Zattoo

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Zattoo Player
Image:Zattoo logo.png
Developer(s) University of Michigan and Zattoo Inc.
Operating system Cross-platform
Type Internet Television
License Proprietary
Website www.zattoo.com

Zattoo is a proprietary peer-to-peer Internet Protocol Television system ("P2PTV") with current focus on European channels, licensed content, and Digital Rights Management. It is developed by researchers and programmers based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with corporate offices in Ann Arbor and Zurich. The player is based on H.264, and is Mac OS X, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista compatible. It needs a minimum downstream bandwidth of 1 Mbit/s (2 Mbit/s for HiQ channels) on the client side.

Contents

[edit] History

This section requires expansion.

Zattoo was first tried out with Swiss free-to-air channels coinciding with the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Starting from 4 Swiss TV channels (SF 1, SF 2, TSR 1 and TSI 1), it now offers 82 free-to-air or free-to-view TV channels in Switzerland. According to the website, other channels will be added in the future.[1]

On April 20, 2007, Zattoo launched in Denmark with 10 channels and started piloting in the United Kingdom.[2]

On October 4, 2007, Zattoo reached 1 million registered users in Europe.[3][4]

Zattoo has been available in Spain since June 10, 2007.[5][6]

Zattoo has been available in Belgium since September 27, 2007.[7]

Zattoo has been available in France since January 16, 2008.[8]

On August 5, 2008, Zattoo asked its Spanish users for a 2.40€ charge by SMS in order to continue with the service during August and September.[9]

In March 2009, Zattoo removed its services from Belgium in an attempt to keep its costs down.[10] Despite this removal of services from Belgium, Zattoo would return if a suitable marketing partner.[11]

In May 2009, Lawyers for Universal and Warner Bros instigated legal proceedings against Zattoo claiming that the Swiss website - which rebroadcasts a number of television stations live online - is adding advertising to films that are shown on German TV via its peer-to-peer online service. .[12]

In June 2009, UK country manager Alex Guest, has left Zattoo to launch his own forthcoming TV site TVPixie.com Guest is also joined on this project by another former Zattoo product management and business development employee Alex Manalov.[13]

[edit] Availability

The service is currently restricted to Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Norway, United Kingdom and France, but is expected to expand to other European countries, (with Austria and Poland being at the top of that list[14]) then to Canada and the U.S. while adding fee-based channels to its list. It is also designed to only allow specific audiences to watch specific channels, thanks to geolocation of the IP address assigned to the user's computer (hence the restriction to a few countries for the time being). This restriction prevents, in theory, British users from watching French channels. While BBC World is available to Swiss IP addresses, it is not available to British ones.

[edit] List of Channels

Main article: List of channels on Zattoo

[edit] Linux Client

 This article contains too much jargon and may need simplification or further explanation. Please discuss this issue on the talk page, and/or remove or explain jargon terms used in the article. Editing help is available. (June 2009)

As of June 2009, there is no more Linux client. Zattoo claims the following on their website,

We’re sorry, but the linux version of the Zattoo player is no longer available for download. Our engineers are working hard on a browser-based version of Zattoo, which should be available soon.[15]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Coming Soon". http://www.zattoo.com/comingsoon. Retrieved on 2007-06-08. 
  2. ^ "Zattoo launches in DK and pilots in UK". http://zattooblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/1-million-users/. Retrieved on 2007-12-02. 
  3. ^ "1 million users!!!!!". http://zattooblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/1-million-users/. Retrieved on 2007-12-02. 
  4. ^ "… and here’s Ann Arbor celebrating the big moment". http://zattooblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/and-heres-ann-arbor-celebrating-the-big-moment/. Retrieved on 2007-12-02. 
  5. ^ "Take the bull by the antennae". http://zattooblog.wordpress.com/2007/06/19/take-the-bull-by-the-antennae/. Retrieved on 2007-06-19. 
  6. ^ "Zattoo launches in Spain (in english)". http://www.iptv-watch.co.uk/20072007-zattoo-launches-in-spain.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-08. 
  7. ^ "Belgium - You’re next!". http://zattoo.com/nl/blog/2007/09/belgium-you%2526amp%3B%25238217%3Bre-next%21/. Retrieved on 2008-05-08. 
  8. ^ "[http://zattooblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/carla-for-nicolas-zattoo-for-the-rest-of-france Carla for Nicolas, Zattoo for the rest of France]". http://zattooblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/carla-for-nicolas-zattoo-for-the-rest-of-france. Retrieved on 2008-01-20. 
  9. ^ "One coffee for Zattoo (in spanish)". http://zattoo.com/es/blog/2008/08/. Retrieved on 2008-08-13. 
  10. ^ "Live-Streaming TV Platform Zattoo Stops Belgian Service (in english)". http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-live-streaming-tv-site-zattoo-stops-belgian-service/. Retrieved on 2009-05-26. 
  11. ^ "Zattoo to leave Belgium (in english)". http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/?p=14810. Retrieved on 2009-06-08. 
  12. ^ "Hollywood launches action against European TV website (in english)". http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/20/television-zattoo. Retrieved on 2009-05-20. 
  13. ^ "Zattoo UK Manager Alex Guest Launches TV Start-Up (in english)". http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-industry-moves-zattoo-uk-manager-alex-guest-launches-tv-start-up/. Retrieved on 2009-05-20. 
  14. ^ "Happy Birthday Zattoo". http://zattooblog.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/happy-birthday-zattoo/. Retrieved on 2007-06-08. 
  15. ^ [1]

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zattoo"
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