I want to stream live video to hundreds of viewers.

[bobgrosh]

(1) I need to embed the torrent video in the web pages for each local TV channel. (I assume I will need to have viewers install a plugin or uTorrent instead of, or in addition to, flash.)

(2) Viewers will see the live broadcast on a 5 minute delay.

(3) All viewers MUST see the same video at the same time (within a few seconds) because there is a live chat. Think of a football game, Viewers comment on the current play and root for their team in chat. They all need to be seeing the same thing at the same time. The steaming feature of uTorrent 3 would sort of work, but only if the file began playing at the point in the file that was streamed 5 minutes prior to the time they connected to the TV channel web page. I have no problem with making the source video break up into separate 1 minute long files if required to make this work. I may need to use the commercial breaks to re-sync the viewers to insure they are all seeing the same thing.

Note. I am not a developer, but I am used to hacking together lots of little pieces of tech to get the results I need. I suspect it will take me several months to develop, debug, test and implement this move to torrents for live broadcasting. If this seems like this has a chance working, I will be asking a lot of questions on this forum.

So, Am I barking up the wrong tree?

[DreadWingKnight]

The torrent protocol doesn't allow for this kind of stream.

[ciaobaby]

So, Am I barking up the wrong tree?

By a long, long, long way.

Then of course there is the possibility of being sued by the TV companies, the sports clubs, the promoters, etc. etc.

[bobgrosh]

The torrent protocol doesn't allow for this kind of stream.

OK, what am I missing?

I re-read the EULA and I find nothing that does not allow live streaming. uTorrent 3 is able to play a file before is is completely uploaded because it does the bits in order rather than randomly, so, if it is capable, why is it not allowed?

... clip...Then of course there is the possibility of being sued by the TV companies, the sports clubs, the promoters, etc. etc.

OK, Why?

I've been doing this for 5 years. I send checks to BMI, ASCAP and SESAC every month to cover the music content (mostly themes for shows, music beds for commercials, etc.) I also pay anywhere from $300.00 to $1,000.00 per game to the Alabama HS Athletic Association to broadcast post season games. I have written permission from the schools principals for regular seasons sporting events.

All other content is produced locally. I do fifteen regularly scheduled live shows a week on the Tallassee channel including "Tuesday's with the Mayor" which features the Mayor of the town, I have a business licence. I pay all applicable business taxes. I am a member of the local Chamber of Commerce in some of towns I have channels in.

Are you trying to tell me that using torrents as a transport instead of a streaming service like Livestream, is, in itself, illegal?

So, Am I barking up the wrong tree?

By a long, long, long way.

Can you please explain why. Is there a problem embedding the local copy of the downloading video on the page? Will I need a separate App installed on the viewer's PC? Or did I misunderstand the uTorrent streaming feature and the entire file must be downloaded before it can be played?

[DreadWingKnight]

It's not the license that prevents it.

Torrents DO NOT HANDLE LIVE CONTENT.

[bobgrosh]

Are you saying the new streaming feature of uTorrent does not work? I understand that truly LIVE streams are not possible. Even most of the so called LIVE streaming solutions like uStream are not really live, they are delayed by 5 to 30 seconds. Even the live feeds on networks like CNN, MSNBC CBS etc are delayed from the actual events being broadcast by a lot more than you might think.That is why I specifically said, I would allow for five minutes of delay from the time we speak into the camera and the viewer sees the result. (We actually start our hourly news and weather updates with a clock behind the announcer that is set 10 seconds fast and we start show 10 seconds before the hour. Our viewers see the clock in our video and it matches the clock on their PC if their PC is accurate. For the uTorrent, I will just have to adjust the clock to be 5 minutes fast and start the broadcast 5 minutes before the hour. We often do the same thing for some of the remote broadcast. Many HS stadiums do not have very good internet, even G3 and G4 connections often slow way down when large crowds in the stadium use their cell phones. AT&T usually gives voice traffic priority over data and cell towers close to the stadium can't handle our data while lots of fans are using their phones.

Because of that, we sometimes stream to a local file, break the stream into one minute files and share the directory with dropbox. By NOT STREAMING to the dropbox local folder during commercial breaks only game play video is sent via the cell tower. We simply run our pregame show until 10 minutes after the kickoff and then stream the kickoff from the receiving dropbox computer at the studio on a good internet connection. Our viewers see the kickoff 10 minutes after it actually happened, (and every touchdown,) but they have never actually realized we were doing it. During the game the dropbox, which had 10 minutes of video in it, runs nearly empty, but during breaks, timeouts, and halftime the dropbox refills while we play pre-recorded commercials and interviews with the coaches. when half time is over, we often have 10 to 20 minutes of video at the station ready to be transmitted. As far as I can tell, Not much would change between that situation and doing the same thing with uTorrent. perhaps I am wrong, but I thought the main thing torrent's accomplish is changing from a client server model to a P2P model. For me, that would eliminate the streaming services that are so expensive, to using several dedicated PCs on different internet connection to aggregate the bandwidth as well as aggregating the bandwidth of the viewers themselves. It is not much different in principal to what our dropbox solution is. While the dropbox serves to buffer past intermittent dropouts an get the content to a good connection where it can be set to the streaming server, the uTorrent solution would relocate spread the content onto multiple separate internet connections and eliminate the server and it's high cost completely. I understand that remote broadcast for locations with poor internet speeds will still have to be sent via dropbox to the studio, but the actual delivery to the viewers would be from the studio via P2P using uTorrent.

Sorry I my explanations are a little long. I may not be entirely up to date on torrents and the jargon you are used to, so I may get carried away with the examples.

[DreadWingKnight]

Are you saying the new streaming feature of uTorrent does not work?

No, I'm saying that for your purposes (livestreaming similar to twitch/livestream/youtube live) TORRENTS WILL NOT WORK.

Because you're constantly adding to the stream, the torrent will be basically constantly changing in a sliding window. Because of this and how the torrent protocol works, it is NOT the right tool for the job you're trying to do.

[bobgrosh]

OK, I guess that I misunderstood. I thought that uTorrent actually let you download the files to your local PC and once there you could find them and play them, perhaps with a third party app or java on a web page.

I am stiil a little confused about the new features of version 3

The main page says

Intelligent

µTorrent is instinctively smart. It auto-adjusts bandwidth usage based upon your network and the Internet. Use Skype, play games, stream video etc., all without interference.

So, it has some sort of custome capability to let you do live video calls with skype but nothing else?

also on the comparison of the free and + version it says both versions can :

Plays downloads still in progress

but you are telling me that It really can't do that.

[DreadWingKnight]

What you want is to change the download as it's being downloaded. THAT'S what it can't do.