Mark Tinka wrote: > Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I know BitTorrent to > work is the file is downloaded to disk, unarchived and then listed as > ready to watch. That's not how it works. Several streaming BitTorrent clients specifically request blocks in order so that you can start watching immediately. Not that you need a special client, it works pretty well with the standard client as well on a well seeded torrent, as blocks are generally requested more or less in order.
> It also assumes the device has all the necessary apps > and codecs needed to render the file. Well, yes. Or you could just stream content that is guaranteed to be compatible with the device used. > On the other hand, BitTorrent could just make an Apple > TV/PS4/PS5/Xbox/whatever-device-you-use app as well. They could, and they might even have, I forget, but there is little demand for such a thing as a centralized CDN strategy works better. > But I doubt that > will work, unless someone can think up a clever way to modify BitTorrent > to suit today's network architectures. Unless network topology is somehow exposed, this isn't possible. All anybody can do is use latency, IP and ASN information as a proxy. Nothing is stopping a BitTorrent client from being selective about its peers. The current peer selection algorithm optimizes for throughput, not adjecency or topology. - Jared