Audio Video News

BitTorrenting is often regarded as a scruffy and perhaps slightly criminal medium. But it will soon gain new respectability when the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation allows a new show to be torrented.

The show is R&D TV, a tech-conscious program whose first episode featured Digg's Kevin Rose as a guest. The Beeb is licensing the show as Creative Commons content. While the first episode was not torrented, it is available for download in Quicktime, Flash, and Ogg formats. The BBC is using technology developed by the EU-funded P2P-Next program, which would allow live video, streaming, and torrenting. In future episodes, BitTorrent streams might be embedded in the BBC website, or the show might be available through normal torrent downloads.

In addition, users are able to access the raw footage and remix the content to their own liking. The program is available in a 30-minute version as well as a five-minute digest.

See TorrentFreak and BBC download page.