Streaming Coming to UseNet?

posted by DrewWilson in file sharing // 124 days 3 hours 20 minutes ago

UseNet has always been a network that appears to be for either people who have money or people who are able to work some of the most user-unfriendly applications around. So has UseNet just become so user friendly, that it's a matter of point, click and stream?

NewTeeVee recently posted a story about BinTube, software that claims to be able to stream videos on UseNet.

The complexities of UseNet may have some skeptical about the software. What about file corruption and repairing the parts through Par files? According to the FAQ:

Automatic Decoding, Combining, Extraction and Repair:
All the steps required to download binaries from Usenet are performed simultaneously and in a multithreaded fashion.

[...]Full support of NZB files.

[...]Smart Repair File Download:
BinTube Media Player downloads Parity files (Par files) only when repair is needed. If repair is needed only the minimum amount of data required for the repair is downloaded.

So, is this some kind of hoax? Vapor ware? Not according to one reporter. NewTeeVee actually had a chance to test drive the software and actually says that, more often than not, it actually works:

Granted, BinTube isn’t perfect. The program fails to play some titles at all, and others can only be played back after a complete download. More often that not, it works just as advertised, playing videos in near real time after just a few minutes of initial downloading. But aside from that, functionality is pretty limited. Downloads have to be manually deleted after you’re done watching them, and it’s not possible to automatically download each new episode of a specific show.

It certainly is an interesting development. BinTube also features a search function which searches through UseNet for files. This feature is similar to that of the main feature of BinSearch. They both can search for anything on UseNet.

It's unlikely that this will become the next YouTube where everyone uses it. This is mainly because connecting to UseNet is often the main stumbling block for many users. Not every p2p user will pay to have access to content, even if it's a guarantee that there's no need to watch out for share ratios and that there's always going to be a download speed that's as fast as your connection allows it. Some users don't have an ISP that provides UseNet - though some may be lucky even if the retention rate is as bad as a few days.

BinTube website

Via p2p-blog.

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