Called LiveStation, will broadcast live TV using P2P technology anywhere a user can connect to the internet, and promises DVD-quality resolution.
Using the power of P2P, Skinkers, a UK-based startup, and Microsoft have announced the launch of a live streaming TV project called “LiveStation” that says “The video is like watching a DVD on your PC…no jerky motion, no buffering…it is just like watching live TV.”
Unlike Joost, a comparison they’d like to avoid, which offers ad-supported on-demand video content, LiveStation will instead offer live streaming video content to users.
The LiveStation P2P TV client is apparently a combination of P2P software developed by Skinkers, a startup based in Microsoft’s Cambridge Research Center and Microsoft Silverlight, an alternative to Adobe’s Flash Player with 720 lines of resolution compared to 536 for the latter.
Don Dodge(love the name) of Microsoft points out some of the things that will set LiveStation apart from preexisting methods of watching live TV on your PC:
- LiveStation uses Peer-to-Peer technology to distribute the TV signal, so it doesn’t require a big server infrastructure and lots of bandwidth. The P2P technology was developed at Microsoft’s Cambridge research lab and functions similar to BitTorrent.
- Silverlight allows the video to be displayed in very high quality, and with amazing speed. Silverlight was unveiled at MIX07 earlier this year to rave reviews. LiveStation shows off the power and elegance of Silverlight.
- Live TV, this isn’t recorded TV being re-broadcast…it is live, without delay. Of course the technology could be modified to stream recorded shows or other types of content.
- TV on your cell phone? Silverlight runs on cell phones, so in the future LiveStation could deliver Live TV directly to your cell phone or mobile device.
On the actual LiveStation site it has a message for content producers writing:
Your audience is fragmenting and can now watch TV on a multitude of screens; TVs at home, cell phones, TV screens in public places and of course PCs at home, at the office and even on the move.
Imagine your audience being able to watch your live TV content at their desktop, at the airport, at home and in fact, anywhere they can get an Internet connection to their PC! Imagine a quality image with no buffering or stopping! Imagine the possibilities of being able to allow your audience to ‘click’ on a TV advert exactly as they do on the web but while watching your existing TV channels. All without having to change your current business processes in the slightest!
I haven’t had a chance to test-drive the LiveStation client yet for myself but, TechCrucnh has some screenshots up, and below is a demo video to take a look at.
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