New Over-the-Top-TV Device Incorporates P2P BitTorrent Client

Consumer electronics manufacturer, Zinnet, a subsidiary of Taiwan's Zinwell Corp., has launched an HD (720p)-enabled over-the-top-TV device, called the brite-View CinemaCube, that incorporates a P2P BitTorrent client, allowing users to download P2P content--presumably including illegally shared movies and programming--for viewing directly on their livingroom television set. According to the company, the device, which is available on Amazon.com for $89.99, supports Xvid, RMVB, WMV, AVI, MP4, MKV, H.262, MP2, MP3, JPEG, BMP and PNG.

According to Zinnet, in order to use the CinemaCube, the consumer simply connects it to the TV set and plugs in a USB mass storage device. The media content stored on the USB device then "instantaneously becomes livingroom-ready home entertainment," the company says. The device is also networkable, allowing it to access media content stored on a remote PC, and its built-in P2P BitTorrent client, Zinnet says, "also means BT download can be computer-free." "Times are hard, and many people have had to cancel their cable subscriptions just to make ends meet," Zinnet COO, Robert Lo, said in a prepared statement. "They think their watching-TV-together family days are gone, and their favorite movies and shows, too. But thanks to the CinemaCube, the future of home entertainment is here, and it is affordable. Home cinema is more comfortable and far less crowded than a public movie theater."

According to a report last week in Variety (which described the CinemaCube as "a product that may put a scare into studio heads"), in order to use the device to access P2P content, "the torrent seed has to already be on the USB storage device you plug into the CinemaCube. In other words," the report continued, "users will need to at least begin the download(s) from their PC, but Zinnet's device can continue downloading (and sharing) the files once the storage device is attached." Variety's report also pointed out that the device "does flash a quick request that users not download illegal video, audio, etc."--though no mechanism is in place to stop them from doing so.