Live P2P Television: Streaming Now
The demonstration of Microsoft’s LiveStation last week shone the spotlight back on the live P2P television market. Whilst P2P on-demand video participants such as Joost and Bablegum gain the most attention in the broader market, the live television streaming market (ie: not on demand like Joost, not user generated cam sites such as Ustream) has continued to thrive in relative obscurity. Here’s a quick look at some of the bigger players.
There are others. StreamStar has a reasonable list.
Web TV
An alternative to Live P2P television programs is Web TV. Many providers stream live content online now, however quality, both in terms of content and quality of the picture itself can be hit or miss as programs are not streamed by a P2P network but directly. All of these stations can be viewed for free and without special program aside from the video codec support (Real, QT, WM). WWiTV is the oldest and best portal online for those looking for web TV. For unique content, ManiaTV would be one of the largest web only live TV stations.
The Mac problem
Not one live P2P television program I tested offered a Mac version, although they did work well under Parallels. There’s not a lot of legitimate money in the space due to the copyright issues involved so don’t expect to find a lot of Mac clients any time soon.
Overall
Live P2P television services do provide an alternative to on demand services such as Joost. Live P2P television lets you watch channels you may otherwise never have access to; the value provided is similar to the value many, many people get by downloading American television shows from Bit Torrent instead of waiting 6-12 months to watch them locally. It’s another nail in the coffin for geospecific broadcasting; when more and more people bypass traditional broadcast models, the old location based television model will eventually fail and we’ll all get to watch programs at close to the same time worldwide.