WebtorrentDesktop, Vuze and a number of other torrent clients are what are considered 'hybrid' clients and can download and upload data between both traditional torrent protocol and webrtc based torrent protocol. By using a torrent link for a file already seeded by hundreds or thousands of seeders it makes the file more robust in the long term. For those who want to use a magnet link from our website to save the file (using a hybrid or traditional torrenting client) the file will be fast with tons of peers and seeds. For those who want to watch directly in the browser, their service gets faster and more reliable as the site grows and the technology is adopted by more and more torrent clients. It is worth mentioning that webrtc torrents are new but growing quickly. WebTorrent-Desktop has over 250k installs and vuze has well over a million. As they become more popular and as our site grows and matures it will be only natural for other torrent clients to add in webrtc compatibility
By suggesting you submit torrents to the site that are already popular, distributed and compatible it future proofs the service.
The in-browser streaming has limitations based on what browsers will and will not allow you to do. You cannot create tcp/udp connections by ip/port meaning you cannot connect to traditional torrent clients. WebRTC solves that restriction by allowing you to connect to hybrid torrent clients and other users of the site.
In regards to the magnet link changing: WebTorrent-Desktop adds a number of 'default' trackers to every item added to it to improve compatibility but there is a common misconception with torrents that the magnet link is needed. All you need for a torrent to work is the file hash. If you look at the magnet link you will have a parameter as urn:btih:. The hash following that can be placed in any torrent client and it >should< be able to re-create the torrent file. The trackers are there to improve speed of reconstructing the torrent file and to speed the process of finding peers where DHT cannot be used effectively or as quickly.
Very short version: When submitting to the site, please use media that is already well seeded to avoid issues. Right now the site is very much proof of concept still and we are working on the underlying code to make it as quick and stable as possible. In the long term we will rely on more torrent clients adopting the hybrid model which will offer a HUGE boost to site performance.
That is a really interesting piece of information, thank you!
I have a question on this though: where the content files for WebTorrents are actually stored?
In case of normal torrent, the files are permanently stored on users hard-drives, so they can seed them indefinitely long.
However in case of Webtorrent, the files are stored in the browsers cache (if I understood correctly), and so they will be deleted automatically very soon after user finished watching the video.
So in this sense, Web-torrenting doesn't help the torrent-network at all in long-term, as it provides leechers only, but almost does not help on seeding part... Could you please comment if that is correct, btw?
So, who will ensure the videos are going to stay there and be seeded, so visitors of webtorrent site like Purevidz could actually be able to see the movies? Users with Hybrid clients only?
To maintain torrent health on the site we will be strongly encouraging users to submit content that already is well distributed (dozens or hundreds of seeders) which will ensure the files remain available at all times.
The site itself we are looking at adding various rate limitations while streaming to avoid damaging the health of the network (for example capping download speeds to 2x the bitrate of the file). This may be something we do or dont but the idea is that if you are capped at say 800k download with 2,000k upload, even if you arent uploading to anyone because no one else is watchign the same file at the same time, you're not hammering the network and making it slow for other non streaming users. The goal with these experimental changes we're testing is to ensure that even though you would technically be a 'leacher', you wont drastically influence the health of the torrent network.
The site itself will offer the traditional magnet links to use in your preferred torrent client (which allows seeding after the browser tab is closed) and we will be working to educate our users on the advantages of using a hybrid torrent client such as webtorrent-desktop. These 'traditional' torrent users get the benefit of the organization options our site will feature while still being able to download/seed/organize their files the same way they would using any other torrent site.
Devs, 2 questions,
movie uploading queue seem to be on hold now and someone on the slack said you are making a tool to check if the torrents are ok. Is this true?
Also, are you on slack?
We are working on a number of automated tools to improve reliability of content on the site and to auto validate/convert submitted content. This will not be something users are exposed to and many of those changes are quite simple such as auto appending custom trackers to the submitted content. We are also running various tests with scrapping torrent from the existing trackers to be used in future site changes. IE: ordering duplicate items so moderators start by looking at the healthiest torrents that have the most seeders.
You are correct that the mod queue is on hold right now while we work on further site updates. I would expect the mod queue to be re-activated in the next couple of days (monday would be my estimate although it could change)
Yobit has nice support.
