Livestation launches beta of TV streaming service

by Brad Linder Feb 17th 2008

Livestation is a new streaming television service from Skinkers, a British startup with support from Microsoft. While the service is still an invite-only beta, the company widened its beta this week with a promise to send out invites to pretty much anybody who signs up for one at the Livestation web site.

So what exactly does Livestation offer? Unlike streaming video services such as Joost and Babelgum, which offer on-demand videos, Livestation serves up live streams from channels you've heard of, like the BBC. While that might sound pretty exciting, keep in mind, the software is in beta and there aren't a ton of content partners just yet. While we often poke fun at Joost for its lack of content, you're much more likely to find something worth watching on Joost than Livestation right now.

Currently Livestation offers up just a handful of television and radio news channels. What you get is based on where you live. For example, if you're in the UK you can watch BBC News 24, but if you're in the US you'll have to make due with the BBC World Service and Channel 4 radio streams, Al-Jazeera in English, and France 24.

But what Livestation lacks in content it makes up for with efficiency. The video quality is fairly decent, and there's virtually no buffering if you've got a high speed internet connection. There are no fancy controls like you find in Joost or Babelgum. Livestation isn't meant to replace your television set. It's just a simple way to watch streaming TV content without a web browser.

If you're a news junkie or if you're interested in checking out the player, you might want to pop on over to the LiveStation web site. If not, you might want to wait until the company signs a few more content deals.

Currently Livestation is available for Windows XP and Vista only, but a mac version is in the works as is support for "other platforms."

Tags: livestation, online-video, streaming-video, television

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Chip said 10:48AM on 2-17-2008

I just got access to Livestation and i love it. Very good quality especially on the "busier" channels like bloomberg with all the moving graphics

Ken Murphy said 12:31PM on 2-17-2008

Very nifty indeed.

terry peddycord said 11:44PM on 2-17-2008

i like the service better than any i have seen

Ross said 9:15AM on 2-18-2008

I'm on the beta too and it's quite impressive.

My only disappointment so far is that we don't get BBC World on Livestation in the US. I hope it's coming and BBC haven't signed an exclusive deal with someone like Real Networks which is about the only place to get it now.

Jamus said 9:40AM on 2-18-2008

Let me guess, another chance for Microsoft Silverlight to rush in and save the cross-platform day? I guess it is better than Real, but sheeeeesh I do not like their tactics when it comes to Silverlight.

rothgar said 11:34AM on 2-18-2008

I got the beta and it seemed that live station was interfering (or keeping tabs on) some of my other programs. I use pitaschio on startup but after installing live station I couldn't kill pitaschio to updated it. Live station had locked the process and was using it...why? I don't know. But either way I had to use unlocker to kill live station and I am not sure what else it possibly was keeping tabs on. Since then, live station is off my machine! I will stick to joost.

LOC said 11:57AM on 2-20-2008

I don't quite get it, I'm in the beta as well for Livestation.

I only have the "News" channels, and only 5 of them (2 of which are radio stations) I've searched their website support pages, and so far nada. Anyone else have this issue, or know why I'm stuck with 5 news channels?

LOC said 12:09PM on 2-20-2008

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters