pplive

The days of paying for TV subscriptions could be on the way out if emerging streaming media technology evolves sufficiently. PPLive is the most popular program to use peer-to-peer technology to allow you to watch movies, sports and TV shows from around the world.

However, unless you speak Chinese it's likely to be the most irritating program you've ever used, as the interface and program lists are all written in the Eastern language. To save taking a crash course in Cantonese here is the workaround:

By loading up the PPLive TV Engine and right-clicking on the fourth option from the bottom (the one that looks like a squiggle) you’re presented with the chance to change the interface into English. Opening the Channel List menu in the program gives you even more Chinese to try and decipher but you can download a full translation of all the channels from here.

Mashable has put up an interesting list of the top 33 ways to watch TV online, highlighting the boom in Internet television. However, the post omits some of the great standalone alternatives to these Web-based viewers, many of which offer a richer array of features and improved picture quality.

PPLive is one of the most popular Internet TV apps around, and although it takes a little fiddling with to set up, the program boasts a huge range of channels and delivers quick, reliable connections, making it a capable alternative to the likes of Joost and Zattoo. Metacafe is another glaring omission from Mashable’s list. We’re big fans of the program due to the way it gives you speedy access to interesting and amusing viral video content from the Web.

If you’re a sports fan then TVAnts makes a great addition to your PC entertainment centre. Having used the program to watch football at the weekend, I was impressed by the sheer range of sports channels available and although many are broadcast with Japanese commentary, it’s a great way of picking up matches you’d otherwise have to pay for.

As we wrote in reviews for PPLive and TVU Player, television via streaming P2P is part of the future of broadcasting. The two previously cited programs are good examples of the technology yet in Sopcast they might have found a more than worthy competitor. This streaming P2P television application offers a wide choice of channels in a very sleek looking interface, whilst letting you broadcast your very own TV program over the Internet.

Sopcast’s interface is easy enough for any type of user. You can register yourself on Sopcast, a prerequisite if you want to broadcast your program but if you just want to view TV, you can log in as an anonymous user. We found that Sopcast probably offers the widest choice of channels of all P2P TV streaming applications, and organizes them via categories like sports, news or gospel tv. To view a channel all you have to do is double click the one you want and it will open a Windows Media Player side window. This truly separates Sopcast from the rest of the P2P TV streaming applications. By playing the channels in Window Media Player it allows you to set the size of the screen, adjust sound levels, keep a history of channels viewed…basically everything you can do with the famous media player. Furthermore, Sopcast is the only P2P streaming TV application we encountered that allows you to configure settings like port selection (extremely useful to maximize the use of your bandwidth and get better quality playback) or select among 12 different languages.

We recently covered one of the most successful free VoIP applications, Skype, that has revolutionized the long distance industry. As more and more users connect to through broadband, not only can voice be effectively transmitted with acceptable quality, but now video is also quickly following suite.

PPLive is one of the first applications to test the tepid waters of free, on-demand television over the Internet. The Net, and computing in general, has always depended on these intrepid explorers who push the technical and legal boundaries in order to clear the way for more robust, mainstream applications.