Today we’re releasing a new prototype through BitTorrent Torque that makes it even easier for you to enjoy your favorite content. OneHash allows you to stream audio and video in the web, directly from a torrent swarm.
Take torrent information of any variety (torrent file, magnet link, info hash) and just put it after #. The site will start to download the content and let you watch or listen in your browser.
Take the DJ Shadow BitTorrent bundle, for example (definitely worth a listen). This is the url to the torrent file:
https://featuredcontent.
To listen using OneHash, just append the torrent information after #:
https://onehash.com#https://
You can, of course, enjoy the same torrent content using just the info hash:
https://onehash.com#DFD0A2D3D2A
It’s very much a prototype, so there are still some kinks to be worked out as we’re still fine-tuning Torque’s streaming capabilities, and HTML5 video/audio support remains ever in flux, but its easy to see the potential here.
What happens when we get this stuff working as well as other streaming services? Will direct to fan experiments like Louis C.K.’s become the rule, instead of the exception? If you can stream from torrent swarms, the hosting/bandwidth costs that C.K. had to deal with will no longer exist.
Maybe we’ll know sooner than later. Like every other Torque app that we’ve written, we’ve made it open source for other programmers to improve upon and use to their liking. And for the folks that are curious about the torrenting that’s happening under the hood, you can expand the torrent section to inspect the usual info, open the folder on disk or delete the torrent when you’re finished. There’s an ongoing conversion about torrent persistence when using Torque apps, so hopefully this will provide greater insight for our users.
I’d love to know what you think, and if you’re a programmer hoping to get started, feed free to drop me a line. I’m happy to help.
– Patrick
Twitter: @pwmckenna
