BitTorrent - Peer to Peer file sharing system? How about the Peer to Peer Video sharing network?

To start with what is Bittorrent ?

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol. BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using the BitTorrent protocol, recipients each supply data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence upon the original distributor.
Bittorents are faster to download , recipient can receive scrambled chunk of data from multiple hosts at the same time, also improving the speed of download. Unlike Napster, Copyright enforcement of Bittorents is a little tricky.

BitTorrent trackers have been subjected to raids and shutdowns due to claims of copyright infringement. BitTorrent metafiles do not store copyrighted data, so it is claimed[10] that BitTorrent trackers, which only store and track the metafiles and usually do not share any potentially copyrighted data, must therefore be legal. Despite this claim, there has been tremendous legal pressure, usually on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA, to shut down numerous BitTorrent trackers.

So how about Bittorent for videos ? For now we can download various video files using a bittorrent client, which essentially is a file download. There are websites trying to host video's like youtube difference being they dont have to spend 1 million dollar on bandwidth per month(Youtube does). Idea is simple, these sites would try to broadcast videos based on P2P. So when you are watching the video, player would assemble video content from different sources using P2P. Would this affect your video quality ? actually not, its as good or better than serving content out of one box. What this would buy you as video seeker ? More variety of content! cause now you are not restricted to viewing video's hosted by a site, instead you can watch any video which you and me can share out of our file system without the pain of uploading.

There are already few players in this field, one of these being Slapvid

Slapvid runs as a Java applet coupled with a Flash video player. Unfortunately this means users have to authorize the 300Kb applet to run the first time, but that still requires less initiative on the users behalf than a full blown browser plugin. The applet runs in the background, managing the delivery of video chunks to be displayed in the player.

When you first start a video, the player connects directly to their central video server to download enough of the beginning of the video as a buffer while the peer to peer kicks in. During this request, their server also sends you back a list of 3 to 5 peers playing the same video. The applet then seeks out peers further along in the video, getting sent bits of the video in 64KB chunks. If you don’t hear back from the peers, the video just streams from the central server.

To demonstrate the peering technology, they’ve developed their own flash player that shows the top Youtube videos in 5 minutes. The player mashes together short clips of each video. You can see the whole video by clicking the hand. However, because of bandwidth concerns on their central server, the peering technology is only turned on for a small sample of users. All other users will just see videos streamed from Youtube.