I was recently told about Livestation which is a player where you can get worldwide TV channels on your computer. That is Windows, MacOSX and Linux.

I think their description covers most of what it is all about:

The Livestation player offers the highest quality viewing and listening experience over broadband

The world’s leading TV channels

There are two types of channels you can watch on the Livestation player, our partner channels and those added by other Livestation viewers.

Partner channels: available in high quality, our partner channels currently include Al Jazeera English, BBC World News, Bloomberg Television, Deutsche Welle, euronews (English, French, Italian and Spanish), France 24 in French and English, Russia Today, BBC World Service radio and Deutsche Welle radio in German and English.

Add your own channels: Livestation also enables viewers to add any web streams to their own personal Livestation player. A Livestation viewer, Bernard Maltais, created this excellent tutorial. These channels may not have the same picture quality as the Livestation partner channels, and, because they are not being streamed by us, they won’t benefit from the features listed above, but they do offer added personal choice.

User-generated rating & alert system: What’s Hot & Chat

What’s Hot enables you to let others know about the content that interests you, with the click of the mouse, as you watch live TV. When you see or hear something interesting being broadcast on the player, you can hit the What’s Hot button and add your comments. If others are buzzing about the same content, the item will rise to the top of the What’s Hot buzz rankings, enabling everyone to see what is popular and, if they like it, to tune in.

What’s Hot desktop alerts will be added soon so that you can stay up-to-date about topics that interest you. You will be able to set alerts to notify you when a What’s Hot buzz hits a particular level. You can also chat in real time with others who have created or followed the What’s Hot buzz.

All in one player

The Livestation player enables you to navigate, search and add all your favourite channels, see what other viewers are buzzing about in the What’s Hot section (and add your own buzzes), set up alerts from your favourite news channels (that will be delivered to your desktop) and Chat to other users.

Interactivity

Livestation streams partner channels content in a way that guarantees the most satisfying and stimulating user experience. The interactive overlay offers up to the minute information and links for those who want to find out more about what they are watching or listening to.

Customised viewing

The Livestation player can be adjusted to any size to enable you to multi task as you watch and listen. You can also set it to run in full screen.

Channel hopping

The Livestation channel carousel is just one of the many ways of moving from channel to channel (but it’s our favourite one). Another  tutorial by Livestation viewer Bernard Maltais demonstrates how this works. A drop down list beneath the player also offers the available choice of channels including a search function to help you find new channels added by our viewers.

Technical superiority

The partner channels are streamed through Livestation’s  unique technology and offers:

• Near zero buffering
• Increased stability
• Higher availability
• Higher bit rate
• Smoother streaming.

How to use Livestation

We have two video tutorials on the site, one created by a Livestation viewer, Bernard  Maltais ,and another featuring our CEO Mateo Berlucchi

Livestation website

I have this on my desktop and the biggest problem I find is that whilst it is running in the corner of my screen (usually tuned to a well known news channel) I find that I spend too much time watching the news when I should be working ).

So, I keep it up but running on the task bar i.e. not on top all the time, and just check it out at intervals.

Having said all that I find it excellent and I like it. It’s the best I have seen so far and can only get better.

And very easy to use – and of course, it is free.

PS. ITN has just been added as a partner channel.