Ideas for Streaming improvement

[ooohJumbalaya]

I love the uTorrent streaming button. Since its inception I have used it consistently. It enables me to save bandwidth by checking out the first minutes of a piece of media to check that I'm downloading the right one (valuable when cash is tight and near bandwidth cap).

There are a few aspects of its function that I think could use some improvement.

1. The Streaming button usually has to be clicked twice in order to get the media to the point where it can be played.

Is it possible to have it download the first and last pieces of the file (0 and XXX), and then automatically download the requisite bits to start playing the file (e.g. 1-20). It would only need to be clicked once in this case.

2. Much of the time the pieces that are needed to start streaming take minutes either downloading or sometimes flushing to disk.

This sometimes renders the streaming function useless due to the media being near finished in download by the time it can be streamed. Would it be possible to increase the priority to download these needed pieces so streaming can start/continue? Maybe the prioritized piece can be on a separate timer that resets in a short period of time if the seeder/peer can't provide the file and another seeder/peer can.

Thanks for all your hard work, devs! I've been a happy user of uTorrent since 2008.

[jamiemelati]

Is it possible to have it download the first and last pieces of the file (0 and XXX), and then automatically download the requisite bits to start playing the file (e.g. 1-20). It would only need to be clicked once in this case.

.

You can manually make it a bit better by

a) In Advanced Settings, First Set

"bt.prio_first_last_piece" = true

"bt.prioritize_partial_pieces" = true

b)Then once the first pieces start downloading and if they are downloading very slowly,

then set the files to "Don't Download" (Skip) until they have downloaded.

c) Once they have downloaded "Pause the Torrent"

Re-enable the File "Priority" to download

and then restart the Torrent via the "Playback" (Streaming) column which should start downloading the following Pieces

You may have to do this this several times to get enough of the first pieces to allow it to play back

Its a messy procedure but its all I have been able to do

Note that not all formats require the last piece

In my opinion uTorrent streaming does not work very well, especially with larger Piece sizes and appears to have no concept of a single very slow Peer/Seed downloading to a critical Piece and stopping the whole streaming process.

I also have often noticed the "Streaming" does not give Priority to the first Pieces until the First Piece is downloaded