A new British video service, Livestation, will use P2P technology developed by Microsoft's Cambridge lab to deliver what it promises will be broadcast-quality live television over the Internet. Livestation went into private beta this week and delivers live video on Microsoft's Silverlight platform. Silverlight also works on mobile telephones so will enable direct "broadcasts" to handsets.
According to a blog by the Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, Don Dodge, the picture quality is "delivered with extraordinary quality and crispness. The video is like watching a DVD on your PC ... no jerky motion, no buffering ... it is just like watching live TV."
Dodge writes that LiveStation is built on two research technologies, Pastry and SplitStream, from Microsoft's Cambridge Research Lab. He said Pastry is a type of P2P system called a 'distributed hash table,' which makes it easier for computers to find and store information, and to organize themselves for collaborative tasks. Splitstream is an application built on top of Pastry which allows real-time streams such as live video to be robustly distributed peer-to-peer.
For more:
- Livestation open for private beta Site
- LiveStation and Silverlight deliver Live TV to your PC Blog
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