Written by Janko Roettgers
Posted Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 12:00 AM PT

 

P2P Is Coming To YouTube

It looks like the idea of a P2P-powered YouTube is finally becoming reality, albeit without any contribution from Google. Singapore Shanghai-based P2P start-up PPLive, which we previously covered for its hugely successful P2P video platform, is experimenting with a P2P accelerator for Flash video streams. The application, which is dubbed PPVA, essentially distributes the stream of any popular Flash video from sites like YouTube via P2P without any involvement of the hosting server.

PPLive began a Chinese-language only beta test of PPVA in June, and says it already clocked more than 10 million downloads, with the maximum number of simultaneous users being as high as 500,000. We tested PPVA with some popular YouTube videos, and the results are intriguing — especially if you consider what this could mean for online video hosters and content delivery networks alike.

PPVA, which is so far only available for Windows, is essentially a small plug-in that just sits in your task bar until it detects a Flash video stream. The app then finds out whether other PPVA users have accessed and cached the same clip; if that’s the case, it will request some of the data from them. A small status window shows where the data for each clip comes from, as well as other details.

So how well does it work? That really depends on the popularity of the clip in question. Access one of YouTube’s most popular videos, and only the first few bytes are requested from the server. After that, P2P distribution kicks in and that number quickly rises to 100 percent. Other popular videos show P2P distribution rates of around 30 percent, whereas more obscure stuff comes straight from YouTube’s servers.

PPVA also seems to work quite well with popular CollegeHumor videos, but there was no P2P distribution available on Vimeo or Blip. In fact, in some cases the plug-in seemed to make things worse, causing noticeable stuttering during playback of some clips, while crashing with others.

Those beta woes aside, the potential implications of something like PPVA are huge. Google could save a whole bunch of money on YouTube traffic without actually doing a thing, and smaller hosters could avoid embarrassing server downtime that so commonly occurs when a clip suddenly becomes popular. PPVA could also make P2P CDN offerings like BitTorrent’s DNA obsolete. After all, why would anyone pay for P2P content distribution if users can do it for free?

Of course, some content providers might be uneasy about not being asked whether they want their videos distributed via P2P. This becomes an even bigger issue when advertisers start requesting more detailed statistics about online video usage. PPLive told us that every video gets an initial request from the hosting server, which should allow video hosters to keep a tally of requests and viewers. But Google is reportedly moving towards a more detailed statistical analysis that looks at which parts of a video are being watched and which are skipped. PPVA could seriously distort these statistics.

Does that mean Google will get upset about PPLive’s experiment? Only if they’re hypocrites: Google invested $5 million in a Chinese P2P startup called Xunlei in late 2006. And guess what? Xunlei’s download manager is doing for files pretty much the same thing PPVA is doing for video streams, speeding up http downloads through P2P without consent of the original hosting provider.

PPLive has told me that an English-language version of the plug-in will be available in about a month. Asked about ways to monetize PPVA, PPLive’s James Seng had this to say: “It’s new. It’s cool. We will figure out the rest later.”

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Topic: Hitlines, Online Video, P2P

Comments (15)

    1. PPLive is China (Shanghai) based, not Singapore

    (I am from Singapore tho which may be the reason for the confusion)

    1. The peak concurrent users of PPVA hits 1.5M last week. It is growing very fast.

    If you interested to try, PPVA can be downloaded at

    http://download.pplive.com/ppliveva/ppliveva_setup_0.2.13.0007.exe

    James Seng — 5:02 AM on September 14, 2008 Reply

  • “We figure out how to make money later”… Idiots.
    There are some ideas you simply cannot monetize well. Look at Twitter. What a waist of any money put into that.
    Maybe Google would be happy to pay for it, but once it exists. Why should they..
    End users.. well it does work without it.. so why borhter again..

    CDN’’s will hate it..

    Content producers.. Umm. would be interested but thats a conflicted model. Bandwidth and who pays for it etc. Plus no standards..

    I just like this as it makes the PIPES work better and so makes more room for other data.. It nice but not something I can live without.

    James

    James Gardiner — 3:09 PM on September 14, 2008 Reply

  • Great site a shopping search engine just check out
    http://www.oxyshopping.com or http://oxyshopping.com

    Ritu — 6:22 PM on September 14, 2008 Reply

  • It’s not a new idea. AOL did it first with their now-defunct HQ (hi-def video distribution) software almost two years ago – where the heck has Google been in that time?

    Google Originality Score: 0

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051114-5566.html

    Marah Marie — 7:28 PM on September 14, 2008 Reply

  • Marah, AOL used Kontiki to distribute its own videos via P2P. PPVA isn’t related to Google at all, and it works for any flash video file, not just the ones on Youtube.

    Janko — 9:44 PM on September 14, 2008 Reply

  • Anything that requires install is doomed plus the p2p only makes a difference to the distribution side not the consumer. Unless Flash comes out with built in p2p this will not spread.

    azmajus — 8:22 AM on September 15, 2008 Reply

  • From the YouTube Terms of Use: “Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only and may not be downloaded, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the respective owners”
    …
    “B. You may access User Submissions solely:

    for your information and personal use;
    as intended through the normal functionality of the YouTube Service; and
    for Streaming.
    “Streaming” means a contemporaneous digital transmission of an audiovisual work via the Internet from the YouTube Service to a user’s device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be copied, stored, permanently downloaded, or redistributed by the user. Accessing User Videos for any purpose or in any manner other than Streaming is expressly prohibited. User Videos are made available “as is.” “

    Smells like a Terms of Use violation to me. But I am not a lawyer.

    Joe — 1:09 PM on September 15, 2008 Reply

  • Does this plug in also support the Justin.tv and Mogulus streams? If so that may solve the buffering you get with popular live streams like soccer matches. Any news about this?

    Henk — 2:14 AM on September 16, 2008 Reply

  • Sure, makes perfect sense.Get the bandwidth off of their servers (saving millions) and pass it on to the users. Logical indeed.

    Jiff
    http://www.datools.net.tc

    Jiff Jones — 10:01 AM on September 16, 2008 Reply

  • No problem with google’s servers…..So what’s the need for one?

    design — 10:34 AM on September 16, 2008 Reply

  • @design google may not need it as much as the other would-be competitors of youtube.

    PPVA works for (hopefully) any flash media player. As of today, our trackers recorded over 30M videos across hundreds video sites.

    James Seng — 4:53 PM on September 16, 2008 Reply

  • cannot access www[]pplive.com[]en[]about.html..
    it’s “en” right ? chinese character shown

    totem — 10:14 PM on September 16, 2008 Reply

  • ough, i know it : next month..

    totem — 10:17 PM on September 16, 2008 Reply

  • Xunlei is nothing more than a bandwidth hogging tool for downloading pirated content used primarily for downloading pirated Chinese media. It is widely used among all Chinese speaking peoples. What is fascinating about Xunlei is that it is not affected by ISP blocks on P2P.

    goldenscreem — 7:50 AM on September 17, 2008 Reply

  • This could save them millions in bandwidth cost, so why not.

    Spore Guy — 8:23 AM on September 17, 2008 Reply

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