Zattoo V.S. Filmon

Zattoo is an Internet Television system. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan and in Zurich, Switzerland. You can watch TV shows on computer, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The screen size for channels is 352×288, or wide screen 480×288. The rate speed of streaming movies are up to 500 kBps. If you select high quality, the resolution is 576×528 and the download speed is about 1.2 MBps. In opposition to the standard channels, the high quality possess the video codec H.264. Filmon has many channels streaming movies and live TV available in both standard definition and HD.

Zattoo was originally created to broadcast live the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

In 2007, Zattoo launched in Denmark with only 10 channels and started in the United Kingdom. Then in 2007, they reached one million registered users in Europe. It has been available in Spain since 10 June 2007. Zattoo has been available in France since 16 January 2008. Filmon is based largly in the US and has a strong UK and european audience.

In Late 2008, Zattoo asked its Spanish users for a €2.40 charge during August and September.

In March 2009, they removed its services from Belgium in an attempt to reduce it's costs . Despite the removal of it's service from Belgium, Zattoo indicated it may return if it found the right partner in the business market.

Lawsuits were brought against Zattoo In 2009.

Lawyers for Universal and Warner Bros. instigated legal action against them claiming that the Swiss website had which rebroadcasted a number of television stations live online and, while doing so, has added advertising on top of films that are already shown on German TV via its online distibution service.

Later in June 2009, Zattoo dropped it's Linux version.

No official reason was provided for dropping this version of the video streaming application. Also in June of 2009, UK manager Alex Guest, left the company to launch TV Pixie.

However in February of 2010, a newer Linux version of the Zattoo streaming movie client has been re-introduced, but as before, in the Deb file format only. In April 2010, they caved to pressure from the BBC and dropped all the BBC channels from their UK channel list. By comarison, Filmon still broadcasts BBC. In June 2010, they dropped ITV1, Channel 4 and Five from their United Kingdom channels list, which leavs absoultly none of the main UK channels. Filmon has UK and many worldwide channels enjoyed by it's international audience.

Zattoo is currently very restricted. It is closed to Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Norway United Kingdom and France, but was expected to expand to other European countries, such as Austria and Poland then on to Canada and the US while throwing in fee-based channels to its lineup. It is also designed to only allow geo-specific audiences to watch specific channels. The IP address assigned to the user's computer regarding location meaning they are able to restrict the streaming live TV to a few countries for the time being.

In December of 2009, the Audiovisual Media Services Directive regarding watching live and streaming TV online from other EU countries came into power. This does not affect them very much or other P2PTV providers at all, since the directive changes just the jurisdiction where a country does not allow the reception of an outside TV channel due to different laws. The reason why P2PTV streaming channels are not allowed all over the EU is because the TV channel, itself, will not allow it due the licensing restrictions of the TV shows.