Do you know that many cable and over-the-air TV channels are being streamed live over the Internet using P2P software? Now you can watch TV from around the world, in real-time, absolutely free!
Before I begin, as a responsible content publisher, I have to say that Aibal.com does not condone the use of file sharing TV channels in countries where it is strictly prohibited. So please be informed of your country’s filesharing and copyright laws before using any P2P software. Furthermore, streaming pay-per-view shows, like the UFC and HBO boxing, without actually paying for them, certainly raises some moral concerns. As with all filesharing technologies, it is up to the end-user to decide on how it is used.
To get P2P TV running on your computer, it is easiest if you are using Windows, or like me, running a copy of XP in a virtual machine on my Macbook Pro. There are several applications that will allow you to see live TV channels on the Internet, but today I’ll introduce the one that is currently popular among UFC fans and those who wish to view Asian TV channels from China, Japan and Korea.
The program is called TVAnts. It is a free P2P TV app that was developed in China (where most of these P2PTV programs are made) and allows the viewing of such cable channels as the Irish-based Sentanta Sports. TVAnts uses P2P file sharing to assemble live video streams and play them back smoothly on most broadband connections.
Once TVAnts is up and running, you will see a window like the one below, populate a list of channels currently available for viewing. If you don’t have Far-East languages installed, you will likely see meaningless characters where, for many of us, equally meaningless Chinese characters are supposed to be displayed!
Fortunately, some of these channels are from the West, so you should be able to make out which ones provide non-Asian content, like Sentanta Sports, CNN or BBC News. Also, in the search tab where the channels are listed, you will notice an ‘Audience’ column. The channel list by default is sorted by audience, or the amount of peers who are currently sharing the channel. Often, channels with larger audiences are quicker to load, so keep this in mind if you are having problems streaming a particular video.
To launch a video stream, double-click on a channel and you will see a video window pop-up. It can take several minutes for the actual video to appear, and several more minutes before the stream has buffered enough data to provide smooth video playback, so just be patient!
You’ll be presented with some static Chinese ads while the buffering happens, but eventually the video should begin.
With any luck, you’ll be watching TV from around the world, but just keep in mind that watching PPV events and exclusive TV shows may very well be less-than-legal in your home country. Always use common sense, like you would with Bittorrent or other filesharing services, when using P2PTV.
