June 26, 2010 by sharky
Being fresh out of the box and still in beta, BitLite is looking for 200 ‘live’ testers to help gauge how well capacity handles demand. For a short time FileShareFreak is offering a special free BitLite signup link available to the first two hundred lucky people:
http://bitlite.com/index.cove?-=register&invite=filesharefreak
In the above link, scroll down to where it says "Free for 5 days" and click on Signup. Users will be able to try the service for 5 days. The trial plan includes 5GB of bandwidth and 1GB of storage - more than enough to get an adequate feel for the service.
Uploading Torrents (Locally)
To upload your own saved .torrent files, click on the Upload tab and then select the Local tab option. Click on "Choose your files" which opens a browse-to window - here you can browse to the location of the .torrent file. This is the exact same procedure used for uploading your own local media files (instead of browsing to a torrent, browse to an AVI, MKV, MP3, FLAC, OGG, JPG, GIF, PNG file - or any other supported media file/container).
NOTE: BitLite indeed "works" with private torrents, but seeding is limited to 150KB/s (upload rate) while the torrent is actively downloading. Take extreme caution here - or safer yet - don’t attempt using it on private trackers. Additionally, RARsets are not (yet) acceptable multimedia files (any torrents or uploads that contain rar files will be discarded). In relation to torrents, this service is best suited for torrents that contain extracted media files as usually found on public torrent indexers. Furthermore, any files that are not considered media files will not be added to the upload queue (this includes .txt, .nfo, .sfv, .srt, .sub and likely a whole bunch more that we’re not mentioning - see the complete list of allowable file extensions below).
Uploading Torrents (Internet)
To upload torrents into BitLite that are on the Net (remote torrent links), first find a link and ‘copy’ the URL. Below we used mininova, although it also works well through most other public indexers.
Back in BitLite, go to Upload and choose the Internet tab. Next, simply ‘paste’ the link in the provided space and click "Upload Files" to complete.
Files in the upload queue are shown below in "Upload Activity". Once completed they will be assigned to a proper media section (video, audio, or pictures) in BitLite.
Allowable File Extensions:
Below is a list of file extensions that are allowed to be uploaded to BitLite. Check back on BitLite’s Forum link here for future updates.
| Audio | Video | Pictures |
| mp3 | avi | jpg |
| mp4 | mov | jpeg |
| wma | mkv | bmp |
| wav | mp4 | gif |
| ogg | mpeg | png |
| flac | mpg | |
| wmv | ||
| flv | ||
| rmvb | ||
| rm | ||
| ram | ||
| asf | ||
| asx |
[Audio] — All audio is converted to 320kbps 44100 Hz MP3 regardless of its previous encoding (even lower bit rates are upconverted/transcoded) to maintain 100% flash / browser / device compatibility.
[Pictures] — Untouched photos come standard with every BitLite account. All your pictures are untouched, keeping every pixel of picture quality.
[Video] — Video files are instantly converted and ready for streaming in a browser, mobile device, phone.
More Than Just Torrents…
In addition to uploading torrents, users are able to upload their own local multimedia files to the BitLite service. Here’s a sample scenario; if you already have a local copy of a movie or album but wish to view/listen to it online at another location (@ work, school, or even on a mobile device or phone) you can do so by uploading your own content to the BitLite account. Use the Upload > Local option to import your own files.
Uploading Multiple Files & Folders — Using this same method; multiple files, folders and torrents can be uploaded simultaneously. In Upload > Local > Choose your files, simply select multiple items by using the CTRL or SHIFT key.
Webpage Scanning — The Upload > Internet feature also allows users to extract certain media from a chosen website. Instead of uploading a torrent location in this field, paste in the URL of a specific site that you want to scan the media from. In the example below use the "Click to Save Image" option which then adds that image into your "Pictures" media location. Some txt and pdf documents can even be viewed through your BitLite account.
Streaming / Viewing Content
Keeping in context to the displayed Video tab, files can be filtered by all sorts of criteria. Date added, filename, number of views, length (duration), ratings, or when added - these are just some of the filter methods. Quality can be sorted to show files that are in SD or HD (the difference in SD/HD is automatically applied by BitLite upon upload). The video pane itself can be customized to display ‘thumbnail’ resolution and number of rows.
BitLite has its own built-in media player to handle various file types for playback in the browser without the need to install a gamut of third-party plugins, codecs or webapps. The only browser addon that’s required is the latest version of Adobe Flash Player (v10.x).
Users are able to ‘full-screen’ the videos (even HD) by toggling the display mode located at the bottom of a running video; a feature that does not diminish the quality of the playback.
Requirements for Streaming Media:
Internet Connection: Streaming media requires the following minimum internet speeds.
- SD Video - 175 KB/s (1.5 Mbps)
- HD 720p Video - 250 KB/s (2.5 Mbps)
- HD 1080p Video - 300 KB/s (3.5 Mbps)
- Mobile Video (SD/HD) - 100 KB/s (1 Mbps)
- Audio - 50KB/s (0.5 Mbps)
PC Requirements: See this forum thread for complete details.
- Windows XP, Vista and 7: 3 Ghz or higher dual core CPU or 2.75 quad core.
- Mac OS X: 2.5 Ghz or higher dual core CPU or 2.00 Ghz quad core.
- Linux: 2.5 Ghz or higher dual core CPU or 2.00 Ghz quad core.
Our specs: In our tests we had no playback issues whatsoever using Vista & Firefox on a dual core 6300 (@ 1.86 Ghz) with 4GB RAM.
Managing Files
Directly under the Organize tab (shown above) there are various options for file management; these are used directly for deleting files, changing their categories or moving files around within the account. It’s set up this way to allow for multiple tasks to be performed quickly - which at first glance appears similar to a batch job for deleting, renaming, categorizing, etc.
- • New Folder — Creates a new folder within your home folder.
- • Move & Copy — Media files can be moved (or copied) to different folders. This is applicable only if new folders have already been created.
- • Remove — Use this to remove folders; this is also the master delete function to remove media files from all areas within the BitLite account.
- • Rename — The titles of files can be renamed using this feature.
- • Category — This is where categories can be appended to each media file.
- • Description — Descriptions can be added or edited using this function.
What’s remarkable is that all of these changes can be applied to multiple files on-the-fly. We’ll show a couple of examples in reference to how this can be done.
Deleting Files from your BitLite account (en masse):
- 1. Go into one of the media categories [Pictures, Audio or Video] in the Organize tab.
- 2. Click the Remove button. New icons will appear under each thumbnail (see #3).
- 3. Change the (
) to a checkmark (
) for each file you want to delete.
- 4. Click the Delete button to finalize, as shown below:
Renaming Files in your BitLite account (en masse):
- 1. Go into one of the media categories [Pictures, Audio or Video] in the Organize tab.
- 2. Click the Rename button. An edit-box will appear under each media file.
- 3. Enter in a new name for as many files as you wish to rename.
- 4. Click the Rename button to finalize, as shown below:
Changing Categories for files — This is accomplished similar to the examples above, except that you’ll need to also select a category by placing a checkmark (in the Browse by category section to the left in BitLite) to match the chosen media files.
Making a Playlist
Normal playback (non-playlist) — By default once playback of an audio or video file comes to an end, BitLite will automatically begin to play the next media file in the list. The order of this is dependent upon how you’ve chosen to arrange the media files (by date, name, views, length, rating). Yet there’s another optional feature whereby users can create a custom playlist of video files (BitLite currently doesn’t support audio files for playlists, for what we can tell). But for video, here’s what you do:
2. Drag-n-drop video files to the playlist:
3. To play back your playlist, click directly on the "Quick Playlist" link. Files here will play in a loop.
Mini-icons on Thumbnails & Mouseover preview
Mini-icons on Thumbnails — Show related media, watch again, and continue watching (resume) are just some of the options as shown on each video file.
Animated Thumbnails on video — Hover your mouse over an icon to preview a video file before deciding to play it.
Mobile Devices, Phones, PS3, etc
TV / PS3 — BitLite can be accessed using your Playstation3 or other web-enabled TV, including NMT hardware.
Media Players — Support for iPhone, iPod Touch and Archos media players are fully compatible with BitLite.
Cell Phones / PDAs — Access your BitLite account on Android, Symbian or any other cell phone (you should be automatically redirected to bitlite.com but if your device is not recognized then visit http://m.bitlite.com).
(For mobile video your phone must be connected to a 3G, 3G+, 4G, WiFi or other high speed downlink pack access network.)
Robust Settings…
Just about every facet of BitLite’s functionality can be configured through the vast array of settings options. We won’t document these individual settings (that would take an entire article in itself). Notable BitLite features: optional SSL browsing, custom themes, friends lists/messaging & sharing (still in alpha dev), personalized profile, fancy uploading, RSS support (coming soon), RAR/ZIP extraction (coming soon).
Final Thoughts
It takes a bit of effort to become accustomed to the layout, but it’s worth it once you realize the power and versatility in managing (and viewing) media files. We’ve yet to discover any other service that offers HD 1080p streaming in full-screen mode such as this.
If you experience choppy playback on video files, try to restart your browser and close other tabs (this worked for me). Just like with any streaming service, satisfaction can vary depending on many factors - the first one being the specs of your Internet connection; and secondly, what else are you doing with your bandwidth at the same time? Kill BT (uTorrent), YouTube, P2P proggies, IRC, FTP or anything else that hogs your throughput.
Happy streaming!
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