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Peercast: Peer-to-Peer Streaming

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the peering-through-the-windows dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "peercast is currently in beta for a new p2p client based on the Gnutella protocol. Seems to be alot easier to use than the current "streamers". Linux/Mac on its way."

4 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Play it right and p2p goes mainstream by MadFarmAnimalz · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's apparently a winamp plugin in the pipeline.

    If this could get bundled with the regular winamp download, I think we'd be on to something.

    I think the folks at winamp would be interested in doing this; it's an interesting 'selling' point. Download this player, get instant access to millions (?) of songs instantly and without further downloads.

    The gnutella network, if I read things correctly, would benefit from the incremental bandwidth of Joe Sixpack and his brethren.

    Win-win situation?

    --
    Blearf. Blearf, I say.
    1. Re:Play it right and p2p goes mainstream by blowdart · · Score: 3, Informative

      I would rather the client to not allow stream "ripping".

      Stream ripping is a major problem on my Real and Windows Media servers. We've had people fire off stream rippers to take off a 1 hour stream ("hey it's free, I must be able to save it myself"), however stream rippers are horrible from a provider point of view. For a 1 hour stream, a user in an NYC trading bank (I traced the IP) took 40GB to get the stream. The source file was about 4Mb. As you can imagine, for that hour, other people's experience was not optimal.

      Now, imagine on a peer to peer network, some anti-social little sod stealing your stream. All your DSL bandwidth gone.

      Of course, someone will write a stream ripper anyway, and people will use it, not caring about other users.

  2. From their forum..slashdotted by ImaLamer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2002 10:31 am
    Post subject: Slashdot

    Our router decided to die a minute ago because of the /... but hopefully it should be OK now. If you find it difficult to connect to connect1.peercast.org then please keep trying.. We have enough bandwidth (100Mb fibre) .. just not a very good router [icon_smile.gif]

    --
    Get your Unix fortune now!
  3. Multicasting over the internet at large by blowdart · · Score: 3, Informative

    The p2p protocols are very suitable for multicasting

    Except of course, the internet at large doesn't support multicasting very well. Sure, you can multicast internally on a small network, assuming your switches support it, but once you start to involve routers, you find very quickly ISPs don't support it. Some DSL providers are starting to consider allowing multicast within their own blocks, so a streaming server sitting in their DSL space will use up less bandwidth, but what currently happens is they are all running Inktomi caches which cache streams within their own network. Of course, its only Windows Media or Real Media streams that are supported.

    (Disclaimer : My employeer is a large provider of streaming services in Europe)