Popcorn Time allows you to stream torrent movies for free

[Himanshu Arora]

Update #2 (3/16): And it's back. As an open-source project, this was bound to happen. A group called YTS who used to run the "Yi-Fi" torrent site and before that a popular movie uploader on The Pirate Bay has picked up and revived Popcorn Time, which you can download here fully working. Looks like the piracy issue won't be stopping them for now, here's a quote from TorrentFreak...

“The YTS team will now be picking up the Popcorn Time project and continuing on like previously. We are in a better position copyright wise as for us, because it’s build on our API, it’s as if we have built another interface to our website. We are no worse off managing the project than we would be just supplying the movies,” the dev explains.

Update (3/14): It was fun while it lasted. Argentinian-developed, open-sourced Popcorn Time has officially shut down only days after receiving wide coverage and praise from media outlets. Popcorn Time leveraged BitTorrent's P2P technology to distribute content, using an interface akin to Netflix that made it a breeze to navigate and use. The 'only' issue was most of the content extracted from public torrents was pirated.

In a blog post, Popcorn Time's lead developers reflect on where they stand and where the experiment was headed: 

Popcorn Time is shutting down today. Not because we ran out of energy, commitment, focus or allies. But because we need to move on with our lives. Our experiment has put us at the doors of endless debates about piracy and copyright, legal threats and the shady machinery that makes us feel in danger for doing what we love. And that’s not a battle we want a place in.

Our original post (3/10) follows below:

A designer/developer from Buenos Aires, Argentina has developed a BitTorrent-powered video streaming software app which lets you stream the latest blockbusters at no cost -- though not exactly legally either. Dubbed Popcorn Time (download), the app has garnered some attention for it ease of use, offering quick access to hundreds of torrent movies with a few clicks. You can choose the video quality and even opt for subtitles if needed.

While millions of people use torrent clients to download movies, the process is not very straight forward for newbies. Popcorn Time provides an interface that lets you easily search for movies, select the video quality, and start watching a stream without having to wait for the download to complete.

Movies are downloaded in a secret folder somewhere on your drive and are deleted on a reboot. Also, since this is essentially a torrent client, you aren't just leeching but sharing as well.

According to developer Sebastian, the app is basically a browser that uses CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to serve the movie streams. “The technology behind the app is very simple. We consume a group of APIs, one for the torrents, another for the movie info, and another for the poster. We also have an API for the subtitles."

Although you can bet content owners won’t be thrilled with what Popcorn Time is doing, the group behind the app believes they aren’t technically liable. Aside from informing users that sharing copyrighted material “may be ilegal” in some countries, they aren’t hosting anything themselves, just just repackaging existing stuff.

There’s also no commercial angle. There are no ads, no premium accounts, no subscription fees or anything like that, and developers promise to keep the open source program this way for as long as it’s available.

While those most vocal against piracy will certainly disapprove of the app, perhaps content owners should be taking note instead. As Sebastian explains, “Popcorn Time is an experiment to show that you can do something better for the users, and that you can do it with BitTorrent.”

Popcorn Time is officially still in beta and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can download it here and give it a try.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/55937-popcorn-time-allows-you-to-stream-torrent-movies-for-free.html

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

While millions of people use torrent clients to download movies, the process is not very straight forward for newbies.

Back when mp3s hit the scene they were not traded easily by newbies and the recording industry ignored them. Then came Napster and music trading exploded. The wrath of the entire legal team of the RIAA went after Napster and they were soon shut down. I would expect Hollywood to do something similar to Popcorn Time if it becomes popular.

 

[misor]

Netflix and other similar companies should grab this talent from Buenos Aires.
as I understood it (or NOT), torrent lessens the load on the uploader when more peers/leechers are connected.
if a popular movie/tv show is legally subscribed by a user, then the user can get it faster thru this "torrent streaming".

one drawback though. don't use this app on Microsoft's Patch Tuesdays (till Thursday when the 48-hour wait for manual reboot is over-ridden by windows 8/8.1)
"Movies are downloaded in a secret folder somewhere on your drive and are deleted on a reboot."

 

[Kibaruk]

According to developer Sebastian, the app is basically a browser that users CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to serve the movie streams. “The technology behind the app is very simple. We consume a group of APIs, one for the torrents, another for the movie info, and another for the poster. We also have an API for the subtitles."

*Uses*.

Well this is a step forward for torrenting, between torrents and netflix this might encourage channels to start streaming their shows without the need for ultrapowerful server.

So far they are loosing a lot of revenue because people no longer want to see what they broadcast on their terms.

 

[Experimentongod]

Just downloaded the program and tested it, it works surprinsingly well. You open it, select a movie, choose between 720p or 1080p and play. I have 12MB ADSL and it works perfectly. Buffering is relatively fast; you can skip to any point in the movie and it resumes playing in a matter of seconds. Only downside is that audio is stereo only. You get only one audio track but several subtitle options.

 

[fimbles]

This feature has been available in utorrent for some years now, providing the torrent is not in a zipped format.

 

[Kibaruk]

This feature has been available in utorrent for some years now, providing the torrent is not in a zipped format.

But not as default, so you need to put it on stream to prioritize the parts closer to where you are at, also the UI is not the prettiest nor user friendly, you have tons of config options and icons and whatnot.

 

[insect]

"downloaded in a secret folder somewhere on your drive"

False... It's open source. I could see what the code is doing to find where it is on my drive. Alternatively, I could monitor my drive to see where files are being written/read from.

Even so, I feel like the bittorrent apps out there make it easy enough already. Most come with search bars that will find things for you, not to mention the myriad of well-known torrent hosting sites available and more pirates/teams "branding" their torrents and setting up their own shops to try and beat out others (I.e., YIFY for blu-ray movies that will come out about 3-6 weeks before Bluray in stores).

Also, on my internet it's about 20 min on average to get a 5 gb movie (5.1, 1080P, with extras). I think I'll live with that rather than have additional software.

Either way, cool app concept that hopefully more people will take notice of in this "on demand/always on" society, but as others have noted above... the legal teams will be foaming at the mouths on this one for a while.

 

[Experimentongod]

I didn't see a pretty essential question in the FAQ : what's the bandwith requirements for this? I've made some research; these guys work with YIFI releases, so for example "12 Years A Slave" is 1.95GB for 134mins -> that's 254KB/s meaning you need an 1.98Mbps connection. For 720p it's 925.15MB, so you only need 118KB/s, a 943kbps connection. In real world terms that would be 3Mbps ADSL por 1080p and 2Mbps for 720p (2Mbps and 1Mbps is almost enough but not quite there).

 

[Kibaruk]

I didn't see a pretty essential question in the FAQ : what's the bandwith requirements for this? I've made some research; these guys work with YIFI releases, so for example "12 Years A Slave" is 1.95GB for 134mins -> that's 254KB/s meaning you need an 1.98Mbps connection. For 720p it's 925.15MB, so you only need 118KB/s, a 943kbps connection. In real world terms that would be 3Mbps ADSL por 1080p and 2Mbps for 720p (2Mbps and 1Mbps is almost enough but not quite there).

You could always give it a couple of minutes to buffer, for example put the movie on download and go make some popcorn or get a soda or something

At least here in Chile 1mb is the cheapest internet available, being 4mb the standard entry and 10mb the one included in packages so that wouldn't be much trouble at all.

 

[Guest]

People have argued for ages that torrenting was a smart way to p2p data. However how many places have really found it necessary or thought it was good for their business, when it has such a stigma of piracy.

And as far as Netflix using this stuff .... the argument then is, can they offer High Definition with such ?
You worked out the speeds via YIFY releases. But YIFY is by scene standards terrible. The bit rates on his stuff is low, 2 channel audio. YIFY is not HD. Its DVD RIP in higher resolution. And whilst it may look acceptable, and whilst maybe this would be great for some, if you are Netflix, and you are charging the earth for your services, you don't want to be giving people sub par quality.

So now work out a 720p @ 4 - 6gb and a 1080p @ 8 - 10gb. And how much bandwidth would you need ?
ISPs said ages ago that they needed 20MB min to do HD I believe

 

[Kibaruk]

But YIFY is by scene standards terrible. The bit rates on his stuff is low, 2 channel audio. YIFY is not HD. Its DVD RIP in higher resolution.

When a friend told me about YIFY compression I thought the same, it must suck. I downloaded a 720p movie both on YIFY and I don't know who maybe BOZX or well... whatever at 4,3gb+, run both side by side and couldn't tell the difference between the two of them.

 

[Amigosdefox]

Just tried it. Works better than Netflix even on my 5Mbit/s connection. Would pay for this.
Probably will get banned soon.

 

[Lionvibez]

People have argued for ages that torrenting was a smart way to p2p data. However how many places have really found it necessary or thought it was good for their business, when it has such a stigma of piracy.

And as far as Netflix using this stuff .... the argument then is, can they offer High Definition with such ?
You worked out the speeds via YIFY releases. But YIFY is by scene standards terrible. The bit rates on his stuff is low, 2 channel audio. YIFY is not HD. Its DVD RIP in higher resolution. And whilst it may look acceptable, and whilst maybe this would be great for some, if you are Netflix, and you are charging the earth for your services, you don't want to be giving people sub par quality.

So now work out a 720p @ 4 - 6gb and a 1080p @ 8 - 10gb. And how much bandwidth would you need ?
ISPs said ages ago that they needed 20MB min to do HD I believe

Totally agree friend.

YIFY releases are great if you like watching movies on a cell phone with stereo quality!

Anyone that cares about quality looks elsewhere!

720p @ 4 - 6gb and a 1080p @ 8 - 10gb
These numbers are spot on for quality rips.

 

[Lionvibez]

When a friend told me about YIFY compression I thought the same, it must suck. I downloaded a 720p movie both on YIFY and I don't know who maybe BOZX or well... whatever at 4,3gb+, run both side by side and couldn't tell the difference between the two of them.

Get a better tv bro!

 

[Guest]

Where on the hard drive it saves the movies? I want to clear it out

 

[Kibaruk]

Get a better tv bro!

It may not be the best out there but I did tried on a full hd 32" tv, both looked exactly the same, since that moment I started downloading yify.

Edit: I did download some older Yify releases and they were of so so quality, were you could actually notice the difference, I tried Oblivion and couldn't tell the difference, also the first Hobbit movie and no difference either. Maybe he improved the quality over latest releases.

 

[Lionvibez]

I still don't bother with YIFY releases I need 5.1 audio and most of his are stereo sound!

 

[Guest]

I wish they would have 480p quality also wondering if this will be ever ported to android. Would be awesome to run that off tablet

 

[Lionvibez]

Why do you want 480p ?

 

[Guest]

also wondering if this will be ever ported to android. Would be awesome to run that off tablet

There are tons of apps that do this for android. Google "showbox" for android and "moviebox" for crapple (moviebox needs to be jailbroken first)

Here are some apps from play store to get you started a bit
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.new_movie

 

[platinumsteel]

I just hope this guy doesn't end up on the worlds most wanted lists..lol..And he gave it the perfect name..hahaha..amazing..

 

[Joshw]

When a friend told me about YIFY compression I thought the same, it must suck. I downloaded a 720p movie both on YIFY and I don't know who maybe BOZX or well... whatever at 4,3gb+, run both side by side and couldn't tell the difference between the two of them.

Get a better tv bro!

Idk I can't tell a difference in YIFY's movies, maybe it has to do with how far away you sit I have 47 inch tv and sit about 6-7ft away. It doesn't really matter for me though I can't really afford the bandwidth of 10gb movies.

 

[Lionvibez]

Idk I can't tell a difference in YIFY's movies, maybe it has to do with how far away you sit I have 47 inch tv and sit about 6-7ft away. It doesn't really matter for me though I can't really afford the bandwidth of 10gb movies.

There are alot of different factors.

Your age cause eyesite diminishes with aging.
The quality of the Tv you are using they are not all the same.
If you have never viewed 1080 on a highend plasma display and are only use to LCD and LED you will never know what you are missing.
And some of us are viewing with 5.1 surround systems most of YIFY's rips are in stereo audio and lower video bitrates. I will not watch movies in stereo when I have proper 5.1 setup.

And yes the bandwidth and your connection speed also is a factor. ive your on a 10mbps connection it will take too long to download a 8GB movie.
However on a 50mbps connection its not a problem in a reasonable amount of time.

And some of us are just more picky than others!

 

[Watafu]

"downloaded in a secret folder somewhere on your drive"

False... It's open source. I could see what the code is doing to find where it is on my drive. Alternatively, I could monitor my drive to see where files are being written/read from.

Even so, I feel like the bittorrent apps out there make it easy enough already. Most come with search bars that will find things for you, not to mention the myriad of well-known torrent hosting sites available and more pirates/teams "branding" their torrents and setting up their own shops to try and beat out others (I.e., YIFY for blu-ray movies that will come out about 3-6 weeks before Bluray in stores).

Also, on my internet it's about 20 min on average to get a 5 gb movie (5.1, 1080P, with extras). I think I'll live with that rather than have additional software.

Either way, cool app concept that hopefully more people will take notice of in this "on demand/always on" society, but as others have noted above... the legal teams will be foaming at the mouths on this one for a while.

Why is it that these comments always turn to "my **** is bigger". We don't care about your internet speed, we want info on how the program works.