Livestation is a platform for distributing live television and radio broadcasts over a data network. It has been developed by Skinkers Ltd and is now a new company called Livestation Ltd. The service was originally based on peer-to-peer technology acquired from Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research

Microsoft Research is the research division of Microsoft created in 1991 for developing various computer science ideas and integrating them into Microsoft products. It currently employs Turing Award winners C.A.R. Hoare, Butler Lampson, and Charles P...

.

Overview

Livestation aggregates international news channels online and offers them in a number of ways:

• Free to watch: a number of channels can be watched for free on the Livestation website or on their desktop player, a freely downloadable video application that presents all the channels through one interface.
• Premium service: some of the free channels are also available on a subscription basis both in higher quality (800kbps) and in lower (256kbps) delivered via an international content distribution network for higher reliability. Some channels due to join the plaftform shortly will ONLY be available on a subscription basis.
• Mobile: Livestation has launched BBC World News on the iPhone in 16 European countries and Al Jazeera English globally. The apps are available in the iPhone AppStore and stream the live TV channel 24/7 on both Wi-Fi and 3G connections.

Livestation broadcast streams encoded in VC-1

VC-1

VC-1 is the informal name of the SMPTE 421M video codec standard, which was initially developed as a proprietary video format by Microsoft before it was released as a formal SMPTE standard video format on April 3, 2006...

 format (Livestation is not currently using peer-to-peer). Playback controls are overlaid on top of the video stream. Unlike services such as Joost

Joost

Joost is an Internet TV service, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis . During 2007-8 Joost used peer-to-peer TV technology to distribute content to their Mozilla-based desktop player; in late 2008 this was migrated to use a Flash-based Web player instead.Joost began development in 2006...

 which offer video on demand channels, Livestation streams live broadcasts.

Current live TV news channels in the global offering (which comes with a default installation) include:

• France24 in English, French, and Arabic
• Al Arabiya
  Al Arabiya
  Al Arabiya is a Pan-Arabist Saudi-owned Arabic-language television news channel. Launched on March 3, 2003, the channel is based in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates, and is majority-owned by the Saudi broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center ....
  
   in Arabic
• Al Jazeera
  Al Jazeera
  Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...
  
   in English and Arabic
• Al Jazeera Mubasher - in Arabic
• Bloomberg Television
  Bloomberg Television
  Bloomberg Television is a 24-hour global network broadcasting business and financial news. It is distributed globally, reaching over 200 million homes worldwide. It is owned and operated by Bloomberg L.P...
  
  
• C-SPAN
  C-SPAN
  C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
  
  
• Deutsche Welle
  Deutsche Welle
  Deutsche Welle or DW, is Germany's international broadcaster. The service is aimed at the overseas market. It broadcasts news and information on shortwave, Internet and satellite radio on 98.7 DZFE in 30 languages . It has a satellite television service , that is available in four languages, and...
  
   TV and radio in English and German
• Euronews
  EuroNews
  Euronews is an international multilingual news television channel.It covers world news from what it claims to be a 'European' perspective.Criticisms are that the perspective is in fact that of the European Commission - a major and growing funder of Euronews....
  
   in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish
• Russia Today
  Russia Today
  Russia Today may refer to:* Russia Today, an English language 24-hour television news channel from Russia. It was launched in 2005 and is not related to an online news service of the similar name operated by EIN News...
  
   in English and Arabic
• BBC World News
• BBC News - in UK only
• BBC World Service
  BBC World Service
  The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
  
   Radio
• BBC Arabic
  BBC Arabic
  BBC Arabic may refer to the Arabic-language radio station run by the BBC World Service, as well as the BBC’s Arabic-language satellite TV channel, and the website that serves as an Arabic language news portal and provides online access to both the TV and radio broadcasts.The radio service is...
  
  
• ITV 1 - in UK only
• Channel 4
  Channel 4
  Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
  
   - in UK only
• More 4 - in UK only
• ITN
• Press TV
  Press TV
  Press TV is a 24-hour English language global news network owned by the Iranian government. Its headquarters are located in Tehran, Iran, with bureaux in Beirut , Damascus , London , Seoul and Washington DC ....
  
  
• BBC Persian
  BBC Persian
  BBC Persian is the Persian language radio station and TV operated by the BBC which conveys the latest political, social, economical and sport news relevant to Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, and the world. Its headquarters are in London, United Kingdom...
  
  
• NewsLook
• NHK World
• RT
  RT (TV network)
  RT, previously known as Russia Today, is a global multilingual television news network based in the Russian Federation run by the state-owned state-run RIA Novosti....
  
  
• United Nations Television
  United Nations Television
  United Nations Television, also known as UNTV, is the public affairs television arm of the United Nations. It broadcasts live and recorded gavel-to-gavel meetings of various United Nations agencies and arms from around the world, including the General Assembly and the Security Council.In addition,...
  
  
• Democratic Voice of Burma
  Democratic Voice of Burma
  The Democratic Voice of Burma is a non-profit media organization based in Oslo, Norway. Run by Burmese expatriates, it makes radio and television broadcasts aimed at providing uncensored news and information about Burma , the country's military regime, and its political opposition.In July 1992,...
  
  
• Al Aan TV
  Al Aan TV
  Al Aan is a pan-Arab infotainment satellite television station based in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates. It focuses on news content and entertainment programs and targets Arab families with a slight tilt towards young female audience in the Arab world....
  
  
• Nour TV
• SAMAA TV
  SAMAA TV
  SAMAA TV is a Pakistani news network.- Competitors :*Dunya News*Geo News*ARY News*Express News*Indus News*Waqt News- External links :*...
  
  
• NASA TV
  NASA TV
  NASA TV is the television service of the United States government agency NASA. NASA TV is broadcast by satellite with a simulcast over the Internet. Local cable television systems across the U.S. and amateur television repeaters may carry NASA TV at their discretion, as NASA-created content is...
  
  
• UNHCR Television
• RFI
  Radio France Internationale
  Radio France Internationale was created in 1975 as part of Radio France by the Government of France, and replaced the Poste Colonial , Paris Mondial , Radio Paris , RTF Radio Paris and ORTF Radio Paris...
  
   Afrique and Monde. Otherwise, reception is limited through GeoIP filtering, and depends on the location of the receiver. Despite advertisement boasting Deutsche Welle
  Deutsche Welle
  Deutsche Welle or DW, is Germany's international broadcaster. The service is aimed at the overseas market. It broadcasts news and information on shortwave, Internet and satellite radio on 98.7 DZFE in 30 languages . It has a satellite television service , that is available in four languages, and...
  
   TV, this channel is not available in some locations, including but not limited to the United States. Livestation viewers can add channels from a directory, and may add their own choice of channels to the directory (limited to Windows Media streams).
• Libya TV

The software is currently available for Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

, Mac

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

 (including PowerPC) and Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

. The cross-platform compatibility is facilitated by the Qt

Qt (toolkit)

Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers...

framework. Social networking features have been added that include the ability to chat with other viewers and also find out what others are watching through a user generated rating system. You can search and select the available channels either from the website, or from within the software.

Due to recent developments in the Middle East (the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and the Libyan civil war) as well as the earth quake and tsunami in Japan, LiveStation reports an increase of viewers in the first quarter of 2011 by 1047 percent, resulting in the first profitable quarter in its history.

External links

• Official website