I read that tribler could live stream in the past , why was this feature removed ? , and would we see it again in recent versions ?
that would be a great addition
The feature used the VLC library to stream, which was very hard to maintain in Tribler. Streaming is notoriously hard to pair with how torrents are downloaded, especially anonymous ones. We could not guarantee the acceptable quality of the streaming feature, so we removed it. We hope to add it back one day.
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what about non anonymous torrents , i mean you can theoretically make like a distributed magnet links generator with one author (streamer) , and sequential download these magnet links , am i right ?
Yep, you’re right. However, there is a big difference between “sequentially downloading magnet links” and “live streaming”.
Anything using magnet link will have to go through Mainline DHT, which adds 5-60 seconds latency to resolve the link. Overall, BitTorrent technology is optimized for high-bandwidth, background sending of big datasets that are only usable when downloaded completely.
While, live streaming is a completely opposite task: it should start immediately (zero-latency), it must work in the foreground, it always plays sequentially, it can tolerate errors, etc.
So, it makes no sense to use BitTorrent protocol as it is for live streams (though it is definitely possible, if the swarm is big enough).
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you can resolve the magnet links while watching content , also if i watch some live stream which is 3-5 mins behind , that’s still live stream
Again, you’re right. But even if we figure out the DHT problem, the problem of bittorrent technology still holds. There exist alternative protocols for live streaming, for instance SRT. Hopefully, one day we can add one of those. Til’ the end of this year the team is focused on core features, which are basic BitTorrent, anonymity and Channels
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