P2PTV overlay network serving three video streams.

The term P2PTV refers to peer-to-peer (P2P) software applications designed to redistribute video streams in real time on a P2P network; the distributed video streams are typically TV channels from all over the world but may also come from other sources. The draw to these applications is significant because they have the potential to make any TV channel globally available. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... An overlay network is a computer network which is built on top of another network. ... A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is a network that relies on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively few servers. ... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... See TV (disambiguation) for other uses and Television (band) for the rock band European networks National In much of Europe television broadcasting has historically been state dominated, rather than commercially organised, although commercial stations have grown in number recently. ...

Technology and use

In a P2PTV system, each user, while downloading a video stream, is simultaneously also uploading that stream to other users, thus contributing to the overall available bandwidth. The arriving streams are typically a few minutes time-delayed compared to the original sources. The video quality of the channels usually depends on how many users are watching; the video quality is better if there are more users. The architecture of many P2PTV networks can be thought of as real-time versions of BitTorrent: if a user wishes to view a certain channel, the P2PTV software contacts a "tracker server" for that channel in order to obtain addresses of peers who distribute that channel; it then contacts these peers to receive the feed. The tracker records the user's address, so that it can be given to other users who wish to view the same channel. In effect, this creates an overlay network on top of the regular internet for the distribution of real-time video content. Bandwidth is the difference between the upper and lower cutoff frequencies of, for example, a filter, a communication channel, or a signal spectrum, and is typically measured in hertz. ... An overlay network is a computer network which is built on top of another network. ...

Some applications allow users to broadcast their own streams, whether self-produced, obtained from a video file, or through a TV tuner card or video capture card. Hauppauge WinTV TV tuner card One of the first DVB-S2 tuner cards. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Video editing card. ...

Many of the commercial P2PTV applications were developed in China (TVants, TVUPlayer, PPLive, PPStream, SopCast). The majority of available applications broadcast mainly Asian TV stations, with the exception of TVUPlayer, which carries a number of North American stations including CBS, Spike TV, and Fox News. Some applications distribute TV channels without a legal license to do so; this utilization of P2P technology is particularly popular to view channels that are either not available locally, or only available by paid subscription, as is the case for some sports channels.^[1] To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... TVUnetworks is an Internet-based P2PTV company based in China. ... PPLive is a peer-to-peer streaming video network created in Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Peoples Republic of China. ... PPStream is a Chinese peer-to-peer streaming video network software. ... TVUnetworks is an Internet-based P2PTV company based in China. ... This article is about the broadcast network. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Fox News Channels slogan is We Report, You Decide The Fox News Channel is a U.S. cable and satellite news channel. ...

Issues for broadcasters

• Broadcasting via a P2PTV system is usually much cheaper than the alternatives and can be done by private individuals.
• No QoS. Compared to unicasting (the standard server-client architecture used in streaming media) no one can guarantee a reliable stream, since every user is a rebroadcaster. Each viewer is a part of a chain of viewers which all can have a negative influence on the reliability of the stream (by having a slow PC, a filled downlink or uplink or an unreliable consumer grade DSL or cable connection).
• Less control. If a broadcaster prefers to limit access to their content based on regions, and would like good data on viewer behaviour, such as volume, trends and viewing time, then a traditional broadcasting solution offers more control.
• Professional broadcasters and distributors have used a hybrid solution for many years. Distribution servers are not centrally installed, but are rolled out in a smart, decentralized way. A central management facility manages content distribution over multiple peer servers (also known as Edge servers, or Caches), strategically located near user swarms (generally popular access ISP networks), manages load balancing, redirection of users, view reporting and QoS. Examples are Akamai.
• ISPs may be critical of P2PTV applications as they can introduce extra data overhead compared to unicasting. To bypass the QoS issue, P2P networks have multiple peers send multiple traffic to other peers, introducing extra data overhead for retransmits, communication and redundancy.[1] Dutch ISP's have calculated the traffic needed to send a P2PTV stream to a number of users, and measured 40% additional traffic usage compared to unicasting an RTSP stream to a similar audience.^{[citation needed]}
• Multicasting (although not a widespread internet technology) is even more efficient than unicasting, allowing one stream to feed a virtually unlimited number of viewers.

This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In computer networks, unicast is the sending of information packets to a single destination. ... Streaming media is multimedia that is continuously received by, and normally displayed to, the end-user while it is being delivered by the provider. ... Akamai Technologies, Inc. ... ISP may mean: Internet service provider, an organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. ... RTSP is the Real Time Streaming Protocol developed by the IETF and published in 1998 as RFC 2326. ... Multicast is sometimes also (incorrectly) used to refer to a multiplexed broadcast. ...

Applications

• Alluvium - based in Texas, USA
• Babelgum
• CoolStreaming
• Cybersky-TV
• DonkeyTV
• DistribuStream
• Feidian- based in China mainland
• Joost
• KeyholeTV
• LiveStation - based in United Kingdom
• Octoshape
• PeerCast
• PPLive - based in China mainland
• PPStream - based in China mainland
• Rawflow
• RayV (Plugin is embedded in browser and requires no standalone client to be run. Mac and Linux version in September 2008)
• ReelTime.com
• Soogal
• SopCast (one of the few applications that can also be used on Linux)
• StreamerOne (for Windows and Linux)
• TVants
• TVUPlayer
• Zattoo

Alluvium is an open source peercasting tool. ... Babelgum is software developed by Babel Networks, a venture of Silvio Scaglia (one of the founders of Fastweb) started in 2005 with the aim to develop interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer tv technology. ... CoolStreaming is a P2PTV (peer-to-peer television) technology that enables users to share television content with each other over the Internet. ... Cybersky-TV is a free software application for sharing television signals. ... Feidian is a P2PTV application from the Peoples Republic of China. ... For other uses, see Joost (disambiguation). ... LiveStation is a platform for distributing live television broadcasts over a peer-to-peer data network. ... Octoshape is a peer to peer streaming media server and client which uses peer to peer grid technology to minimize the bandwidth for any broadcaster to stream any material. ... PeerCast is an open source streaming media multicast tool. ... PPLive is a peer-to-peer streaming video network created in Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Peoples Republic of China. ... PPStream is a Chinese peer-to-peer streaming video network software. ... RawFlow is a provider of live p2p streaming technology that enables internet broadcasting of audio and video. ... ReelTime. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... TVUnetworks is an Internet-based P2PTV company based in China. ... Zattoo is a proprietary peer-to-peer Internet Protocol Television system (P2PTV) with current focus on European channels, licensed content, and Digital Rights Management. ...

References

1. ^ Newest Export From China: Pirated Pay TV, The Wall Street Journal, 2 September 2005

• Padmanabhan, Venkata & Wang, Helen (2002), Distributing Streaming Media Content Using Cooperative Networking, pp. 10, <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kunwadee/research/papers/nossdav2002-final.pdf>

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is an international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company in New York City, New York, USA, with Asian and European editions, and a worldwide daily circulation of more than 2 million as of 2006, with 931,000 paying online subscribers. ...

See also

• Internet television
• IPTV
• Streaming Media
• Comparison of streaming media systems
• Webcast