Recently I have discovered a practical service, that offers watching a number of television channels via internet. After a short registration process at zattoo.com there are different versions of the basic-software for download supporting either Windows, Windows Vista, Mac or Linux. After installation and registration, a window showing the chosen program appears and another one displaying available channels. Sometimes the screen needs some time to build up but all in all I am really satisfied with the result. One should also not forget that this is still a beta-version and a free service moreover.

Some time ago I have seen Joost (HP, Wikipedia) which is another service for internet-television, but comparing them I indeed prefer Zattoo. It offers several news-channels live and uses a small software that can easily be run with other programs. Joost does not support live-television but on-demand-content only and also inlcludes resource-intensive extras like a chat-tool. As somebody who doesn`t own a television set I appreciate the possibility of having news from CNN, Al Jazeera or France 24 in the background during computer-work.

Overview of the channels featured in Zattoo
Channel (Genre – Language)
Comedy Central (Comedy – German)
Das Vierte (Entertainment – German)
DMAX (Entertainment – German)
DSF (Sports – German)
Entertainment Channel (Entertainment – German)
Giga (Entertainment – German)
MTV (Music – German)
Nick (Cartoons – German)
Tier TV (Special Interest – German)
TV Gusto (Special Interest – German)
VIVA (Music – German)
Al Jazeera (Information – English)
Canal 24 Horas (News – Spanish)
CNN International (News – English)
France 24 (News – English)
luxe.tv (Special Interest – English)
SF Info (News – Divers.)
sumo.tv (Entertainment – English)
Telezüri (General – Swiss German)
The Poker Channel (Special Interest – English)
TVE Internacional (General – Spanish)