Welcome to the future of television, one that could render the CRTC obsolete and is soon to have television executives everywhere scratching there heads, wondering how much their acquired broadcast rights are actually worth.

Watching television on your computers is nothing new. For years stations have been streaming their content over the web. By now the choices are staggering. Still, much of the on-line content is of little interest to the average surfer, consisting mostly of news casts or c-span type coverage. So, unless you really want to know what is going on in the German Parliament or have an affinity for the latest music videos from Serbia, the fare on offer is not too tantalizing.

Should any one station or program become too popular, the quality of the feed quickly becomes an issue. For reasons of cost, bandwidth is usually limited. Streams, therefore, are often broadcast at a low bitrate, affecting the size of the viewing window as well as resulting in a picture quality that ranges from the abysmal to the barely acceptable. In case of high demand, the streams often simply cut out, as anyone who attempted to watch the opening ceremonies from Athens last year found out.

Real-time P2P television, for the most part, circumvents most of these pitfalls. Based on similar technology as the popular Bittorrent file-share software,  the TV viewer becomes part of a network , acting simultaneously as receiver and broadcaster. Unlike the traditional  Client-Server-Architecture used to stream most of the live content being watched today, live P2P TV signals don’t degrade but rather strengthen with each additional viewer.

While companies such as the BBC are already utilizing P2P technology to distribute previously broadcasted content, it is China and Korea who are leading the way in live P2P TV broadcasts.

Although a number of companies have entered the fray, there are a few who have become more prominent then others. PPStream , for example, comes with its own player. The user simply has to click on a channel listed in the menu, which will then come online within a minute or two.

Other companies, including Soapcast choose to invoke external applications, such as the Windows Media Player, once a connection as been established. The user still gets to choose what channel to watch, but will have to wait for the external player to pop up and start to buffer the channel – which  can take a few minutes – before  being able to watch the program.

Early adaptors of this technology are found amongst sports fans, especially those following European soccer .  Since many live games are never broadcast here in Nova Scotia, for example, the use of live P2P TV technology allows local fans to follow matches that they otherwise would never have been able to watch.

At this stage, there are still too many difficulties associated with the various programs to cause a serious threat to the traditional TV providers. Prolonged buffering, somewhat complicate installation procedures, not to mention the need to orient oneself on Chinese or Korean web-sites with the help of a translation tool, make it a daunting task for the casual Web user. More importantly, with the exception of a few English language channels, most of the available programming is from China and Taiwan .

Still, this situation will likely change quickly. The German company Cybertelly , for example, is in the process of rolling out their own version of live P2P TV. Since, by using their software, any user can broadcast any TV signal  to the rest of the world, the company was quickly dragged into court by a German Pay-per-View company, who anticipated economic damages similar to those experienced by the music industry in recent years. For now, the matter is still in front of the judges but, according to statements on their web-site, the project should leave the Beta stage as soon as the courts are satisfied that necessary filters are in place.

The live P2P revolution , however, keeps rolling on regardless of what the German courts decide. New and better versions of existing software are appearing on an almost a weekly basis. Some recent releases already include technology similar to the one that got Cybertelly into legal trouble. Soapcast, for example, allows users to broadcast their own channels – which usually consist of local TV signals – to others on the network. Greek and Italian language TV feeds along with some porn are now commonly found on the company’s user-created channel list.

So, while this Saturday thousands worldwide will gather around their computers to watch Manchester United play Portsmouth (with Cantonese commentary) , it is quite plausible that in a short while, Albanians will be regaled with the latest episode of Corner Gas only seconds after we Canadians get to enjoy it.