The advantage of EyeTV is that it frees you from TV schedules - it's a bit like turning your Mac into a TiVo. You can find and track all the programming you want to see and watch it whenever you want. You can also pause live television, skip commercials and record your favorite shows onto you Mac hard drive.

This Elgato EyeTV for Mac update includes a setup wizard which allows you to setup and configure EyeTV with a range of different hardware. The latest update to Eye TV for Mac includes improved support for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Improved EyeTV Sharing, Retina support for the player window and added support for EyeTV Micro.

Be warned that many users have reported instability problems with previous versions of EyeTV for Mac such as interrupted recordings, "no signal found" error messages and other minor glitches.

EyeTV is a powerful tool to record, watch and manage TV shows on your Mac.

Download EyeTV Update 3.5.6 in Softonic

It's not often that you get a user-friendly broadcasting application that's good enough for professional use, but that's exactly what Wirecast offers.

Wirecast is a simple-to-use broadcasting environment that's ideal for producing professional webcasts on a relatively cheap budget. Wirecast allows you to use one or two live/recorded video sources and mix them all together as if you were in a TV mixing studio. You can connect external devices to read video, although some users have reported this can be temperamental because some cameras may not be supported.

The Mac version of Wirecast previously suffered poor support of formats such as Flash and WMV, but the latest version has addressed these issues to give you the possibility of broadcasting the widest possible range of footage. Most interestingly however, Wirecast now supports streaming for any iPhone so you can set yourself up as a broadcaster on the move.

Wirecast allows you to add sliding transitions between feeds, and video sources can be cropped less than one minute before airing. There are some technical issues to be aware of. Many users have reported on forums that the source material paths and capture devices are remembered with a project, so Wirecast is not very flexible when sources are changed or material is renamed/moved. In addition, only a small number of characters for each shot name are displayed, which makes it difficult to distinguish between dozens of similar shots for pre-recorded material. However, in the case of such problems, users report that feedback from the program's developer has been prompt and helpful.

Wirecast is a user-friendly yet highly professional tool for creating webcasts that are sure to impress.

Download Wirecast Studio 4.1.4 in Softonic

After registering for a Zattoo account online and installing the client, you'll get an overview of the available TV stations in your locality. When you click on a channel, you have to sit through a 10-15 second advert which is a bit annoying but after that, the streaming is uninterrupted. Streaming is very stable and image quality is very good.

Zattoo also has a TV Guide which helps you plan your viewing schedule and see what's up and coming and you can search for specific channels. There are very few features or options beyond that, however. There are no quality settings and no way to change the language of the interface either which is a bit annoying. There's also no way to make recordings of programs in Zattoo, which would be useful.

If you don't have a TV at home or want to watch local TV on the move, Zattoo is an excellent solution.

Download Zattoo 4.0.5 in Softonic

After installing the program, setting it up to work with your UPnP device is a snap. It detected our test device (a Sony PlayStation 3) instantly and immediately allowed us to start viewing content on our TV set, a much better installation experience than we had with some of the other options in this category of software.

EyeConnect offers a fairly simple, clean-cut preference pane for managing its features. Most features can't be adjusted while the server is running, so you'll need to stop it while you play around with the settings. All the obvious options are there, such as the port to send your traffic through, a list of recognised UPnP devices (from which you can allow or deny individual entries), and a section where you can choose which folders may be shared with your network device.

More interesting are the available options for enabling and disabling certain plugins for the server. Some of these allow for easy folder browsing, maintaining the structure of your iTunes library on your networked device etc, but others allow for on-the-fly transcoding of certain file types. The program only includes two transcoding plugins (and we haven't yet been able to find any more), but this is a really interesting feature which could well extend the functionality of your UPnP device.

EyeConnect is a simple media server which is a snap to install and even easier to use. Highly recommended as an option for extending your digital life. Essential software for Mac and PS3 owners.

Download EyeConnect 1.6.7 in Softonic

Veetle is a project of Stanford University that brings you hundreds of TV channels to your browser - no external application is required.

The good news is that many of Veetle's channels are useful (especially for sports fans) and the streaming quality is stable and high quality. The media player looks slick and refined and it loads incredibly quickly. You can watch CNN, Fox News and other custom made channels by users such as News 24/7 and lots of Japanese cartoon channels.

You can view Veetle channels by most viewed, most discussed and top rated and all of these inevitably mean sports channels - either football or golf. You can view any channel in full screen mode simply by double clicking on the screen or using the expander button at the base of the screen. Unfortunately, you can't chat with other users viewing the channels although there is a lively forum.

Veetle is an excellent innovation that brings quality TV viewing directly to your browser. It could do with a more organized way of listing channels and schedules but it's a very good start.

Download Veetle 0.9.15 Beta in Softonic

It seems that everyone is slowly starting to realise that the future of video broadcasting lies online rather than inside a television.
Following the success of Joost, Babelgum and VeohTV, Adobe decided to get in on the act with the release of the Adobe Media Player.
The philosophy of the software giant is that if you use a browser to navigate web pages, why shouldn't you use one to view multimedia too?
The result is basically a version of Joost as seen through the eyes of Adobe.
Now out of beta release, the app provides an interesting and immersive way of watching videos online. Navigation is very smooth and feels natural and there are a number of features and services that make it easier to eyeball TV more effectively.
For instance, you can create a list of favorites, and keywords add ratings to Flash video, build playlists and use the Dashboard-style interface to check out the latest episodes of your top shows.
You can also now subscribe to RSS feeds that tell you when new episodes are online.
Content is king though, of course, and version 1. 1 of Adobe Media Player adds a lot more episodes and channels from a broad range of genres.
At the time of writing, Adobe estimates that there are around 25,000 episodes available through its media player. Adobe has even partnered with Sony Pictures to offer some movies through the service, such as Jerry Maguire and Men in Black.
I was also impressed by the speed and quality of the videos.
One of my main qualms with Adobe Media Player though, is that many of the episodes are not available outside the USA.
Fine if you live there, of course, but for those of us in other lands it's so frustrating to see a show you want to watch only to discover it's not available (of course, you don't find this out until after an advert has played in the player).

Glossing over the unavailability of some programs and channels, Adobe Media Player is making all the right strides to becoming the best place to watch TV online.

Download Adobe Media Player 1.6 in Softonic