Social streaming and broadcasting services

With the advent of web 2.0 , online video viewing has become a rage and is now actually a daily routine of our lives. The statistics show the decline in television and the major share of that can be attributed to viewing on videos, events, channels, shows etc online. Here is small guide providing alternatives for users who struggle to find resources to watch different events online.

Softwares to watch online events/channels

1. Sopcast : SopCast is a simple, free way to broadcast video and audio or watch the video and listen to radio on the Internet. Adopting P2P(Peer-to-Peer) technology, It is very efficient and easy to use. Let anyone become a broadcaster without the costs of a powerful server and vast bandwidth. It is one of the widely used softwares to view live shows, events, sports etc. Some of the main features of the player are :

State-of-the-art P2P technology. Share the data among all viewers, make the channel more available and stable.

• Minimal delay in the P2P streaming market.
• Fast buffering. 10-30seconds.
• Firewall and NAT traversal technology to pass 90% P2P barriers.
• Build your own channels and broadcast it over the Internet.
• Streaming real time streams. Support for many streaming transport protocol. mms, http, etc.
• Streaming media files. Many file types: asf, wmv, rm, rmvb, mp3, etc.
• Support for loop file playing.
• Extremely low memory footprint and CPU load.
• Standard channel URL: click on any sop:// URL to play.
• Real time monitor of broadcasting source quality and network quality to help viewers to select a appropriate channel.
• Record the clips when you are watching it.
• Can play the stream with your favorite player, such as Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, VLC, etc.
• Memory buffering, no harm to the hard disk.
• Support for authentication for both the broadcasters and the viewers. The broadcaster has full control on his channels.
• End-to-End security, encrypted messages, hi level P2P security, no hijack.
• Support multiple channels broadcast on the same server. Normally, you can run 5-10 channels on one PC.
• The Sop Player can be embedded into a webpage or any software applications. It works just like Windows Media Player.
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• The Sop Server and Sop Player can be run both on Windows and Linux. The whole system can be ported to embedded Linux.
• Freeware, not ad/spy ware.

For watching a particular stream, you just need to know the sopcast channel number there are multiple ways to get a list of broadcasting channel. To watch live events,shows, channels etc. in particular there is one website whic hcan act as a great resource : MyP2P

2. TVAnts :

This is a a p2p software very similar to the Sopcast. It works in almost the same way but is considered to be bit lighter than sopcast. Both these software stream videos through Bittorrent technology. TVAnts is one of the next generation P2P programs that allows many users to share live streams , not files. These streams can contain any sort of media however one of the most common uses for this type of software is to enable you to watch live football matches online and other sporting events on your PC.

3. PPLive : It is another one of the popular services similar to Sopcast and TVAnts. Like TVants , it is also hosted on Chinese servers and is extremely popular in China. Gradually, it has seen becoming popular with the global audience as well and now boasts of huge number of users. PPlive offers users omni-directional 3D online interactive video entertainment services comprised of website/communities , client terminals as well as online live/on-demand broadcasting and video search.The platform currently makes available approximately 100 million video clips and 10,000 video content search records,with a library of more than 200,000 licensed films and teleplays.

Online channel hosting services:

For the previous mentioned services, one has to download a software, but for those who do not wish to download a software or might be working on a different machine and do not wish to install a software in it. There are multiple websites which offer the service of watching live streaming channels directly from their website without the need to download any software. The most popular of them are :

Justin.tv : Justin.tv is the easiest way to create live video and show anyone in the world what’s happening right now. Using only a laptop, you can share your event, class, party or thoughts, live, to anyone in over 250 countries while they chat in real-time with you and with other viewers. Justin.tv makes it fun, easy and fast to gather and engage with a live audience. The range of channels, shows hosted by other people on this site is quite extraordinary and once you start searching you may find really useful resources and video streams. Many a times the service has been criticised for failing to ensure the the copyright rights being followed.

Ustream : It is another one of the most popular online resource of sharing streaming videos. It works similarly like Justin.tv and has host of channels put up by the users. Many times copyrighted channels are streamed by users and failure of ustream to curb that has led to quite criticism of these services in general.

There are more resources coming online day by day and even getting popular among users. The new age internet audience is hooked to this form of media and this is definitely set to grow further.