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Unlike standard television broadcasting, there are a limited number of viewers that an Internet television station can accommodate. These limitations are determined by the amount of bandwidth the network media server has available. A popular Internet television station would require large amounts of bandwidth to provide the broadcast to a large viewing audience.

There are readily available software-based broadcasting alternatives that do not require large amounts of bandwidth for Internet television distribution.

Peer to Peer (commonly referred to as P2P) broadcasting allows viewers using specialized software to re-distribute the media broadcasts. This eliminates the need to utilize costly centralized media servers to distribute the broadcast. Any size business or group can establish an effective media broadcast presence without the huge costs normally associated with Internet broadcasting. Only a small amount of bandwidth is required for a global Internet broadcast distribution using this method.

P2P Internet broadcasting provides bandwidth friendly results for low bit rate content (content that is encoded at low speed) and can support a virtually unlimited number of users. This method also provides effective security against Denial Of Service (DOS) attacks which can cripple a centralized server network architecture.

The streaming rate of a P2P broadcast is limited by the overall network bandwidth capacity. Most Internet Service Providers have generally placed a cap on the maximum upload capacity of high speed internet subscribers. Networks such as this are a frame work of various upload and download bandwidth capabilities. Exceeding the networks overall average bandwidth causes the video broadcast to degrade in quality of service. A typical P2P stream should not exceed 128 kbs.

Network congestion or individual relays ( P2P clients ) departing the network can also cause instability of a broadcast stream. Low bandwidth broadcasts such as audio broadcasts generally do not suffer as much from this anomaly as do higher bandwidth video streams. This problem can be partially alleviated by increasing the stream buffer size within the media player.

There are both commercial and non commercial options that offer P2P broadcast ability for Internet television.

This article will cover free open source software.

Open source is an initiative that allows people to have access to the source code of software. This is the actual nuts and bolts that allow the software to operate. This initiative also allows people the ability to redistribute and or modify the source code thus allowing improvements and adaptations of the software. [www.opensource.org]

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

The software was originally designed to use Gnutella as a basis for broadcast distribution. The software now uses a hierarchical topology for media broadcast distribution. Hierarchical topology (also called Tree Networking) directs data to flow from a point of origin to individual clients. These individual clients allow additional clients to request access to that data flow through them (the individual client). Each additional client within the network will then act as a data relay to others. This new method provides greater scalability and more data organization.

Broadcast station data is collected by the YP directory. This data is continuously updated by individual broadcasters. Listeners / viewers (client software) provide the connection points between themselves, the broadcasters and others.

Each broadcaster has the option of including a digital signature to enable media broadcast authentication. This will prevent their broadcasts from being hijacked and replaced with alternative material.

The following video codecs are supported by Peercast: VP3, VP6, Theora and WMV. Codecs are software programs that allow media to be digitally encoded or decoded using a specific compression architecture. Peercast can also be used for audio broadcasting and can be configured to use several audio codecs. The software can be used to broadcast individual media files or entire playlists of media files as well.

Hardware network routers use Network Address Translation to provide internal IP addresses for computers within a Local Area Network. Traffic flowing through NAT must be converted from internal IP addresses to external IP addresses. P2P traffic routing through NAT usually requires software port forwarding to function properly. Peercast is NAT friendly software 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 Peercast station.

The Peercast network provides a real time online station directory of current broadcasters. [yp.peercast.org]

The main Peercast client must be installed to broadcast using this P2P network.

Additional resources

Peercast Plug-In Information : [www.scvi.net/stream/peerplug.htm]

How to broadcast video with Peercast : [www.scvi.net/stream/peervideo.htm]

Peercast Frequently Asked Questions : [www.peercast.org/wiki/wakka.php?wakka=FrequentlyAskedQuestions]

Peercast Help : [www.peercast.org/help.php]

Peercast Community Forum : [www.peercast.org/forum]

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

This software can source media for broadcasting using several Open Source software applications. These include Jroar, Icecast, Flumotion, EzStream and the Video Lan Client.

The software has a internal audio and video player that supports both the Ogg Vorbis open source audio codec, and the Theora open source video codec. The inclusion of the internal media player allows the software to function without the need of downloading or installing any additional media codecs.

FreeCast can be configured to use the Java Web Start feature for automatically loading and launching the application. This enables a “one click” approach for web based end users.

Each broadcaster has the option of including a digital signature to enable media broadcast authentication. This will prevent their broadcasts from being hijacked and replaced with alternative material.

This software uses a hierarchal 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.

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

The Web Start FreeCast GUI player can be customized with the broadcaster logo and colors. This can allow the software to be integrated with the individual broadcaster’s web site.

FreeCast maintains a directory of stations located here [www.freecast.org/listen]

Additional resources:

FreeCast : [www.freecast.org]

Theora : [www.theora.org]

Ogg Vorbis : [www.vorbis.com]

IceCast : [www.icecast.org]

JRoar : [www.jcraft.com/jroar]

Flumotion : [www.flumotion.net]

Video Lan Client : [www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/streaming-howto-en.html]

Ezstream : [www.icecast.org/ezstream.php]