P2PTV refers to peer-to-peer (P2P) software applications designed to redistribute video streams in real time on a P2P network; the distributed video streams are typically TV channels from all over the world but may also come from other sources. The draw to these applications is significant because they have the potential to make any TV channel globally available by any individual feeding the stream into the network where each peer joining to watch the video is a relay to other peer viewers, allowing a scalable distribution among a large audience with no incremental cost for the source.

A content delivery network, or content distribution network (CDN), is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end users. CDNs came into existence in the late 1990s as a means for alleviating the performance bottlenecks of the Internet, even as the Internet was starting to become a mission-critical medium for people and enterprises. Since then, CDNs have grown to serve a large portion of the Internet content today, including web objects, downloadable objects, applications, live streaming media, on-demand streaming media, and social media sites.

Inview Technology is a UK-based digital TV software company. It specialises in advanced EPGs, interactive broadcast, IP services and solutions for Pay-TV and analogue switch off markets. Their OTT TV platform allows television broadcast and internet content to be simultaneously accessible to the viewer. The company is based in Northwich, Cheshire, UK and is privately owned.

PPS.tv (PPStream) is a Chinese peer-to-peer streaming video network software. Since the target users are on the Chinese mainland, there is no official English version, and the vast majority of channels are from East Asia, mostly Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. Programmes vary from Chinese movies to Japanese anime, sports channels, as well as popular American TV and films.

Spoon is an social digital audio live streaming service. It is developed by Spoon Radio Inc., a South Korea-based company with a US-Office located in San Francisco, CA. It allows users to listen to streamers and even start their own live streams using their smartphones.

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. The verb to stream refers to the process of delivering or obtaining media in this manner. Streaming refers to the delivery method of the medium, rather than the medium itself. Distinguishing delivery method from the media distributed applies specifically to telecommunications networks, as most of the delivery systems are either inherently streaming or inherently non-streaming. There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet. For example, users whose Internet connection lacks sufficient bandwidth may experience stops, lags, or slow buffering of the content. And users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream certain content.
A TV gateway is a television headend to a network UPnP router that receives live digital video broadcast (DVB) MPEG transport streams (channels) from terrestrial aerials, satellite dishes, or cable feeds and converts them into IP streams for distribution over an IP network.