Peer to Peer Internet Video Broadcasting

Unlike standard television broadcasting, there are a limited number of viewers of Internet TV stations can accommodate. These limitations are determined by the amount of bandwidth of the media server network has available. A popular Internet television station that require large amounts of bandwidth to provide the transmission to a public display of large dimensions.

Peer to Peer (commonly referred to as P2P) broadcasting allows viewers using specialized software to redistribute multimedia transmissions. This eliminates the need to use expensive centralized servers to distribute the transmission of the media and results in cost savings for the consumption of bandwidth.

Companies of any size or group can establish an effective broadcast media presence without the huge costs normally associated with Internet broadcasting. Using this method, just a few streams of data are needed for a global distribution of Internet delivery.

Internet broadcasting P2P provides results extremely friendly and bandwidth can support a virtually unlimited number of users. This method also provides effective security against Denial of Service (DOS) attacks that can cripple a centralized server network architecture.

There are both commercial and non commercial options that offer transmission capacity for television P2P Internet.

This article will cover free open source software.

Open source is an initiative that allows people to have access to software source code. This is actually the nuts and bolts that allow the software to operate. This initiative also allows people the opportunity to redistribute and or modify the source code allowing improvements and adaptations of the software.

Peercast

Peercast broadcast media is a P2P application that is available for Windows, Unix and Mac operating systems and 'compatible with Shoutcast, Icecast and Windows Media streaming protocols.

The software was originally designed to use Gnutella as a basis for the distribution transmission. The software now uses a hierarchical topology for media broadcast distribution. This new method provides greater scalability and more data organization.

Station data are collected by the YP directory. These data are continuously updated by individual broadcasters. Listeners / viewers (client software) provide the connection points between them, broadcasters and others.

Each issuer has the option to include a digital signature to authenticate the transmission medium. This will prevent their broadcasts being hijacked and replaced with alternative material.

Video codecs are supported by Peercast: VP3, VP6, Theora and WMV. Can also be used for audio transmission and can be configured to use different audio codecs. The software can be used to broadcast individual static media files as well.

Router network hardware to use Network Address Translation to provide internal IP addresses for computers within that network. The traffic that passes through the NAT must be converted from internal IP addresses to external IP addresses. P2P traffic routing through NAT usually requires software port forwarding to bypass NAT. Peercast is a software NAT friendly and requires no special port forwarding.

A plug-in is available for the popular Winamp media player. (Winamp versions 2.x and 5.x) This can be installed and used by clients to easily receive a station Peercast.

The network Peercast provides a real time online station directory of current broadcasters. (Http :/ / yp.peercast.org)

The customer Peercast main must be installed to transmit using this P2P network.

FreeCast

FreeCast P2P is a broadcast application Java. Users must install the Java Runtime Environment, which is available for Windows, Unix and Mac operating systems and 'compatible with the Icecast streaming protocol.

The software has an internal audio and video player applet that can play both the Ogg Vorbis open source audio codec and the Theora open source video codec. It can also be configured to use the Java Web Start for automatic loading and launching. This approach allows "one click" for end users based on the web.

Each issuer has the option to include a digital signature to authenticate the transmission medium. This will prevent their broadcasts being hijacked and replaced with alternative material.

FreeCast uses a hierarchical method of media broadcast distribution. Each broadcaster acts as a central node with listeners / viewers receiving data from them and relaying to other listeners / viewers.

JRoar and Icecast streaming media server software can be used with FreeCast. In addition, Ezstream can be used with both JRoar and Icecast to source both Ogg Vorbis and Theora. This software utility is a command line and is available for Windows and Unix operating systems.

FreeCast is continuing the development of software that will allow its spread across networks that interact with network routers that use Network Address Translation (NAT). Port forwarding is currently required to accommodate NAT routers.

A real time station directory is currently not available or supported .......