Wired’s Threat Level blog has the story of Torrent Droid, a new Android app that lets you scan DVD-case bar-codes with your phone, looks up the title, and remotely starts a torrent download of the title on your home machine. The use-case on Threat Level is a someone out shopping, shooting bar-codes of DVDs and having them ready to watch when he gets home, but I immediately thought of how useful this would be in conjunction with your personal DVD collection and a media-center PC under the TV. You could just barcode all the DVDs in your living room, have the Media Center torrent them, and box up the discs and stick them under the stairs. Yes, that’s still illegal, but it’d be far more convenient than ripping the 1000-some DVDs currently cluttering up our tiny flat.
Alex Holmes says users can be out shopping, for example, at the local Wal-Mart buying diapers for little Johnnie. Johnnie’s dad can hit Wal-Mart’s video section, use the G1 Android phone camera to snap a picture of a DVD barcode and voila: Search results of where the flick could be pilfered for free would immediately be sent to Johnnie’s dad, who could then download the vid to the webUI of uTorrent while he’s combing the aisles carrying a crying baby searching for the right pacifier and diaper rash treatment.
Johnnie’s dad arrives home, and the free flick of his choice is ready to view.
Android Program Scans DVD Barcodes, Starts BitTorrent Download