Azureus' HD Videos Attempt To Trump YouTube 117
tedgyz writes "Wired has an article describing a high definition video service from Azureus. It looks like many of the highlights of our previous discussion about service commercialization are panning out. The new Zudeo site, made by the masterminds behind the bittorrent service, aims to be a platform for movie-makers and professionals. Will distancing itself from the homespun efforts of YouTube prove successful, or lead to the service being ignored?" From the article: "With high-definition video cameras available for less than $1,000, and with the rapid adoption HDTVs in the home, it's clear that high-definition entertainment has a future. But the visual clarity of internet video tends to be less than stellar, mostly because the bandwidth costs associated with serving large, high-quality video files is prohibitively expensive. However, the BitTorrent protocol enables content distributors like Azureus to share large files using much less bandwidth."
Very cool. Very unlikely to succeed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Such a beautiful idea, but with such a high chance of failure.
The key issues I see are:
1. Who's going to keep videos seeded? On Youtube, if the video is available, the video is viewable. Not so for Azureus! The video could be only partially intact (no seeders with not enough downloaders) or it could just be gone. The Bittorrent network has already lost several fan films due to this issue. Will Zudeo keep a seed of every video they've ever carried? Will they be able to afford the bandwidth when the viewers start trickling to videos rather than assisting each other with their downloads?
2. Like it or not, Youtube is often used in workplace camaraderie. Many corporate firewalls whitelist business appropriate ports rather than blacklisting P2P clients. Youtube uses regular HTTP, so it works. Azureus uses the Bittorrent protocol which requires more esoteric ports.
3. Will the bandwidth usage be acceptable for the average user? When you view a Youtube video, you use only the bandwidth necessary to download the video. This active form of downloading means that bandwidth usage stops as soon as the video is completely downloaded. With Bittorrent, users will both upload and download while waiting for the video to complete. They also are recommeneded to leave the client open while going about other tasks. Which can have a negative impact on their other Internet activities.
4. Zudeo breaks up your workflow by launching an external program. This not only breaks up the user's workflow, but it also presents a more confusing interface. If the user wants to view the video, he has to open the torrent tab, click on "Files", then double click the correct file. This action is non-obvious to someone who simply wants to view the show. In addition, Azureus may not even launch when the Zudeo link is clicked! Magnet links are intended as a generic P2P descriptor, and are often claimed by programs other than Azureus.
5. Perhaps the most important point of all: Bittorrent cannot stream files. The viewer must wait until the file is completely downloaded. With Youtube, they can simply watch their show with no intermediary steps.
IMHO, the best bet for Zudeo is to reinvent themselves as an iTunes competitor. If they created a frontend program to Azureus that did all the dirty work, they could at least compete in an arena where they're more likely to succeed. Streaming will still be an issue, but consumers may be willing to wait for High Def content.
P2P Streaming? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't see this taking off in the same way that YouTube did, some of us just don't have the bandwidth
Re:P2P Streaming? (Score:5, Insightful)
Positioning such a service as YouTube like is a little inane. Now, if they positioned it as a reasonable way to distribut indie films in High Def, they might find people a lot more receptive. I dont know what mastering a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD costs, but for some indie folk, it might just be too much... wheras this will let people get their films out in high quality at a reasonably low (well, free) cost.
Re:Very cool. Very unlikely to succeed. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can click play and decide in a few seconds if the video is garbage,gross,or not interesting and go on to the nest. With this Hd offering I haveto wait until I downloaded the whole damned thing before seeing it's crap or even broken. This has a huge problem inside Bitrottents already. you dont know if the video is even playable until you get a 100% download and try it. Unless they are offering as well as the HD content a LD clip showing you 30 seconds of it (or the whole thing if less than 30 seconds) that can be viewed instantly.
Most people will bail on using a service if after 10 times they view a video and it's bad, or they are not interested in seeing it as it was mis-labelled.
Re:Very cool. Very unlikely to succeed. (Score:5, Insightful)
You make some excellent points, which illustrate why this service shouldn't really be compared to YouTube. It's a lot like comparing email to SMS. Both are very similiar on the surface, but both are also very successful because they serve slightly different purposes. As you pointed out, it's lack of streaming is the reason why it can't directly compete with YouTube. But because YouTube chooses to stream, they can't offer the same high-quality video as Zudeo. I think it's way to soon call this idea dead in the water. I mean, the iPod was just another MP3 player when it came to market. We'll have to see how well the idea is executed first.
Re:Masterminds? (Score:2, Insightful)
Firefox != World Wide Web
See what I did there? Azureus did not invent Bit Torrent. They weren't even the first clone.
"Paying" twice...? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not interested. Why? Because on P2P, as other posters have said, I'm the the webserver. But who does the advertising money go to? Not me.
I get a slower weblink, and a slightly higher electricity bill. My broadband ISP charges me for excessive uploading and demands that I sign up to a commercial package -- and I can't argue, as I'm supplying a commercial service. And I still have to sit through five minutes of ads for every 10 minutes of program.
No thanks.
HAL.
Re:Very cool. Very unlikely to succeed. (Score:3, Insightful)
While you do have some good points, I'd like to point out a couple of things from TFA:
Isn't it possible that they've figured a way around the streaming issue by requiring the chunks downloaded to be sequential?
So, it seems that they use a central server for keeping these things alive.
I do agree with your points about the bandwidth usage outside of the actual download, but I guess that's the price you pay for good quality video.
One other thing that I'd like to ask is what about all the bandwidth throttling by the ISP's of torrents?
HD Cameras for less than $1000??? (Score:3, Insightful)
6. Azureus (Score:3, Insightful)
(Yes, I realize you can probably use other clients. I'm just being offensive.)
Re:"Paying" twice...? (Score:4, Insightful)
Face it: youtube is right on the verge of being unwatchably-low quality. This would be HD.
Re:Not the same and other things (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't use BitTorrent much these days but when I did, I always got my client to request small files like NFOs, SFVs, JPEGs and AVI samples first.
There's nothing to stop the client asking for the blocks in order.