BitTorrent and the Live TV
Dave Zatz put up a nice confessional about using BitTorrent to download and catch up on a show. His reasoning is that it helped convert him into Live TV viewer, since now he wants to watch the latest episode of the show as it first airs.
Personally, I prefer Vuze client. With recent addition of paid content, and their extensive free content library, it’s an excellent choice. Moreover, the original and solid bittorrent implementation is still there, sitting under the shiny new exterior. In other words, it can download any torrent of your choosing.
Dave, kudos on being brave, and putting it out there. I do agree that a lot of people using alternate means to catch up on shows and end up as additional live audience, ultimately aiding the studios. And then there are those that will never watch live, either because it conflicts with another show they prefer in that time slot, or they just never get enough time to catch up on the whole season of shows. Finally, a lot of BitTorrent sharing is happening from outside USA. Often our shows get to other countries late, and Web viewer on ABC.com and others is blocked from abroad.
Have You ever done it? And what do you think about AT&T new war on it’s customers? Will they try to sniff out people downloading plain TV shows? The same TV which is normally available freely over-the-air, in HDTV quality?
I certainly hope AT&T will wake up soon and reverse their decision. Otherwise, the public relations nightmare will turn into major storm, something they don’t need while they are trying to position themselves as your friendly up-and-coming Everything provider.
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