alternative to click and wait for audio video content
Published by Mumineen.org Team January 22nd, 2006 in User ExperienceIn a previous post, we identified that our userbase wants to download content such as audio and video of various miqats and of Aqa Maula (TUS) to their local machine. It’s only community sites such as Sautul Iman who want to stream their content due to their need to protect their IP and their revenue stream. Whether they do streaming the right way or not is a discussion for another time.
So, you dear reader come across our site and start clicking on our audio, video links to initiate the download and playback. As you must realize, this data is fairly large in size and there are limits even when you send cache friendly headers since few proxy caches will cache large files. Thus the question arises, what’s a good technique to share lots of large files amongst a community.
The answer is Bittorrent. Bittorrent a peer-to-peer file sharing mechanism has been generating a lot of buzz for its ability to share large files with a much reduced bandwidth strain to the hoster and it scales better as more and more people look for the same content.
However the user is still waiting to click on the torrent link so what’s the solution to this.
Let’s step back a bit and look at something we view everday, yes it’s the device known as the idiot box. What it provides is the ability to tune to channel and periodic download of content. Is there such an equivalent in the computer world.
The answer is RSS 2.0 enclosures. As the previous link states
First, RSS and BitTorrent complement each other naturally. RSS was designed to report freshly available content, which is exactly where BitTorrent shines. RSS 2.0 enclosures were designed to automate the download process that BitTorrent optimizes.
Think of the possibility, as a user one would just subscribe to the Ashara news feed and the content would be on the desktop regularly. Since there would be a lot of interest in our community for this feed, the Bittorrent swarm would be buzzing and downloads will occur very rapidly.
Similary, one could subscribe to audio feeds categorised by naats,marthiya or zakereen groups.
An excellent Bittorrent client which has good support for RSS enclosures is utorrent. Interested community members are encouraged to play around with the above idea and demonstrate a prototype.
4 Responses to “alternative to click and wait for audio video content”
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Salaams,
My main concern with any type of bit downloading agent thingy would be security implications. The bittorrent type technology is primarily presently used by the pirate software and music community and from what I have heard and read it is infested with viruses and security vulnerabilities. I am sure there are ways to lock it down and make it secure but that is true of most things but the default is what most people will use.
While it’s true that BitTorrent is widely used for pirating software, that is by no means the only use for technology. It’s like saying that we shouldn’t drink water because it might be poisoned.
There are many legitimate uses for BitTorrent, including downloading media files such as licensed audio/video, and also for downloading software. Many Linux distributions use BitTorrent as one of their official distribution mechanisms. Software companies such as Blizzard (who make well known games like Warcraft) have also used BitTorrent as a software distribution method.
BitTorrent is great for our community because it allows us to set up large scale media distribution with little investment in infrastructure.
“Locking down” BitTorrent is a non-starter, because BitTorrent software is perfectly safe to begin with. It’s like buying a new car; it comes in perfect condition. It’s up to you either to drive it carefully or to crash it.
I’m always frustrated when people go out and say that something is “bad” just because there are ways for it to be misused. Most of the things that we use in our lives have dual use capability. We can use our kitchen knives to cook, but we can also use them to stab people. Do we therefore say that kitchen knives should not be made available because people are killed using them?
Salaam,
I being regular user of BitTorrent, it seems to be a fantastic idea to share all the audios and videos.
To take care of the security implications, BitTorrent if used with a good anti-virus (which again would be available from BitTorrent) and software like PeerGuaridian.
But there are a few concerns which need to be considered before we start using BitTorrent.
Firstly a few of the peers with high bandwidth have to keep seeding else the entire exercise of uploading is lost.
I have not used RSS and hence cannot comment on how much helpful it would be.
Secondly there are n number of sites hosting the bittorrent content and we have to shortlist only a couple of them (preferably one), which has high performance and user friendly. Best Solution would be if Mumineen.org develops its own hosting service for BitTorrent P2P.
What I understand is it would not have to store all the contents on its server (as they would be residing in Peer m/c’s)
Thirdly the content if put in BitTorrent (host other than mumineen.org) becomes part of the public domain and there is a possibility of misuse of the content.
BitTorrent is a great idea. Many of them just don’t get the hang of it. It’s just a matter of taking some time out and understanding how it works. Its given me a lot of control on web and my career.
I think a different site exclusively containing torrents for bohras community would be a great option. If its not done in couple of years, I’m sure gonna try my hand at it
Regarding the uploading issue. Initially you have to identify a few Moderators who can keep the torrents in their clients and upload whenever there is a dearth of seeders.
Its a brilliant idea and if there are mumineen’s looking out for this kind of service, we should go ahead.
If I can be of any assistance you have my mail i-d.