If the thought of having BitTorrent, the world's most famous file-swapping software, available on your set-top box to download high-definition movies from major Hollywood studios seems far-fetched, you're not alone.
In an e-mail interview with Wired News, HDNet chairman Mark Cuban effectively dismissed the notion as a pipe dream, along with the surprise deal announced Thursday that's supposed to make this purported future a reality.
"Nonevent," Cuban wrote of BitTorrent's acquisition of µTorrent (pronounced "micro torrent"), the lightweight client that presumably can fit anywhere -- and take BitTorrent everywhere.
"I think P2P is great for corporate and controlled apps, but not for open distribution," he continued. "P2P has content-distribution capabilities, (but) mass distribution of content isn't one of them."
Skepticism is understandable given the sweeping change that would follow if BitTorrent actually pulls this off. Imagine Comcast distributing HD programming on demand over its cable system through peer-to-peer file sharing. Or Verizon powering V Cast using peer-to-peer technology.
In fact, there are good reasons for Comcast and Verizon to want BitTorrent to succeed, and while the technology may need work, it is promising enough to take very seriously indeed.
This week, BitTorrent rival Azureus announced that it had partnered with several media companies to stream HD movies over BitTorrent networks. The Azureus client, while robust, uses a much larger code base, making it more difficult to run on smaller devices like handhelds or mobile phones.
Azureus declined to comment on the BitTorrent acquisition.
The slim µTorrent client, which is only 173 KB in size, has the small footprint required to run on a greater range of devices. And -- this is the interesting part -- the content distributors on these devices are in desperate need of exactly the kind of bandwidth efficiency BitTorrent can provide.
As consumers start to clamor for on-demand HD programming, cable companies are going to feel the pinch of sharply increased delivery costs. Same goes for mobile video providers. As demand kicks up, their networks will strain to keep up, making them more susceptible to BitTorrent's pitch.
"BitTorrent has acquired µTorrent as it recognized the merits of µTorrent's exceptionally well-written code base and robust user community," said BitTorrent CEO Bram Cohen and µTorrent creator Ludvig Strigeus in a joint statement. "Bringing together µTorrent's efficient implementation and compelling (user interface) with BitTorrent's expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client."
The company announced that it had acquired the competing software client in a forum post at µTorrent's website. µTorrent is renowned among its user base for its exceptionally small size and its ability to transfer large files without straining a computer's resources.
BitTorrent's own client and the µTorrent client both use the BitTorrent protocol to enable the rapid sharing of large files on peer-to-peer networks.
Now that the streamlined µTorrent client is part of BitTorrent's toolbox, the company will soon be able to begin delivering movies to devices with less processing power and less memory than a standard PC.
"We will continue to develop µTorrent and will be using the code base in other applications, especially ones where a fast, lightweight implementation is more suitable, such as embedded systems on TVs, cell phones and other non-PC platforms," said Strigeus and Cohen in Thursday's forum post.
Distributing movies directly to a customer's cable box has been one of BitTorrent's goals since signing deals with several major Hollywood studios, including 20th Century Fox, Lion's Gate Films and MTV Networks.
"We're working on making BitTorrent come preinstalled on many embedded devices, as one of the basic services they support in the same class as web browsers," Cohen told Wired News in an interview last week.
According to Cohen and Strigeus' post, µTorrent's future includes the release of Mac and Linux versions of the popular software, a development that will certainly enlarge BitTorrent's user community.
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Michael Calore contributed to this analysis.
