Decentralized video streaming, actual working possible solution ...
As for a posible solultion for a decentralized video streaming need, theres a possible solution that is working.
And the solution could be video streaming via torrents. Its not new and its wide spread.
For those that dont know what torrents are:
''In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms.'' <-- quoting wikipedia
While quoting wikipedia, In 2010 Wikipedia tried Swarmplayer (Now part of Tribler) a torrent p2p video streaming as a solution for low cost video streaming for wikipedia videos:
Peer-to-peer tech now powers Wikipedia’s videos, Streaming video from a central server is expensive, so Wikipedia is trying …
_Wikipedia today officially adopted peer-to-peer networking to help power the video displayed on its site. Why? Cost.
"One potential problem with increased video usage on the Wikimedia sites is that video is many times more costly to distribute than text and images that make up Wikipedia articles today," said today's announcement. "Eventually bandwidth costs could saturate the foundation budget or leave less resources for other projects and programs."
So Wikipedia has partnered with the P2P-Next consortium, a group of European researchers whose work is funded with a €19 million EU grant. That work has finally produced a new version of the group's "Swarmplayer" that's almost ready for public consumption. Firefox (Windows, Mac, Ubuntu) users can download the beta Swarmplayer 2.0 plugin, which grabs Wikipedia video from other peers (and distributes it to others; be aware of this if on a low-bandwidth or capped connection). An IE plugin will be available soon.
Javascript on Wikipedia's site identifies whether Swarmplayer is installed. If not, the video is streamed directly from the server; if so, a .torrent file is passed to Swarmplayer, which downloads the video from other users on the 'Net. The setup also includes HTTP fallback should BitTorrent prove too slow.
But this isn't traditional BitTorrent downloading. Swarmplayer's key innovation has been its focus on P2P streaming, eliminating one of the key bottlenecks that originally made P2P distribution a poor substitute for server-based streaming. BitTorrent distribution sends blocks of a file out-of-order, which is no problem for a download; once all blocks are received and properly assembled, the final result is identical to the original file. But for streaming, the initial pieces have to be in place before viewing can even begin.
Swarmplayer handles this by using a hybrid HTTP/BitTorrent model that can grab the first part of a file from a Wikimedia server (HTTP) while filling in all the later blocks using BitTorrent.
The P2P-Next team's goal is nothing less than crafting a replacement for over-the-air television, one which makes distribution so cheap that every "broadcaster" in the world starts using it—and extends their reach to the whole planet.
Note and image source on ArsTecnica
That was back in 2010, today we have working technologies that use this.
Look up https://webtorrent.io/ as working example for web torrent video streaming it has a live video you can watch and also displays a graph of the peers your browser player is connecting to fetch the video.
The big question is, how to implement it?, right? how do we manage this? do we embed a torrent client in the website that downloads torrent content on peoples computers?, would it be a opt in thing? and should they be rewarded with some cash? its space and bandwidth for the content after all.
This could help the efforts for steemit video streaming. We could be the actual bandwith and space. meaby a couple of small servers or dedicated users as starter seeds for new uploaded videos.
Anyway, these are my 2 cents in the matter. Hope you all interested in the decentralized video streaming issue and or working on it take a look at it.