P2PTV refers to

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

(P2P)

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

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 by any individual feeding the stream into the network where each peer joining to watch the video is a relay to other peer viewers, allowing a scalable distribution among a large audience with no incremental cost for the source.

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 Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

. 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 An overlay network is a computer network that is layered on top of another network. Structure Nodes in the overlay network can be thought of as being connected by virtual or logical links, each of which corresponds to a path, perhaps through ...

on top of the regular internet for the distribution of real-time video content. The need for a tracker can also be eliminated by the use of

distributed hash table A distributed hash table (DHT) is a distributed system that provides a lookup service similar to a hash table: key–value pairs are stored in a DHT, and any participating node can efficiently retrieve the value associated with a given key. The m ...

technology. Some applications allow users to broadcast their own streams, whether self-produced, obtained from a video file, or through a

TV tuner card A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital vi ...

video capture card Video capture is the process of converting an analog video signal—such as that produced by a video camera, DVD player, or television tuner—to digital video and sending it to local storage or to external circuitry. The resulting digital data a ...

. Many of the commercial P2PTV applications were developed in China ( TVUPlayer,

PPLive PPTV () is a Chinese video streaming website. Its predecessor, PPLive, was peer-to-peer streaming video freeware created at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Hubei Province. The group of companies that runs the websi ...

QQLive QQlive is a live streaming video freeware created by Tencent, which takes advantages of advanced P2P streaming media technology to ensure that the platform can keep up with traffic. It attracts 3,000,000 visitors per day. ...

PPStream PPS.tv (PPStream) is a Chinese peer-to-peer streaming video network software. Since the target users are on the Chinese mainland, there is no official English version, and the vast majority of channels are from East Asia, mostly Mainland China, J ...

). 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 CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

Spike TV Paramount Network is an American basic cable television channel owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Media Networks. The network's headquarters are located at the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles. The channel was o ...

, and

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

. 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. Distributing links to pirated P2PTV feeds on a U.S.-based Web site can result in the U.S. government seizing the Web site, as it did with several P2PTV aggregation sites prior to

Super Bowl XLV Super Bowl XLV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champi ...

. By January 2009, there were about 14,000 P2P channels on PPStream. Other commercial P2PTV applications outside China are Abroadcasting (USA),

Zattoo Zattoo is a TV platform for IP-based transmission of television channels and video on demand content to a variety of devices. The company headquarters are located in Zurich and it has an additional office in Berlin. Zattoo is operational in tw ...

(Switzerland/USA), Octoshape (Denmark), LiveStation (UK).

Issues for broadcasters

* Broadcasting via a P2PTV system is usually much cheaper than the alternatives and can be done by private individuals. * No

quality of service Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...

(QoS). Compared to

unicast Unicast is data transmission from a single sender (red) to a single receiver (green). Other devices on the network (yellow) do not participate in the communication. In computer networking, unicast is a one-to-one transmission from one point in ...

ing (the standard server-client architecture used in

streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

) no one can guarantee a reliable stream, since every user is a rebroadcaster. Each viewer is a part of a chain of viewers who can all 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. An example is Akamai.

Notable applications

Compared

Branded webtv service for end-users

Afreeca AfreecaTV ( ko, 아프리카TV, short for "Any FREE broadCAsting") () is a P2P technology-based video streaming service. It is now owned and operated by AfreecaTV Co., Ltd. in South Korea after Nowcom's AfreecaTV Co., Ltd and ZettaMedia split in ...

– based in South Korea *

Funshion Funshion is a Chinese peer-to-peer streaming video network software and website. Target users are on the Chinese mainland. The vast majority of content is from East Asia, mostly Mainland China, Japan, Korea. Company Funshion Online was found ...

– based in China mainland *

Hypp.TV Unifi TV (stylized as unifi tv, formerly known as HyppTV prior to January 2018) is an IPTV service operated by Telekom Malaysia (TM). It was launched in 2010 as part of TM's bundled Triple-play service offering of VoIP Telephone, Internet and ...

(live and non-live) – based in Malaysia * Miro (non-live) *

– based in China mainland, Chinese only program. *

– based in China mainland *

.com (Windows, Linux, Mac)

Commercial solutions for broadcasters

Alluvium Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

– based in Texas, USA *

CDNetworks Founded in 2000, CDNetworks is a full-service content delivery network (CDN) which provides technology, network infrastructure, and customer services for the delivery of Internet content and applications. The company is positioning itself as a mu ...

(

CDN CDN may refer to: Places * Canada (Canadian), a North American country * , a neighborhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada Technology * Content delivery network, on the Internet * Change detection and notification, of Web pages Transportation * Can ...

service) *

Rawflow {{short description, Streaming technology company RawFlow was a provider of live p2p streaming technology that enables internet broadcasting of audio and video. The company's technology is similar to Abacast and Octoshape. Rawflow was incorpora ...

Free P2P TV software for end users and amateur broadcasters

Ace Stream Ace Stream is a peer-to-peer multimedia streaming protocol, built using BitTorrent technology. Ace Stream has been recognized by sources as a potential method for broadcasting and viewing bootlegged live video streams. The protocol functions as b ...

- P2PTV software solution based in Russia and derived from BitTorrent

Unclassified (yet)

Pulse In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the nec ...

– (Windows, Linux) LGPL P2PTV engine with announcement portal and unrestricted access *

Red Swoosh Red Swoosh was a peer-to-peer file sharing company founded by Travis Kalanick and Michael Todd in 2001 and acquired by Akamai Technologies in 2007. The Red Swoosh technology included a centralized directory that indexed online clients and caches ...

Discontinued services

Babelgum Babelgum was a free-to-view Internet television platform supported by advertising. The project was set up in 2005 by Italian media and telecommunications entrepreneur Silvio Scaglia (one of the founders of Italian TelCo FASTWEB) and scientist Eri ...

.com (non-live, used peer-to-peer technolog
until March 2009
*

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers and smart televisions. iPlayer services del ...

(live and non-live, used peer-to-peer technology until December 2008) *

CoolStreaming CoolStreaming is a P2PTV (peer-to-peer television) technology that enables users to share television content with each other over the Internet. The technology behind CoolStreaming is similar to that of BitTorrent. The viewers upload content at the ...

(discontinued service) *

Joost Joost () was an Internet TV service, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa). During 2007–2008 Joost used peer-to-peer TV ( P2PTV) technology to distribute content to their Mozilla-based desktop player; i ...

.com (non-live, live trials) * LiveStation.com (Windows, Linux, Mac) – based in United Kingdom * Pando * Sopcast * Streamtorrenthttps://streamtorrentblog.wordpress.com/ *

Tribler Tribler is an open source decentralized BitTorrent client which allows anonymous peer-to-peer by default. Tribler is based on the BitTorrent protocol and uses an overlay network for content searching. Due to this overlay network, Tribler doe ...

– linked to

P2P-Next P, or p, is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''pee'' (pronounced ), plural ''pees''. History The ...

, relies on BitTorrent protocol *

TVUnetworks TVU Networks Corporation is a privately held technology company. Its headquarter is located in Mountain View California. It has major offices in Shanghai, China, and Barcelona, Spain. They specialize in the development and sale of IP and cloud ba ...

– P2PTV software (Windows and Mac OS X) and network (Discontinued, Service is shut down)

References

{{Reflist Computer networking Applications of distributed computing Cloud storage Digital television Distributed algorithms Distributed data storage Distributed data storage systems File sharing networks Film and video technology Internet broadcasting Streaming television Multimedia Peer-to-peer computing * Streaming media systems Video hosting Video on demand