Smart Preview

[zip103]

The preview option is excellent for its purpose. :wub:

My request however is for a preview like option that not only load the first few percent of the video but does it in increments or sequence rather.

For example: After the initial preview section is completed, priority is given to the next 5% of the video, then the next 5% and so on.

This would greatly improve the experience for those of us who watches videos on the fly or so to speak.

[cassie]

The problem is, however, that bittorrent protocol does not download the bits in sequence, but in an aleatory way.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

When you select the download strategy for preview it downloads the last piece and enough of the first pieces so you can start the video. This is designed so you can confirm the quality and that it is what it claims to be. When you download for streaming it attempts to download the pieces in order so you can begin watching before download is complete, however these techniques are very inefficient.

As an example if you imagine doing your grocery shopping and you have your very long list of items, the first on the list is milk and on the way to get milk you pass the bread, eggs, soup, meats, and produce and you skip them all even though you know that you'll only need to return to get them and in some cases you may pass up an item and find it's sold out when you return. The logical way to do this is to grab any items you need when you pass and when they are available or you may find yourself sitting still for hours waiting for the store to restock the shelf for an item you could have grabbed as you passed earlier.

The analogy here is that when you try to force bittorrent to download in a way it was never intended to do you are going to experience much longer download times and you will be an uncooperative peer, rather than an efficient one. Bittorrent is designed to download the data that is most available at any given moment. This changes every moment and it's best to just go with the flow. If you have a legitimate reason to preview the video then there isn't much harm in downloading the last and first few pieces, but things like streaming and the idea you suggested will destroy bittorrent if many people start doing it so I would not be in favor of such an addition. In fact I wish all clients would stop offering custom download orders and only offer preview mode with a warning so people will know it can be harmful to the swarm.

Equally troublesome is when users select and deselect files within a torrent during the download. Selecting files was never part of bittorrent design and although it can be useful in some cases, it should never be abused like that and I'd prefer if the option was not able to be changed once selected.

However this is only my personal opinion but if all peers used torrents the way they were intended to be used we wouldn't have problems like slow speeds and torrents that don't complete.

[zip103]

I am aware this would be very inefficient for torrent videos.

But I am referring to streaming videos only. After identifying the begriming and the end of the stream, make connections in increments instead of spreading them proportionally. Since now, all items are available and are placed in the order of the shopping list.

I know some servers will accept limited reconnections and I am ignorant to some facts, but this would be ideal for many. Especially for those with slower connections. Also this would be an additional feature and not a replacement preview mode.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

there are no servers involved. When pieces are offered by peers you accept or reject based on need. If all peers were seeds you could get any pieces you want, but they are not.

When preview mode is enabled all pieces are requested in sequential order, but other needed pieces are accepted too. If you accepted only sequential pieces the performance would suffer.

[robertparker13]

Hi,

I agree with the request.

Previewing only first few seconds of the video is not so effective. If it is shown step by step, it could give better experience.

Edited October 19, 2015 by robertparker13 (see edit history)

[The UnUsual Suspect]

goto Options>Task and select "optimize download strategy for preview" and bitcomet will request the download pieces in sequential order.

However it will not enforce only sequential pieces because if it did it could cripple your performance and in order to most efficiently download it's best to not use this option. The whole basis of making a bittorrent swarm efficient is for the users to accept the pieces that are currently being traded and only at the end of the download would a peer become selective and only accept specific pieces and at that point they are permitted to enter "end game strategy" where they request the same piece(s) multiple times to assure getting it, but during the regular progression you only request a piece once and cannot request again until a set amount of time has passed and if you were enforcing only download of sequential pieces it's possible the download could slow to a craw or stop and start, so bitcomet requests the pieces sequential when this option is enabled, but also accepts any needed pieces when offered.