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Adobe's newest Flash player to be fully P2P-capable, able to shift bandwidth usage to the users
At least, it stands to gain from it if you're looking at this from a major video provider's point of view -- like CBS, ABC, NBC, or Hulu.
In other words, sites like Hulu will soon have the option of shifting a large portion of the bandwidth burden over to the people watching the videos, instead of serving up data to each and every user. This would allow the big networks to stream video content and reap the rewards of mass advertising, while only paying a fraction of the bandwidth cost as it currently stands.
Users, on the other hand, would experience dips in their own bandwidth and system performance that until now have been associated with BitTorrent traffic. While many wouldn't see a big problem with that, there are an awful lot of people out there who have caps on their broadband plans. Heavy use of streaming video use -- which is a growing trend as many of us ditch our televisions in lieu of sites like Hulu -- is already causing some to rack up such high bandwidth usage that even the highest monthly caps may start to seem a bit cramped. Adding P2P traffic to that usage isn't going to make it any less painful.
According to Adobe, Flash would not automatically use Stratus to stream content when available, but would ask the user to choose between direct streaming or P2P in a dialogue akin to the option to allow Flash to utilize a computer's webcam and microphone. While that's a pleasant bit of news, it comes with a darker stipulation. Should users choose not to allow Flash to make use of P2P sharing, the site providing the content has the option to offer them any of three options:
• The user may be given the option of streaming the video as they normally would, at the same quality to which they've grown accustomed.
• The user may be given the option to stream a lower quality version of the video at a substantially lower bit-rate (as an incentive to use the P2P function).
• And finally, the content provider can simply refuse to stream the video to users who don't want to use P2P facilitation.
I know we've been hoping that the big media corporations would someday embrace file-sharing and see P2P technology as a valuable tool, as opposed to one used by only vicious car-downloading criminals, but I don't think that anybody had this in mind. Adobe's work here seems pretty straightforward; they're working in ways that P2P sharing can be put to use in everyday situations outside the world of piracy. That's great, it's a good goal to strive for, but the networks and movie studios already want to milk as much cash as possible from video streaming as it is. Does anyone doubt that they won't jump at the opportunity to force P2P -- oh the irony -- down our throats if it means they save money on bandwidth cost?
Comments
15
Subscribe to commentsBrianMMay 20th 2010 7:26AM
From the company that brought you the highest security and reliability standards Adobe, now wer are going to peer to peer your content with every other typhoid Mary computer out ther and hope that one does not modify it along the way!
ArielMay 20th 2010 8:20AM
As much as I can badmouth Adobe, this is great. I think article has a bad vibe to it. P2P is an awesome and efficient technology and we should all embrace it. Yes, even if it means burdening our pathetically thin bandwidth. Just because the tubes (both cell and copper) aren't keeping up with the demand for richer content doesn't mean we should mitigate demand. It means we should be putting more pressure on the source of the bottleneck (and compressing richer content).
Let's get more better technologies instead of being bound to old ones.
Chris DekeMay 20th 2010 8:26AM
No, just...no.
Adobe, get your stinking paws off my bandwidth! It might be great for those lucky enough to live in countries where quotas are unheard of, but here where the majority of users have to live with just a few (
Chris DekeMay 20th 2010 8:28AM
Uh...okay apparently "less than" kills your comment. Awesome.
It might be great for those lucky enough to live in countries where quotas are unheard of, but here where the majority of users have to live with just a few (less than 10) GB a month (with upload being metered!) its just not on.
Bring on HTML5/H.264/Ogg/VP8/Whatevertheheckelse so flash can die already.
johnnyg0May 20th 2010 11:31AM
HTML5/H.264/Ogg/VP8/Whatevertheheckelse uses just as much if not more resources than Flash. It won't die anytime soon. If you think Flash is only about online videos, you have no clue what Flash is, and your opinion is irrelevent.
Chris DekeMay 20th 2010 5:08PM
Or you could RTFA and see that this is aimed at online VIDEO. This also has nothing to do with resources, it has to do with bandwidth. Downloading a 100MB video uses exactly that, 100MB of quota. Downloading and then seeding that 100MB video to however many people can use many times MORE quota.
As an experiment, go grab a torrent from a popular torrent site, throw it into your torrent client with all upload limits REMOVED, and see how much total data you shift in a short period of time. This is effectively what Adobe are proposing. And I highly doubt Adobe will implement the fine-grained bandwidth control that a program like utorrent has, and have already said above that they will give content providers the ability to FORCE people to use the P2P option.
pmupMay 20th 2010 9:05AM
There is no way I will allow this on any of my machines! This is nuts for so many reasons!
hazardMay 20th 2010 9:35AM
Hmmm .. this will be an interesting implementation. There's sooo many points of failure on the user side that it's just destined for trouble. This will cost Adobe a ton of money if they "really" want to maintain it.
laeroMay 20th 2010 9:43AM
I feel for you, bandwidth caps. Must be harsh. Hopefully your internet will one day be as awesome as the one in the land of the pirate bay :)
S4RsMay 20th 2010 9:52AM
This also could be used as incentive to get broadband providers to remove stupid bandwidth caps.
All of the sudden the few unlimited data providers should get stock price increases (FiOS) and cause competition to rethink their plans.
Matthew RogersMay 20th 2010 4:22PM
I think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to looking for the positive outcome in this. If it were to get truly huge, then ISPs would have to lay off the bandwidth capping in a big way.
PaulMay 20th 2010 10:32AM
I doubt this will be an automatic "opt-in". You have to accept the use of your microphone and webcam in the Flash player, since I would assume this is using the same delivery mechanism as web cams, I can't see Adobe not forcing the user to choose if they share in this set up. This wouldn't be a fun user experience, but bandwidth and security concerns would endanger Adobe's already loose grip on this market if they didn't handle this in this way. Safety concerns should be minimal here, since streamed video is not an executable media in the Flash API. The only issue could be that Cobra Commander could hijack your stream to broadcast his plans for global domination.
Another point to make is many videos you watch online are delivered via "progressive download" not streamed via FMS. Many that do use the streaming protocols use modified or custom built versions of FMS. So this may not catch on in the industry. It's a shame, but thanks to Limewire and the music industry's bickering, P2P has a bad name.
AnthonyMay 20th 2010 11:37AM
I can see the day with articles about "User's P2P Flash streams hacked, bosses learn of your NSFW habits".
Oh, Adobe... what have you done?
PonTelonMay 21st 2010 4:08AM
Yea, because taking up even more bandwidth to watch online video will go over GREAT for not-techsavvy people who got "Broadband" so they could see online videos. "Why are the Youtubes taking so long to load?"
And as for pushing ISPs to remove caps...they won't. They'll just encourage people to "upgrade" for "smoother streaming." Look at Verizon DSL prices/speeds and you'll see what I mean.
Matthew RogersMay 21st 2010 4:24AM
That's also a pretty good point. I can easily see ISP's starting to offer heavily tiered service in response to this.