BitTorrent is already a streamable P2P protocol. You just need a client that can prioritize downloading the file parts in order.
It is a thing.
BitTorrent is already a streamable P2P protocol. You just need a client that can prioritize downloading the file parts in order.
It is a thing.
It doesn't work for live streaming without modifications though.
Fair enough.
For live streaming there is WebRTC. It is also a thing.
But its not really p2p in the sense the original poster meant (as in its not an overlay network). Its p2p in the sense that tcp/ip is p2p, not in the sense that bit torrent is.
https://github.com/johang/vlc-bittorrent/
I believe Popcorn Time worked this way, but I may be wrong. Never dug too deeply into it.
It did.
All of it started with the webtorrent project though. One of the first demos was booting Ubuntu while streaming the incomplete live ISO image, quite impressive for the time.
This is great tech for media files. Currently better than any other. But making it would make those media files very easy to redistribute, and it is hard to change that without loosing the P2Pness goodies.
If Popcorn Time had a synchronized multi-resolution catalog, bandwidth-sensitive auto switch and some paid seed servers, it would be better than any other streaming service (technically speaking).