm the ISP's line to the 'net. Seeing as we're talking about residential internet access, it's still oversold, althou
Large-Scale Distribution System for Indie TV (Score:3, Interesting)
wow.... (Score:2)
*this* is why OSS and open standards and community/hacking innovation is soooo cool.
e.
Nucleus RSS/Bittorrent Aggregator (Score:2, Informative)
Broadcatching with BitTorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
http://scottraymond.net/archive/4745 [scottraymond.net]
After addressing the initial whys and wherefores, I speculate on how the pairing might be potent enought to spark an indie media revolution. Here's the text:
-- RSS meets BitTorrent meets TiVo.
The other day, Steve Gillmor wrote about BitTorrent and RSS and how they could be combined to create a "disruptive revolution." He's half right. RSS and BT are indeed two great tastes that taste great together, but Gillmor's vision is upside down: we shouldn't use BitTorrent to carry RSS, we should use RSS to carry BitTorrent. Let me explain.
-- But first, some background.
RSS (RDF Site Summary) is a simple format for syndicating content on the web. These days, the most common application of RSS is subscribing to weblogs: you tell your computer to check an RSS file for changes every so often, and then it notifies you when there's something new to read. If you're like me and you read one metric shitload of news every day, this is a life-saver.
BitTorrent, the brainchild of Bram Cohen, is the current cool-kids' P2P program. It works sort of like Kazaa, but at a lower level. It doesn't handle searching for new files, it doesn't have a media player, it just concentrates on downloading big files efficiently.
Okay. Two solutions in search of a problem. Here's a problem:
-- I have a weakness.
I am addicted to the show Alias. I watched the first couple episodes of season two as it aired, and I was hooked. In my honest moments, I'll admit that the show's appeal is mostly due to the callipygian Jennifer Garner. It's a weakness; we deal.
But it gets worse. I go out on Sunday nights, when Alias airs, and I don't want to give that up. That's why God created the VCR, I know, but to compound the problem, I don't have TV. I don't want to have TV, because I love the feeling of superiority that I get by not having it.
This system is at tension, it has no rest, its forces are unbalanced, it wants to be resolved.
-- A partial answer.
The internet, it turns out, is great at resolving different kinds of tensions, and this is one of them. After a few weeks of missed episodes, I realized that with a little patience, a P2P program like Kazaa was able to fetch back-episodes with aplomb. Each file is around 450 megs, fairly high-quality video, with commercials cut out. I start a few episodes downloading, and by the next evening, they're ready to watch, whenever I have the time.
After a few weeks of enjoying this, a new tension emerged: I had caught up with all of the old episodes, and I had to wait a week for each new one. The problem is that the Kazaa protocol isn't especially well-tuned for getting brand new files: first someone has to record the show as it airs, cut out the commercials, and compress it to a reasonable size, then seed it on the network. Then, it has to slowly propagate to its peers, each transfer taking hours. It might take three days before it's available on enough peers that I'm able to even find it, let alone download it.
-- BitTorrent to the rescue.
The solution is BitTorrent. BitTorrent operates on similar principles to Kazaa, but it's tuned differently: it excels at downloading files that are new or currently in high demand. It breaks large files into many small chunks, and coordinates their assemblage, so that users can tap into a swarm and distribute the load evenly. At the same time that you're downloading a chunk, another user is downloading an earlier chunk from you -- no one server is overwhelmed, and the more popular a file, the higher its availability is. It's perfect for large files that are most interesting when they're fresh -- in other words, it's perfect for TV shows.
In many cases, I have been able to use BitTorrent to completely download a new TV show mere hours after the show airs.
Re:Broadcatching with BitTorrent (Score:2)
Re:Broadcatching with BitTorrent (Score:2)
As far as skipping, well, I could cut out a piece of cardboard and
Already been done. (Score:2, Informative)
Python application, all platforms, searches RSS feeds and downloads the torrent.
WhiteWater BitTorrent's successor? (Score:2)
White Water allows people with limited or metered bandwidth to publish files for download by thousands of people without saturating their bandwidth. Downloaders participate by distributing chunks of the file amongst themselves but gain by downloading several parts of the file simultaneously. The download speed will generally be limited only by the downloaders own bandwidth, not that of the publisher.
White water can also be used in server or proxy mode, publishing and downloading fil
Here's the URL: (Score:2)
ReplayTV's Poopli - 15,000 Shared Shows (Score:2)
Re:Torrentocracy.com is back up! (Score:2)