Although BitTorrent (BT) protocol was not designed for media streaming, in practice it can be used, with certain extent, to stream a video file from P2P network. Key trick is to force sequential download in BT client (normally BT client selects first pieces, that are least available in swarm,  which contributes to better distribution of the file, sequential download is playing against it, so it is not enabled in regular BT clients).

But if we force BT client to download sequentially, cache incoming pieces and have enough incoming bandwidth from peers, we can stream incoming video directly into video player.  Indeed it’s a poor man streaming, because it lacks any advanced features like stream synchronization, stream seeking etc., but in many cases it works just good enough. Continue reading Streaming video file from BitTorrent P2P network →