Peer-to-peer streaming of non-live content

摘要

A Peer-to-Peer protocol such as BitTorrent is used to assist streaming. Peers download streaming content from the P2P network while simultaneously playing the downloaded content. As the stream plays, an end system downloads any missing pieces directly from a server or other infrastructure node. This method roughly squares server capacity and can be refined to require on average 0(1) servers regardless of the number of concurrent users. Thus BitTorrent assisted streaming scales better than traditional server-client and other infrastructure-only solutions, each of which requires a number of infrastructure nodes that scale linearly as a function of the number of users. Unlike End-System-Multicast, BitTorrent assisted streaming does not subject users to the vagaries of intermediate unreliable, potentially bandwidth-constrained end-systems; the departure of any single end-system has minimal impact on overall performance; and BitTorrent has a well-crafted incentive mechanism for encouraging users to contribute their upstream capacity.

主权项

1. A method for viewing streamed content over a network, the method comprising:
receiving, by a receiving peer via a first connection, a first portion of a content stream from a transmitting peer in a peer-to-peer network, the first portion including less than the entire content stream, a first priority level assigned to the first connection based on the first connection being a peer-to-peer type connection; playing, by the receiving peer, the received first portion of the content stream; computing, by the receiving peer, a bid representing a maximum number of bits to be received by the receiving peer from a server included in the network; submitting, by the receiving peer, the bid to the server; responsive to the bid, obtaining, by the receiving peer via a second connection, a second portion of the content stream from the server, a second priority level assigned to the second connection based on the second connection being a server-to-peer type connection; granting, by the receiving peer, the second connection assigned the second priority level a higher priority to bandwidth access than is granted to the first connection assigned the first priority level; and playing, by the receiving peer, the obtained second portion of the content stream.