Realplayer from Realnetworks is one of the most popular ways of broadcasting TV over the internet, The Realplayer software web browser pluging that allows the media file to play in the browser window. Realplayer is very popular and is used by some of the worlds largest broadcasters, this is because the video streams produced the realplayer by the Real Encoders is some of the best compressed and best looking video for a relatively small amount of bandwidth.

Windows Media Player is a major player in the online media world form Microsoft. It comes pre-installed on every windows PC. Windows Media Player uses it own video and audio codecs, these are called WMV for video and WMA for audio. One of the main reasons for the players popularity with publishers is that they know that all modern PC's have got windows Media Player installed so the user will not need a to download anything to be able to watch the video. also Windows Media Player/Encoder produces good quality video streams well suited to being sent over the internet.

Quicktime is a well established media player from Apple inc, It has a large following is the professional market place for transfering and editing of Films and TV programs but has never been a huge player in the online TV arena. That being said Quicktime has a loyal following for streaming high quality not quite on demand video, such as Film trailers. the latest versions of Quicktime come with the latest MPEG 4 technology which is very efficient at realtime high quality video streaming, but being late to thee market other players such as realplayer and windows media have most of the major TV stations already covered.

Abobe's Flash player is something of the upstart in the world of streaming video on the internet. After years of use as a source of fun with online game games and a major source of annoyance because of over heavy flash website, Adobe Flash has emerged as one of the best ways of watching vide online. Although flash doesn't produce the highest quality video streams available it has major advantages over it rivals. The main advantage being that virtually every web browser on all the major operating systems have the flash plugin installed, another is that from the webmasters point of view the site is much easier to maintain and doesn't require any expensive streaming software.

Realplayer from Real Networks is one of the oldest and most established media player available for computers. Because it has been around for such along time it is well established for for Internet Broadcasting.

Windows Media Player is probably the most popular media program on the internet, as it comes pre-installed on all new PC's. Radio stations can either play in the web browser or in a stand alone player.

Winamp is one of the original computer based mp3 players. Winamp has been growing in popularity again in recent years, because of its features and its ease of use. You can use Winamp to play mp3 links that are found on the web or you can find radio stations on winamps website.

The ipod revolutionized the the portable music player market, and itunes is the software that made that all happen by allowing people to rip and transfer music from their Cd's. A much overlooked part of itunes is its ability to play music streams. itunes radio station already installed, it is also possible to get itunes to play radio stations out on the web. iTunes will play mp3 or aac files.