PeerCast

PeerCast

Infobox_Software
name = PeerCast



caption =
developer = Giles
latest_release_version = 0.1218
latest_release_date = 17 December 2007
operating_system = Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X
genre = Peercasting
licence = GPL
website = http://www.peercast.org/

PeerCast is an open source streaming media multicast tool. PeerCast uses peer to peer technology to minimize the necessary upload bandwidth for the original multicastor.

Methods

Peercast can be used to multicast streaming audio (Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WMA) and/or video (Ogg Theora, Nullsoft Streaming Video, or WMV), or any other stream of data, over the internet. Peercast uses a distributed bandwidth technique to lighten the load of the broadcaster's upstream bandwidth where each listener/viewer will relay the stream they download to one or more additional listeners. Users may choose how many relays to allow, and if a listener sets their relays to '0', then they will essentially not contribute back to the stream at all.

The benefits of using PeerCast is that it allows any multicasters, particularly small or independent ones, to distribute their streams without need for much bandwidth, saving them costs. It also allows, theoretically, an infinite number of listeners as long as there are enough relays (see below).

Criticism

When a relay is lost, all peers underneath it (might) lose their connection to the stream and must reconnect to another relay, also when reconnecting to another relay, a peer (might) have to accept the point in the stream the new relay is at, potentially causing a skip or repeat in the stream.

Upload bandwidth isn't always reliable, as typical relays are just ordinary listeners. Also, the project is currently in beta and is sometimes unstable.

Peercast does not feature BitTorrent-like swarming; if a point node fails, all others in the tree are mute and dead.

Corporate environments and their security policies might not appreciate the fact that it uses peer-to-peer technology and essentially turns listeners by default into servers.

Since it turns all of the network in a server, distributing content for which you might not have a license could cause legal concerns, depending on the jurisdiction and local legislation the node falls under.

Trivia

* Project originated in the summer of 2002.
* Peercast is currently being developed by a single developer (Giles), and is always in need of new help.
* There have been talks of a possible Firefox extension for peercast as well.

Similar projects

* IceShare
* FreeCast
* MediaBlog

See also

* Peercasting

External links

* [http://peercast.org Official Website]
* [http://yp.peercast.org Directory of active broadcasts]
* [http://takuo.jp/gnome-peercast/ Gnome Peercast] is a GUI frontend for Linux users (the official version is only command line)
* There is also a Japanese based fork of the project which can be found [http://sourceforge.jp/projects/peercast-jp/ here]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • PeerCast — est un logiciel libre peer to peer conçu pour permettre à tout utilisateur connecté à Internet de diffuser sa propre radio ou vidéo en ligne. Il se base en effet sur le protocole Gnutella pour créer un réseau « d émetteurs » et d… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • PeerCast — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda PeerCast es una manera libre de oír y distribuir audio y vídeo por Internet. Utiliza la tecnología P2P con la cual quien sea se puede volverse una estación de radio (audio) o tv (video) en Internet, sin los altos… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Peercast — may refer to: *Peercasting, multicasting a data stream using peer to peer technology *PeerCast, a particular open source implementation of this idea …   Wikipedia

  • peercast — verb To use P2P streaming media via a peer to peer network …   Wiktionary

  • Comparison of streaming media systems — This is a comparison of streaming media systems. A more complete list of streaming media systems is also available. Contents 1 General 2 Operating system support 3 Container format support 4 …   Wikipedia

  • MediaBlog — is software that distributes almost all kinds of streams on P2P network based on VLC player. The main idea of MediaBlog come from PeerCast and BitTorrent. MediaBlog is designed to allow everyone broadcast audio/video channels on the internet by… …   Wikipedia

  • Audio-Streaming — Streaming Audio ist eine Variante des Streaming Media, bei der Audiodaten kontinuierlich über ein Computernetzwerk übertragen werden. In seiner einfachsten Form kann man sich Streaming Audio als Hörfunk im Internet vorstellen; das Verfahren zählt …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Streaming-Audio — ist eine Variante des Streaming Media, bei der Audiodaten kontinuierlich über ein Computernetzwerk übertragen werden. In seiner einfachsten Form kann man sich Streaming Audio als Hörfunk im Internet vorstellen; das Verfahren zählt dann zu den… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Streaming Audio — ist eine Variante des Streaming Media, bei der Audiodaten kontinuierlich über ein Computernetzwerk übertragen werden. In seiner einfachsten Form kann man sich Streaming Audio als Hörfunk im Internet vorstellen; das Verfahren zählt dann zu den… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Ogg Theora — Theora Si vous visitez cette page parce que votre ordinateur n arrive pas à afficher un fichier vidéo, voir Aide:Regarder des vidéos ogg Theora Extension de fichier .ogv Type MIME video/ogg Développé par Xiph.org Type de format …   Wikipédia en Français

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”