Vatata Brings Chinese P2P TV to Set-Top Boxes

Vatata, a Chinese P2P solutions provider has created a set-top box solution that offers access to both the company’s own P2P network for live streaming video as well as public P2P networks and protocols like Emule, Gnutella and BitTorrent for various file downloads.

Vatata’s CEO Jian Song told NewTeeVee that in China the company enjoys the support of TV manufacturer Skyworth and set-top box maker Himedia plus another customer, which licensed the platform for their own products. The first devices to include the solution are scheduled to appear in stores later this summer

As revealed by Song, both BitTorrent technology, access to a P2P search engine and a link database gathered from P2P web sites will be used in Vatata’s solution. Further more, Song said that device makers would have to sustain these databases, which means they would be the ones to handle copyright issues but, however, consumers will still be able to enter P2P download links on their own.

One notable fact that Song emphasized was that devices using the Vatata solution itself are indeed legal although there is the possibility some consumers might use it in illegal activities. Vatata’s CEO seems to opt for a neutral stance that would have neither P2P networks nor ISPs feel neglected. He made clear that Vatata solution will not leech exclusively , but seed content as well (that is - it will ensure upload capacity to improve the distribution of content), which will please the p2p aficionados, but also will be implementing new network-aware technologies such as P4P that will place downloads first on the top as importance within an ISP’s own network.

To wrap up, there might chances that such a Chinese P2P set-top boxes will reach USA also and, who knows maybe even Europe sometime in the future.