Cybersky-TV
is a free software application for sharing television streams.
It allows users with a broadband internet connection to share
the TV channels they are able to receive. TV channels can be
shared irrespective of the means of reception, be it by cable,
terrestrial or by satellite, be it analog or digital, as long
as there's a way of getting the signal to your pc. You can watch
incoming channels in almost real time. There will be a constant
delay of about 5 to 10 seconds.
How
does it work?
Internet
television has been around for quite a few years. All sorts
of parties are offering it. It could be a paid service in combination
with your internet/cable subscription, for example. It could
be a service by the TV station, either free of paid for. Almost
without exception getting the signal to the viewer involves
a traditional client/server architecture: the client computer
asks for a signal and the server computer sends a data stream
containing the signal to the client. The signal provider needs
to send every user an individual stream. When broadcasting live
over the internet providers are literally sending thousands
of times identical streams from their servers to the viewers'
computers. It's an obvious waste of bandwidth (and therefore
money) for the provider's server in particular, and for the
whole internet infrastructure as a whole.
With
peer-to-peer (P2P) technology data can be distributed in a far
more cost-effective manner. Cybersky-TV uses this P2P approach.
For this the ByteTornado protocol was created. Similar to existing
P2P protocols such a eDonkey, BitTorrent, Gnutella and Kazaa,
ByteTornado is sharing data delivery workloads across connected
client systems as well as the distributor's own server infrastructure.
This way it drastically decreases the operational costs for
a stream provider.
What
do I need to watch Cybersky-TV streams?
All
you need is a broadband connection, the Cybersky-TV software
and the appropriate codec to decode the data stream. And a PC
of course. Your broadband connection should have a download
speed of at least 400kbit/sec, which is rather common these
days. Slower connections work as well, but the quality may suffer.
For watching, firewalls, NAT routers and unsufficient upload
speed are no problem. Read the Watchers' FAQ for more details.
What
do I need to share TV streams?
Apart
from the above mentioned Cybersky-TV software and broadband
connection you'll need to have a way to provide a video signal:
an analog or digital tv-card, or if you decide to operate your
own TV-station a webcam and/or video content on your hard drive
or on DVD. Your broadband connection should have an upload speed
of at least 400kbit/sec. Read the Broadcasting FAQ for more
details.
In
what sense is it better than regular TV?
It's
free (no spyware, no adware, no dials, no malware). There's
an unlimited number of channels. Channels are available worldwide.
There is no server capacity limit for broadcasters. You can
watch without a TV (e.g. in the office).
Are
there any drawbacks?
Videotext
and close caption are not supported. If you want to watch on
your TV, you need to connect it to your PC (this can be done
quite easily). If your internet connection suffers from traffic
problems, Cybersky-TV will too.
Is
this bad news for TV stations?
On
the contrary. It's TV as it has always been, just distributed
differently. Making TV has always been a costly affair, particularly
the distribution of it to the viewers. This now changes thanks
to Cybersky-TV. Whether this is bad news for any particular
TV station, depends on their own perspective. Fact is, whether
Cybersky-TV will be a success or not, that peer-to-peer technology
is going to change the way live TV content arrives to the viewers.
This means risks as well as opportunities for everyone.
