Zattoo: Europe gets IPTV including BBC | Hacker News Reader

Zattoo: Europe gets IPTV including BBC

zattoo.com

8 pointsedward9 comments

I used it a few times in Switzerland as well. When a lot of users are watching a stream, you sometimes get kicked out or image artifacts. It will be interesting to see how Zattoo will handle the load at the soccer EM starting in 2 weeks, and even if they are providing an alternative.

For someone interested in doing a p2p video startup. A member of the research group I did my master thesis in, recently made his research project opensource. It's a p2p opensource video player with h264 decoding support (with opengl hardware acceleration), and playback controls (you can also go back in time and forward). Users can also play videos directly from their browser with the java applet, so you don't have to install pulsar. It's also build to handle lots of clients. You can get it here: http://dev.getpulsar.com/

A few example streams are here: http://www.getpulsar.com/examples/

This might be very helpful for some people trying to do a startup in this area.

Edit. Just saw that only parts are opensource, not everything.

Wow, OpenGL-accelerated h264 decoding? Has hey considered porting this to popular open source media players? Linux could really do with an efficient h264 decoder that can handle high-definition material on anything but the most high-end systems.

Zattoo is illegal (in the UK), as it doesn't have any partnerships with the TV channels as well as the fact that we have to pay a license fee and the TV Licensing people can't track "illegal" users of the service.

And to be honest, TV is crap. Here in the UK we have online catchup services for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 only Five is missing a catchup service. And if you want to watch live news coverage BBC News (24) streams video via the BBC site.

From http://zattoo.com/en/about-zattoo/what-is-zattoo

Is Zattoo really legal?

Yes. Zattoo acquires the rights to retransmit the channels separately for each country we launch in. It takes a lot of legwork (read: flight miles and sizzling phone lines) to collect the necessary rights to transmit the channels. Unlike the fast food world, the media world doesn’t operate on a global basis, so if we acquire the rights to carry a French TV channel in Switzerland, say, we don’t automatically get the right to carry it also in France or Germany.

All of this doesn’t deter us, of course. Chances actually are that we’re talking to a broadcaster somewhere right now, as you are reading this. So stay tuned for more channels in Z-countries and a launch in countries that haven’t been zattooed yet.

I guess it's possible that they're lying, but given that the channel lineup varies greatly between countries, I somewhat doubt it.

Zattoo is illegal because they are planning to insert advertisements in between moving from channel to channel, and in the UK advertising is not allowed on BBC channels because we the British public pay the license fee.

See: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2007/08/tv_unfestiv... ...and... http://informitv.com/articles/2008/05/09/zattooclaimscopyrig...

Quote: In a statement the BBC said: “We have not entered into any formal agreements with Zattoo to redistribute BBC channels”. ITV said: “We wouldn’t rule out third party deals, but there aren’t any in place at the moment”. Channel 4 said: “We don’t have any formal arrangements with Zattoo”. Five said: “The inclusion of the Five service on Zattoo has not been authorised or licenced by Five”.

http://informitv.com/articles/2008/05/09/zattooclaimscopyrig...

In the UK at least it seems they have no agreements with the channels and they're claiming it's legal under copyright law when in reality it's largely a gray area.

Coming Soon!

You seem to be accessing the Zattoo website from a country we do not yet serve. Please enter your country of residence below, and when our service is available there, we will contact you.

Damn. Looks like I won't be replacing my MythTV + DVB-S box anytime soon. Props for having a Linux version though!

I've been using Zattoo for a while in Switzerland. The quality is bad but it is sufficient to follow a sports event or the news.

Zattoo is great because together with my HSDPA Card and my Laptop I can watch TV almost everywhere, it made TV portable :-)

What do you make of it's data protection policy? Zattoo shall make reasonable efforts to protect personal data. Is it stringent enough?

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