Popcorn Time, a newly launched app, will allow users to watch movies for free by using a huge library of pirated movies at its disposal. And yes, the movies you stream on the site are illegal.
Users can choose any movie from the recent Oscar nominee "Dallas Buyers Club" to the "Night of the Living Dead". All movies from the classical genre to romantic to sci-fi are avaialbe on Popcorn Time for no price at all. The app is like Netflix but for pirated content, reports TechCrunch.
So how does it work?
The process of its working is simple - the app steams torrent movies. It pulls files from various sites like The Pirate Bay.
The app pulls files that are available to sites like The Pirate Bay from where we usually download such files and watch it using a media player. Popcorn Time does all this work for us in the background, and when we select a particular movie, we have to simply select "Watch It Now".
On which platforms is it available?
Though currently on beta phase, it will be available for OS X 10.7, Linux, Windows 7 and above. There is no restriction regarding how many times you view one movie or any specific network configuration. But users will require internet connectivity.
Popcorn Time is an open source program and this will help it to be coded for other platforms like Apple TV and others.
Problems Faced
The app is still in beta and has its problems. There is a 10 to 15 minute delay in the video streaming, the video playback is jumpy and it does not have support for any advance audio codecs.
One of the main problem could be piracy since the movies being streamed violate copyright rules. However, developers of the app are not gaining anything monetarily from this and are spread out all around the world. But Popcorn Time does not host any of the copyrighted materials as it only makes it easier for people to watch the pirated movies, by a click of the button.
"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. Everything is automated, we don't host anything, but take existing information and put it together," a Popcorn Time developer told TorrentFreak.
