A lot has changed on the other hand when it comes to the client and quality of service. One change is that Zattoo is now offering a basic and high quality streaming mode. The resolution in the basic mode is 352×288 (wide screen: 480×288) with a downstream rate of 500 Kbits / second. The high quality mode streams in a resolution of 576×528 and a downstream rate of 1.2 Mbits / second. The high quality content is only available after subscribing to Zattoo which costs €2 per month or €20 per year. Not all TV channels are available in high quality on the other hand.

One of the most important changes is the web player which can be used by Zattoo users to view TV in a web browser. The interface on the web looks similar to that offered in the software client.

Another change is the tv guide that displays all available channels in a timeline view that makes it very easy to find out all shows that are currently airing. Tags and an option to change some filters make the tv guide very comfortable.

A technical preview of Zattoo 4 has just been released and provides an outlook of things to come. There seem to be some problems related to that preview version. Users who experience those should switch to the public release client instead. The desktop client is available for Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh computer systems.

The service does not offer access to all TV stations, several stations (at least in Germany) were missing. Zattoo is offering an interesting service, especially the Internet TV over the website is a great addition to their service allowing users who cannot (or do not) want to install the software client to view TV over the web.

The service used an IP check to determine whether the show could be streamed to a client. You can generally divide the services into three different types. The first is a free service for users that have a certain IP range who can view the shows on a website. The second is a subscription based service where users from selected countries can view shows and events on a website and the third is a free for all approach where everyone in the whole world is allowed to watch the shows.

The following IPTV guide is mainly useful for US citizens who currently reside in the United States. The website Daily IPTV compiled a list of “100 of the best TV channels the Internet has to offer”. The channels are divided into categories such as Sports, Movies, Television Networks and Comedy.

Especially the Sports category has some advanced looking services that offer paid access to many major sport events and leagues including NHL, MLB, Golf and Tennis. Most can only be subscribed to by US citizens but some are free for all.

Check the IPTV guide out here.

If you are looking for high rated TV shows like Lost, 24 or Prison Break you’ve come to the wrong place. I was fortunate enough to get a temporary invite for Zattoo which is live TV on your computer. This is a different and probably the better working method for now to stream TV content over the Internet. Zattoo is a European company which already has more than 300000 subscribers to their service and will soon become available in many European countries including Germany, Great Britain and France.

I was able to test an internation version of Zattoo which was able to stream all tv programs currently available. Those are the same tv stations that can be seen in Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Switzerland using a normal TV. Some of the stations that are currently available include: BBC Prime and World, Canale 5, France 2-5, ARD and ZDF and Rai Une to Tre.

Image quality of the shows is excellent, it takes a few seconds until all artifacts disappear but from that moment on it looks great. It is possible to watch the shows in fullscreen with a slightly better image quality than Joost or Bablegum offer at this moment.

Zattoo is currently preparing launches in major European countries and if they will be successful they intend to expand to the American market as well.

I personally think that Zattoo is far more complete at this stage than Joost and Bablegum are. You can actually see live TV which includes for instance sports events like Champions League, the Olympics and Formula 1. It is also a great assistance in learning new languages. What could be better to learn French than to listen to French television ?

Image quality is far superior to other known p2p Internet clients such as TVU Player. Watchout Joost, Bablegum – here comes Zattoo.