CBC TV-Show via BitTorrent, For Free

Canada’s public television broadcaster has plans to release the upcoming TV-show “Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister” for free via BitTorrent.

On March 24th after the broadcast of Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister (airs March 23rd at 7 pm on CBC Television) we’ll be the 1st major broadcaster in North America to release a high quality, DRM-free copy of a primetime show using BitTorrent technology. We’ll also be distributing a version you can put in your iPod.

The show will completely free (and legal) for you to download, share & burn to your heart’s desire.

http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/blog/2008/03/canadas_next_great_prime_minis.html

http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/

http://torrentfreak.com/cbc-bittorrent-tv-080319/

I'm crossing my fingers that the resolution makes it worth the download.

Looks like Rogers didn't do a lot of throttling on this one... actually saw 150kBs download and not a lot of peers or seeders. The CBC show came down in less than 2 hours... (40 minute show, divx compressed; they did have a 264 compressed varient, but it was half the res for the ipod crowd ) and I downloaded another movies from MiniNova at the same time... and got it at that amazing speed (clearly the fix was in). But ya when you think about it... digital broadcasting OTA could deliver whatever much faster than cable or wire. I suspect the future might go that direction if they get their head out of their backsides. I also noted that Miro was one of the suggested options...to handle the torrent (latest Miro does handle torrents now).

The Torrent links to MiniNova

http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/blog/2008/03/download_canadas_next_great_pr.html

Article regarding this torrent and ISP throttling, relating to conflict of interest.

http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/349948