[jmilloy]

Couldn't there be an in-between? Does anyone around know enough about the implementations of sequential download?

I only need the sequential download to proceed a little bit faster than playback. After that, bandwidth should be used to re-assert the (future) health of the torrent, so that segments at the end continue to have enough seeders.

[orasis]

Yes. I'm the original inventor of "swarmstreaming". If done correctly there is actually an increase in efficiency, especially if some of the users aren't watching the whole stream.