Mininova developing Torrent-Video streaming service

The popular BitTorrent tracking site Mininova announced the development of a new online video streaming service latest project in cooperation with a Dutch university development team. The service will offer Mininova users users the chance to videos streamed from .torrent files.

The first beta release of this software will be invitation-only for a small group of Mininova members, with no indication when it will be moved to open beta status.

The Open Source “swarmplayer” which is used for the video streaming service is developed in collaboration with the Tribler team from the Technical University Delft and Free University Amsterdam. Tribler is also working together with the BBC and several other European broadcasters, and they recently received a $19 million grant for P2P research from the European Union.

According to Mininova, the service will only work with the “featured” torrents, which lists all the distributors taking part in Mininova’s content distribution platform..
A check of Mininova’s current list of so-called “features” appears to include some very familiar names, including The Bourne Ultimatum, Ratatouille, and American Gangster — titles whose licensed status from their respective studios does not appear evident.

Though the legality of the site’s operations and services remains questionable, record and movie associations have had very little luck attempting to shut down Mininova thus far.

Mininova already has a music streaming feature for their content distribution platform, based on the Java applet developed by Bitlet

Mininova is listed among the 50 most visited websites on the Internet and has nearly 30 million unique visitors a month.

The site is looking for people to beta test the service, say Erik, one of the admins: “We are looking for people who would like to be in the first testing group who test the software, report suggestions and bugs you find.”

If you would like to join, reply to their blog post here.