In the first quarter of 2011 BitTorrent Inc. will replace its mainline client with a brand new all-in-one solution for media entertainment. The new software will be part of a BitTorrent Certified technology ecosystem which includes TVs, mobile devices and other consumer electronics. By eliminating many technical hurdles the project, codenamed Chrysalis, is an attempt to cater to a wider range of consumers than uTorrent currently does.

BitTorrent Inc. just announced that it will soon release a brand new BitTorrent client that integrates search, downloads and playback on multiple devices. With the new project BitTorrent Inc. is following in the footsteps of its main competitor Vuze and their already established all-in-one application.

The new application is part of project Chrysalis and a new ecosystem of BitTorrent certified products. Through the application users can search for files that are shared on BitTorrent, download these files, and play them directly on their computers, TV or mobiles devices. Everything is bundled into one system and downloaders don’t have to worry about conversion, codecs or file-formats.

“Today’s generation of consumer electronics devices are more powerful than ever before, but they still lack cohesiveness and ease of use for content playback,” BitTorrent’s chief strategist Shahi Ghanem said. “Consumers shouldn’t need to differentiate between codecs, file formats, bit rates, and other technology jargon. Content playback should just work – regardless of content type or source.”

The new application is expected to go live towards the end of the first quarter of 2011 and will replace the mainline BitTorrent client. uTorrent, the flagship of BitTorrent Inc and the source of the current mainline client, keeps its minimal footprint and will continue to be developed separately.

The Chrysalis project is an effort to keep more users on board than is currently the case. BitTorrent Inc. revealed earlier this week that uTorrent and the mainline client are downloaded 400,000 times a day, but a relatively small percentage of these new downloads result in recurring users due to the perceived complexity of the applications.

Project Chrysalis

In addition to launching the all-in-one client, BitTorrent Inc. will start partnerships with makers of consumer electronics such as TVs, tablets and mobile phones to display a “BitTorrent Certified” logo. For this task the company signed up with Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) who previously helped DivX with their certification program.

“Partnering with BitTorrent to create the standards for a new generation of BitTorrent Certified chips, designs and devices fits perfectly with ITRI’s mission of accelerating the development of industry-enabling strategies and will certainly drive growth for Taiwan’s domestic technology industry,” ITRI’s Vice President Cheng-Wen Wu said.

TorrentFreak was assured that all the new software and standards will be fully compatible with the .torrent format as we know it now. For existing users little will change, but with the new system BitTorrent hopes to further expand the user base of its software while making it easier for existing users to play downloaded files on different devices.