Software Receommendations For Live Tv Streaming

[Mobi]

I have a pretty good, stable internet connection these days.

It's Maxnet Premier up to 2 MB's and this morning I tested and found I was getting download speeds well in excess of 2 MBs from servers in LA, San Francisco, London and Singapore. New York was a bit slower at 1.2 MB's

I have tried a number of companies on the internet that stream Live TV, mainly from the USA, but am unable to get a stable stream. The transmission keeps freezuing and is impossible to watch. This is at any time of the day or night, and on a number of different providers.

Can anyone recommend some software, or companies that can provide me with a stable stream?

I don't mind paying, if it really works.

Thanks

[jmac]

Check out cFosSpeed. It works for me. www.cfos.com

[Veazer]

Check out cFosSpeed. It works for me. www.cfos.com

CFosSpeed is a traffic shaper and is just for giving higher priority to certain traffic. If Mobi is having trouble watching streaming tv while downloading torrents it could help, but I'm going to assume he tried to stop other activities while attempting to watch tv. IMHO, it's better to do traffic shaping on the router if possible.

I think the main problem is single connections often have a speed cap well below the users max speed (either from congestion or intentially done by the isp). This is why download speeds via the browser are often relatively poor but using a download manager can let you reach full speed.

Download Accelerator Plus (see 'Video Accelerator' tab) claims to offer the ability to work like a download manager for some sites such as youtube, but it still would not work for live streaming because it is impossible to fetch data ahead since it isn't available.

P2P tv can overcome this a bit since it is utilizing multiple connections, but the channel selection is a bit limited unless you're chinese... Check out TVUPlayer if you want to see what's available.

[filingaccount]

I have tried a number of companies on the internet that stream Live TV, mainly from the USA, but am unable to get a stable stream. The transmission keeps freezuing and is impossible to watch. This is at any time of the day or night, and on a number of different providers.

There are too many variables to simply say "yeah, this works, this doesn't".

There are a few things to consider though, generally speaking.

Streaming media is time sensitive. This means that when there is an interruption (eg. packet loss) then your stream will suffer within a few seconds because you are not able to buffer the video beyond a few seconds.

It's also bandwidth sensitive. This means that when bandwidth drops for a few seconds to much lower levels than what the live stream needs, you will suffer.

On shared bandwidth, in your case 2Mbps, the maximum you can hope to achieve is 2Mbps minus overhead. If you are watching a stream near your maximum speed then you will most likely see a lot of interruptions. The less bandwidth you use the less likely you are to see interruptions in your feed. This is due to the nature of shared bandwidth, the number of users and how the general traffic pattern is managed by the ISP.

Try www.shoutcast.com and listen to the different live radio streams at different bandwidths (24 kbps up to 320 kbps) and see where your cutoff point is. I'm guessing you will notice a lot of buffering starting at 192 kbps.

Another thing to keep in mind is the source of your live stream. Is it a user shared stream (eg. justin.tv, ustream.com)? These streams generally have quite a lot of failure points between you and the origination point.

If it is a paid for stream (eg. wimbledon.org) then the most likely failure point is the 2 first examples in this post.

I would need a lot more information about the source of the stream, softwares used, equipment and so on to be able to give you a more detailed answer.

Edit: clarifications.

Edited June 25, 2009 by filingaccount

[surayu]

Try Google Chrome as a browser, it's free !

Reason for Edit: added graphic + source

http://lifehacker.com/5286869/lifehacker-s...rome-2-and-more

Edited June 25, 2009 by surayu

[Langsuan Man]

Try Internet Download Manager available here:

http://www.internetdownloadmanager.com/

They have a free trial and the software has a built in FLV grabber that will allow you to record Live TV streams

Try it and if it works then buy

[MeetJohnDoe]

If it hasn't been mentioned, be sure to set the download/file buffer size in the settings options for your viewer (flash-player or WMP or whatever media application you are using to stream) at the maximum. That might help a little. However, other than relatively small flash (You-tube, news sites) videos, speeds in Thailand are generally not fast and stable enough for video streaming. Also you can try pausing the stream for a minute or so to give it some headroom before you start your viewing.

[Mobi]

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

I've been a bit busy since I posted this query so will try out some of them early next week, all being well.

For those who asked, I have tried ATDHE, Blinko TV, TVU, TVLizer, and wwiTV.com

I get quite good results only with wwitv.com, but even that freezes occasionally.

As for what player do I use? Well all the above links provide player downloads for streaming the TV channels you can get from them.

Edited June 26, 2009 by Mobi