µTorrent 3.0 "Falcon" (32-bit) alpha 25207

Would it be possible to move the Force Streaming menu item down a bit? I often use the open button and I'm used to it being at the top. Now, about 50% of the time I manage to click the force streaming menu item instead of open just because it's on top.

I tried the streaming with version 17618, and it doesn't work very well. I have 300 KB/s theoretical download speed, with real peaks at about 200KB/s, and an average speed of about 120 KB/s.

I'm trying to watch a 20 minute video having a 153KB/s rate. The download time is around around 25 minutes.

When I click the stream button, uTorrent starts the countdown to streaming, and after about 5 minutes I can start watching the video.

The video plays for about 2 minutes, then freezes, because it reaches a missing block. After that, I experience multiple freezes, some lasting a few minutes.

I think there are two possible issues: either the "ready to stream" estimation was overly optimistic, not taking into account any speed fluctuations (my speed varies wildly between 50 KB/s and 200KB/s), or the blocks at the begining of the stream were not given enough priority, and uTorrent downloaded too much data near the end of the stream too early.

My feeling, from seeing the download pattern, is that the second issue is more likely to be the cause: too many blocks near the end of the file downloaded too early, but probably also a bit more time should be waited before the changing the status to "streaming ready", or at least the speed average used to calculate it should be peformed on a larger time interval.

I tested this on two well seeded video files, with similar results. One had an 11,000 seeds to 4,000 peers ratio, one had a 4,000 seeds to 6,000 peers ratio.

Couple of issues...

1) DivX doesn't seem to work with Google Chrome (IE 64 also doesn't like it).

2) It'll only stream one file. No matter if I click stream, for example, "Top Gear S01E01", it'll play something else (and it'll always play that something else).

{ I just deleted the torrent that it was constantly trying to Stream, and now it's trying to stream another torrent in its place. It just won't stream the one I want. }

3) Not liking the new UI buttons. Looks tacky, and the horrible transparency really shows up. Not to mention the "Play, Pause, Stop" made sense - the arrow thing doesn't (I understand it's for download/upload, but it just was far more recognisable with the play/pause/stop).

Running W7 x64.

The transparency needs tweaking still. It's not quite finalized.

I don't like the up arrow/down arrow start button either. A play button would make more sense.

I did more testing on the streaming feature (about 4 video torrents, on a faster internet connection - 10 Mbps ~ 1MB/s), and it's useless, as it is now.

It's aggravating. uTorrent seems to attempt to request a few consecutive pieces near the begining of the file, then there's a gap with almost no pieces requested, and then most of the requested pieces are near the end of the file.

Appearently uTorrent does make some effort to prioritize the pieces at the begining of the file, but it fails. It prioritizes a few pieces near the begining of the file, but it's not aggressive enough when attempting to download them.

Time and time again, on a video that requires bandwidth half the speed of the download, the video freezes somwhere at the begining of the stream, because one required piece is stuck with a yellow block.

From what I see, it seems yellow blocks mean that a request for that block has been made, and more than 60 seconds have elapsed without receiving the block. And you can wait, and wait, and wait and if you do nothing the block will almost always be downloaded with the last 5% of the file.

That means you have to wait to download more than 95% of the file before you are able to play it, making the feature useless.

The workaround: after the stream starts playing and gets stuck on an yellow piece, stop/start the torrent. After a few minutes, the missing block will be downloaded, and you will then get stuck on another yellow block.

Repeat this stop/start procedure 15-20 times for a 2 hour video, and adventurely, after about 95% of the file has been downloaded and you were only able to view 10 minutes of video, you will have no more freezes.

Obviously the stop/start solution is no solution at all, since you have to wait each time to connect to new peers, and adventurely, just when the download speed returns to normal, you get stuck again.

I noticed that the pieces near the begining of the file are downloaded with high priority. However, after a stop/start to fix an yellow block, all pieces are downloaded with high priority defeating the feature.

This process should be automatic. When a block gets stuck/yellow, uTorrent should imediatelly try to download it from another peer.

Even better, after streaming has started and not enough data is buffered after the current streaming position, the next pieces required for streaming should be downloaded in "End Game" mode, to decrease the probability of "yellow blocks". But maybe that's a bit extreme.

Furthermore, uTorrent doesn't display any information about WMV streams.

I think that covers the problems. It would be a great feature, if it actually worked.

not working tstatus.bmp ! in this version, other icons is good, but tstatus.bmp icons will standart after luanch! Anyone see it?

the same bug is also in the new 2.0 RC

Why don't you (uTorrent) obey OS-wide file associations when opening streamed files? Generally, most advanced users use different applications for opening audio and video files. Having a player "softcoded" by the user in the preferences is unintuitive. You have to assume that the application supports http streaming (most do, even WMP).

But that's irrelevant in my case, since I get a "server full" responce in Winamp, WMP and MPC (I won't install the DivX binary)

Solution for tstatus.bmp

tstatus.bmp needs to be sized 304 x 16 pixels to work correctly

the longer version has 3 more rss-icons

see http://www.utorrent.com/skins/index/category/status/order/popular/limit/20?order=newest&limit=20

and you will notice the difference

tested in RC 2.0.17624

merry christmas everyone

well the previous version crashed on me on my main computer for the first time. So i switched back to v1.8.5 because i don't want anything to screw up on my main computer; i'm sick of being forced to format my hard disk when some pre-release software screwed up some critical Windows files...

Is there any chance to add "When done seeding move files to:" feature ?

that's only i miss in utorrent ;-)

add.. once saw in feature requests such a request.. cannot find now.. and someone respond with "will be in new versions"..

justsmile, its not working 4 me want to install this skin for tstatus -http://www.utorrent.com/Skins/download/id/1182

Uploaded a 1.8x toolbar.bmp (as close to the original as I could). Enjoy...

http://www.utorrent.com/skins/index/category/toolbar?order=newest&limit=20

http://www.utorrent.com/Skins/download/id/1197

Why toolbar? I need correct tstatus.bmp (which the problem) or fix this bug in this program version!

because I thought the issue with the tstatus was resolved... (at least for me , in V 2.0)

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=442410#p442410

and this is all I have to offer...

I think I will have to uninstall version 17618. It constantly uses 50% CPU on my core 2 duo, meaning it constantly keeps one core at 100% usage.

Would an option to send streaming statistics be helpful? If so I'd opt-in. The tribler program sends stats back for there streaming function.

The Completed column is empty.

What are the dark green blocks?

bye

(1) Streaming

A significant part of the uTorrent Falcon project is make the clients capable of streaming the most popular media file formats distributed using BitTorrent technology.

This means you should be able to use a media-player of your choice to start playback of stream-able file formats only a short time after you initiate a download, without having to wait for hundreds of MB to finish downloading.

Our hope is to transform getting media using uTorrent from a "load-wait-watch-tomorrow" to more of a "point-click-watch" experience.

I'm very exciting BitTorrent Inc. begins to implement streaming ability into its clients and improve "point-click-watch" experience, especially since audio/video streaming grows up very fastly for few years.

Anyway I have 2 questions regarding the way you're implementing streaming.

Is uTorrent introducing piece sequential downloading with its streaming feature?

I remember the dev team has always refused to add sequential downloading because it's bad for the swarm sanity.

In fact, I can think reasonably this feature will result in high demand for the first pieces of the torrent. And another reason I think of why it could kill swarms is because files will not be seeded to achieve maximum spread, but rather in a sequential pattern where half the swarm has the first packages while not having the rest.

Maybe my doubts can be swept aside with the argument of popular torrents with huge swarms, but about torrents with small swarms or dying?

And about my 2nd question:

Are you working in the same way as Bram Cohen and its efforts to deliver live streaming superior to existing P2P streaming solutions? Or is it completely different?

Thanks for reading me.

Just off the bat reading the above post, it occured to me that to help avoid hurting smaller swarms perhaps streaming should be limited to swarms that contain a predefined (large) number of seeds and peers. Any intention for something like that built into Falcon?

http://blog.bittorrent.com/2009/12/24/point-click-wait-or-point-click-watch%E2%80%A6-will-streaming-break-bittorrent/

Ok. It appears the streaming functionality doesn't work when you have disabled the DNA option. I didn't realize the two were related? Is there a work around to this or is this going to be changed on release?

I just clicked the some high seeded torrents like you get witch recently released TVshow 10k+ seeds shown in TPB count. Streaming there works really great. Other then for that It should be pretty useless I figured.

It does help when you extend the number of incoming connections above the recommended settings. I mean to the settings it wouldn't be recommended for downloading any more but is very well for finding the missing or rare chunks.

Here is where I could see torrent putting stones on its own road.

Anyway. Even a good speed which I'm usually getting when downloading, doesn't guarantee the streaming if you just cant get the missing chunks. So you either remove the streaming feature or change the torrent philosophy. I don't see both working together very well.. Because right now it only works good with torrents that reach into 1k seeds. Will test with various torrents from 100+ seeds but its hard to find appropriate seeding numbers.

What players do support buffering and continuous playing when interrupted. VLC doesn't seem to support. Divx web player does but its picture quality is poor at best compared to VLC and openGL output.

Hmm I do see some benefits to this streaming. I was watching a 40 minute video though it only took about 20 mins or so to download. A lot of people stop seeding when they have finished downloading, but if they are watching their videos, they will spend at least an extra 20 mins seeding.

Anyway. Even a good speed which I'm usually getting when downloading, doesn't guarantee the streaming if you just cant get the missing chunks. So you either remove the streaming feature or change the torrent philosophy. I don't see both working together very well.. Because right now it only works good with torrents that reach into 1k seeds.

Wrong.

I've successfully streamed files with as little as single digit seeds and double digit peers just fine. It all depends on number and size of pieces and speed of the download as to whether you will get a stable stream or not.

A. Upgrade your connection

B. Optimize your uTorrent settings

C. All of the above