How PPLive Works?

Basic Operation
After a user selects a TV station from the list, which is accessed by right-clicking the PPLive icon in the Microsoft Windows system tray, the program will then connect to peers and buffer the stream. PPLive typically uses ports 8008 TCP and 4004 UDP to connect to peers. When the buffer is reasonably full, PPLive launches your media player, either RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, pointing it to read a stream from a local port (usually 8080), Closing down your Media player will not end the stream. The PPLive program will remain in the background streaming data until you close it from the tray or change the channel.

Compatibility
The PPLive program is installable on Asian and English language versions of Windows XP. By default, it uses Windows Media Player and RealPlayer. The media player that is opened depends on the type of stream.


PPlive 1.0.9.9 (PPLive Latest Version)

In the new versions of PPlive the main application is called the PPlive Engine. An icon of a blue arrow pointing down replaces the old grey 'Pp' Icon (Figure 1). Although the default language is set to English, the channels list is still in Chinese. Choosing a channel will play it in the PPlive Player (Figure 3), a stand alone player which is basically no more than a Media Player in a PPlive skin.

Figure 1


Figure 2



Figure 3


There is an added bonus to playing channels directly from the PPlive website. The streams are played in a regular Media Player window which is still the better option. Either way information about the chosen channel will appear in the PPlive Play list window (Figure 4) that can be opened by double clicking the PPlive icon in the taskbar (Figure 1).

Figure 4


If you are running a firewall on your pc you should open a couple of ports for PPlive. You can specify the ports you prefer through the PPlive option menu (Figure 4). Since it's not mentioned anywhere within the application, we assume it would be best to allow both TCP and UDP communication through these ports.

Figure 5