It was announced today that BitTorrent has merged with (bought) µTorrent:

This is Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, and Ludvig (Ludde) Strigeus, the writer of µTorrent.

Together, we are pleased to announce that BitTorrent, Inc. and µTorrent AB have decided to join forces. BitTorrent has acquired µTorrent as it recognized the merits of µTorrent's exceptionally well-written codebase and robust user community. Bringing together µTorrent's efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent's expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client.

Full announcement here

In our opinion, µTorrent is the best BitTorrent client for Windows out there (including BitTorrent's own client, which isn't so great) so we see this as a very positive development for both parties involved.  We have been using µTorrent around here since v1.0 and it is certainly one of the finest pieces of free software ever written.  Congratulations on joining forces to both parties involved and we hope this leads to further development of one of the best new technologies of the 21st century.

mariposaHD would not be here without you!

I saw this on digg today and it got me excited:

Several leading consumer electronics companies are expected to announce Tuesday that they are working together to develop a new standard for transmitting high-definition audio and video signals wirelessly.

Supported by LG, Matsushita (Panasonic), NEC, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and semiconductor maker SiBeam, the digital interface WirelessHD would enable high-speed streaming of audio and video content between consumer electronics devices like televisions, DVD players, game consoles and other portable devices without using cords. The group plans to release the specification in spring 2007.

Full article

While on the one hand we're big fans of Japanese (and Korean) electronics companies, so it's great to see them coming out with this important and exciting technology, on the other hand we are Americans and it would be nice to actually see an American company working on something like this for once.  Hopefully the Japanese will keep gobbling up all the blue jeans and Paris Hilton handbags we're sending them in exchange for all these nice HDTV gadgets they're sending us.

With thousands of new videos now being uploaded to YouTube every day, there must be tons of people who go thru what I just did: upload a video to YouTube for the first time.  Despite one or two user forums, a quick Google search reveals that relatively little has been written about this process.  So here are a few of our thoughts on uploading video to YouTube:

1. the worst part about it is how long you have to wait after the upload is finished for YouTube to process your video.  We waited more than a day and half for our little 3 minute promo clip to finish processing and be ready to share.  I have a hard time believing that all these thousands of people uploading videos everyday are going to have the patience to wait around a few days for their videos to show up.  It certainly hurts the idea that user generated Internet video can cover any type of current events situation.  By the time the video is ready to share it's already a few days later!  I realize that YouTube is attempting to transcode thousands of new video clips a day to their own Flash format for streaming (which can't be an easy thing to do at that scale) but at some point they're going to have to figure out a better way do it or dedicate more resources to do the processing.  Waiting days for your video to show up stinks.
   
   
2. why does YouTube recommend that the optimal format for upload is 320x200 video when they seem to be transcoding the video to fit in the 425 pixel-wide standard viewing window?  They should suggest that directors encode video to a 425 pixel-wide (or higher) format video because whenever you transcode video from a lower resolution format to a higher one, you loose video quality.  Perhaps they have a good reason for telling you to use a lower resolution format than their viewer window, but I can't  figure it out.
   
   
3. it seems their transcoding process screws up the audio/video synchronization somewhat.  I noticed this before even uploading videos by watching other people's Steven Colbert clips captured from broadcast television.  I noticed the sound is usually a little off in them but I just assumed that it was the person capturing it that screwed it up.  Now that I've uploaded my own video, I can see that it's YouTube's transcoding process that's messing it up.  The original clip sound is perfect when played back locally on my PC but the sound synch is slightly off in the YouTube streaming version.  (I uploaded a few different videos to be sure.)
   
   
4. Their transcoding is stripping off the last few moments of the video.  We include a Creative Commons banner at the very end of all our videos (including the promo I uploaded to YouTube) and their processing step seems to have stripped it off.
   
   
5. It looks like by default YouTube takes a frame exactly in the middle of the video to use as the still screen shot icon that they display to represent the video.  It would be nice if there was some way to manually select another frame to use as the frame exactly in the middle of the video may not necessarily best represent what the video is actually about.
   

Besides that, the video and sound quality appear to be okay (for streaming video).  Hopefully you're not in a third-world country somewhere so your Internet connection is solid enough that it plays back in real-time without skipping.

As I alluded to on the front page, there are lots of cool things about streaming Internet video (especially what YouTube/MySpace/Google Video are doing) but video quality and playback performance aren't among them.  That's one reason that we chose to go with BitTorrent and P2P to distribute the mariposaHD episodes: we wanted the best video quality possible.

For Internet video to eventually eclipse broadcast video (which it eventually will) the video quality and playback performance has to be BETTER than broadcast TV, not worse.  The video capabilities of a typical PC are already far beyond most televisions.  The trick is simply getting the high-quality video to the viewers on a network that wasn't designed to work that way.  We think the BitTorrent/P2P/cached video method is what works.  Not getting video in real-time is a small price to pay for vastly superior video quality.  Most people don't need to watch something in real-time anyway.  DVD's, VHS tapes, Tivoed TV shows, video on demand, are pay-per-view are all not real-time delivery and they all seem to do pretty well.  Besides, the real criticism of YouTube's business model is the economic one.  It reputedly costs them more than half a million bucks a month to pay for all those servers and bandwidth to host all those thousands of streaming videos.  How are they going to make enough money to pay for all that?  The bigger their audience, the bigger their bandwidth bill. Their economics don't scale well.  Here at mariposaHD, we've had thousands of viewers download our first view videos (which are in HD!) from all over the world and we've distributed it all from a single 2.4 Ghz Celeron server that hosts our website and BitTorrent tracker.  That's the way that Internet video will eventually eclipse broadcast television.

Okay, we finally caved in and put a video clip on YouTube today.  We're not big fans of streaming low-resolution video but the popularity of their site cannot be denied.

After spending so much time, money, and effort on top-of-the-line HD cameras, complex HD editing, and cutting-edge video compression and P2P distribution software, it has never made much sense to us to post our episodes on YouTube only to have them downsampled to lousy 320x240 low-bandwidth streaming video (and to sit alongside webcam clips of people lighting their farts on fire).

Nevertheless, we have posted a short promo clip and hopefully it will inspire some of their 16 million monthly viewers to stop by here to download the full length HD episodes.  The video itself is simply the same 3 minute intro clip at the beginning of episode 01.01 :: abstract television.

Here's the link to our new mariposaHD YouTube page and the link to the promo clip itself, which you can also see here:

Feel free to post this clip (using the links provided by YouTube) on your website or blog to help us spread the word.

We also wrote up a blog article on some of our critiques of the YouTube uploading process.

We'll see how this goes for a few days and then we'll probably post the same thing on MySpace Videos and Google Video.   Enjoy it!

Slashdot today is reporting news from a Data Center blog that BitTorrent is ramping up their network infrastructure for streaming videos:

BitTorrent Inc. has signed an agreement with Global Netoptex Inc. (GNi) to provide IP transit for streaming videos at one gigabit per second, the companies said today.

Could it be long before we're streaming high definition videos in real-time?  Perhaps one day soon you'll just click a button to start watching the latest installment of mariposaHD rather than having to wait a few hours for your download to finish.

I noticed this press release out today from BitTorrent and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.  Hey, what a great idea: embrace P2P technology to cheaply distribute video content!  Why didn't we think of that?

Let me know when you guys have something in High Def.   ;-)

WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT GROUP ANNOUNCES REVOLUTIONARY DEAL TO PUBLISH LEGAL FILM AND TV CONTENT USING THE BITTORRENT PLATFORM

 

New BitTorrent Service Will Feature Hundreds of Warner Bros. Television Shows and Films for Download Day-and-Date with DVD

 

Burbank, CA (May 9, 2006) – Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group today announced a groundbreaking agreement with BitTorrent Inc. to leverage the company’s peer-assisted delivery system for the electronic sell through of motion picture and television content in the United States. With this announcement, Warner Bros. becomes the first major studio to provide legal video content via the BitTorrent publishing platform. 

 

The announcement follows BitTorrent’s agreement with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to prevent film piracy and promote innovation in online digital distribution of content. Content published with BitTorrent will be available on the BitTorrent.com website and feature downloadable programming. The distribution channel will leverage BitTorrent’s revolutionary “file-swarming” technology, which enables the transfer of massive files from a website to a PC with the speed and bandwidth efficiency of peer-assisted transfers. This new method of delivery is the first peer-assisted network in the U.S. that combines guaranteed availability, high-quality video and rapid download rates.

 

“The technology behind BitTorrent is elegantly designed for the delivery of large files like TV programs and films.  Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group was established to provide innovative, next-generation distribution models and this relationship provides our company with a unique platform to reach a new set of movie fans,” said Kevin Tsujihara, President Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.  “BitTorrent has made the leap in creating a legal partnership that respects the value of the intellectual property. This has provided us with a next-generation platform for the distribution of our films and TV programs.”

 

BitTorrent will provide the first peer-assisted technology platform to offer U.S. consumers legal content on both a video-on-demand (VOD) and electronic sell through (EST) basis, day-and-date with the DVD release. 

 

The service is intended to launch in summer of 2006 and will initially feature more than 200 Warner Bros. new releases, catalog favorites and television series. Featured titles to be initially offered will include newer releases such as “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride,” “Dukes of Hazzard,” “North Country,” and “Rumor Has It,” as well as library titles such as “The Matrix,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Natural Born Killers,” and “National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation.” TV programming will include shows such as “Babylon 5” and “Dukes of Hazzard.”

 

“BitTorrent is the ideal platform to publish high-quality content on the Internet. By combining Warner Bros.’ popular video content with BitTorrent’s proven delivery efficiency, consumers will have an unparalleled way to experience entertainment online,” said Ashwin Navin, President and Co-founder of BitTorrent. “As developers of the leading peer-assisted protocol, we’re pleased to be working with Warner Bros., an industry innovator with the largest library of motion pictures, to bring our millions of users entertainment at the click of a mouse.”

 

BitTorrent was designed in 2001 to be an effective publication tool for large files on the Web. With the launch of BitTorrent’s search engine in 2005, BitTorrent.com became a place for publishers to showcase their content and consumers to find and download content in one convenient location. BitTorrent continues to work with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to remove copyright infringing content from its search results and is working with studios to replace that content, to provide a secure, legal venue for consumers. With integrated monetization for paid and ad-supported content, the forthcoming BitTorrent service will be an ideal platform for the online distribution of popular video. 

 

“Warner Bros. is in the business of making its movies and TV shows available to as wide an audience as possible.  The launch of a legal BitTorrent online video service allows us to extend our reach to places our content would not ordinarily be found legally and opens up new opportunities.  Entering into agreements such as this to distribute our content is not only a better way to reach existing and new customers but a reflection of the critical role distribution technologies play in the future of the entertainment industry,” said Darcy Antonellis, Executive Vice President, Distribution Technology & Operations.

 

 

About Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group:

 

The Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group was founded in 2005 to bring together all of the Warner Bros. Entertainment businesses involved in the digital delivery of entertainment content to consumers, including home video, online, wireless, games and anti-piracy and emerging technologies operations.  WBHEG is a strategic recognition of the ongoing changes in the way consumers view entertainment product and seeks to maximize current and next-generation distribution scenarios to make the Studio’s content available to audiences through as many channels, platforms and devices as possible. 

 

 

About BitTorrent Inc.

 

BitTorrent is home to the world’s leading open-source file-sharing protocol by the same name, specifically created to overcome the obstacles of transferring large files over the Internet. Created in 2001, BitTorrent is enabling millions of users worldwide to publish, search and download popular digital content quickly, easily and securely. BitTorrent is a privately held company headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit: www.bittorrent.com

 

BitTorrent is a trademark of BitTorrent Inc.

There's a nice article over on HDBeat today with a roundup of all sources for HD content that you watch on your Windows XP, Mac, or Linux PC. They describe what hardware you need to get HD working on your PC and all of the various options available to watch high definition video on your PC from over-the-air broadcasts, cable, satellite, Internet, or HDTivo.

mariposaHD is mentioned as the only IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) show that's currently available in an HD format.

In our first month of beta testing, mariposaHD episode 01.01 :: abstract television was downloaded by thousands of viewers from 63 countries around the world. We transferred more than 5.5 TERABYTES of traffic from our BitTorrent tracker alone. Our server has been performing flawlessly and our first episode has received rave reviews from across the Internet for both it's content and video quality.

Meanwhile, we've been in Punta del Este, Uruguay on the beach. New Year's Day is the beginning of the summer in South America and "Punta" is where the rich, famous, and beautiful go to enjoy some rays. The mariposaHD team actually got some work done while there so you can look forward to more fashion shows, photo shoots, and gorgeous beach footage (in crystal-clear HDTV) in the episodes to come.

As everything seems to be working pretty smoothly around here, we'll start updating our site a bit more frequently. We'll begin releasing updates to our photo gallery regularly and a few new episodes are coming up as well. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the mariposaHD ''beta" release!

In the coming weeks, you'll see here the culmination of months of "hard work": we've filmed more than 150 hours of High Definition footage, taken thousands of high-resolution photos, and spent countless hours editing video and preparing this web site.

At the moment, this web site is really nothing more than an unfinished shell of what we have envisioned for the future. We've installed a very full-featured "content management system" that will continue to expand as our viewer community grows.

There are still lots of missing pages and broken links, but the site is working, the torrent tracker is running, and the video is online and ready to download. So give it a try and enjoy it!