The Best P2PTV Service You Have Never Heard Of

Before Joost there was Zattoo. Started in June 2006, the P2PTV service grants users access to European channels and licensed content. The project was started by researchers from the University of Michigan and the private company currently has offices in Zurich (Switzerland) and San Francisco.

Unfortunately, content is currently restricted to viewing in the following countries - Switzerland, Denmark, Spain and the United Kingdom. The video format is based on H.264 and is generally of very high quality. Clients area are available for Mac OS X and Windows 2000, XP and even Vista.

According to the company, one out of five broadband user in Switzerland currently uses Zattoo, which is amazing statistics for any internet company.

Skiners Joins The P2PTV Crowd With Silverlight Solution

London-based Skinkers have been working on a P2P solution named LiveStation that gives users the ability to watch live television. Microsoft Research has a minority stake in Skinkers while the guy sat Skinkers have also done some work with the Redmond company before.

It is one of the first service to be based on Microsoft's Silverlight technology. Currently, there is only one channel but several broadcasters have expressed interest. It is envisioned to be able to provide audience the ability to watch TV on a variety of screens - at home, cell phones and at public places.

A beta version is available for Windows while a Mac version is currently in the works. The final version is due out this October.

A LiveStation video demo below:


Video: LiveStation Demo