Why TVUPlayer has taken so long to reach the Mac is anyone's guess but after more than a couple of years being available on Windows, one of the best P2P TV apps is finally here.
What I've always liked about TVUPlayer is the number of channels available, the fact that it's in English (unlike some P2P efforts), and that the streaming is generally reliable. All these plus points apply to the Mac version, although it would have been nice to have seen them give it a bit of a more Mac OS-style look.
Using TVUPlayer is extremely simple. You have a list of channels down the left-hand side and categories across the top. Click on a category and then a channel. A buffer bar in the bottom of the interface shows you how much time remains until the image will be streaming. Usually a channel takes no more than a few seconds to stream which is a definite improvement on previous versions. The quality of the channels available is one of the outstanding features of TVUPlayer, and it includes the likes of CNN, Sky Sports News, and BBC World. Finally, now you can add favorite channels to a list like in the Windows version.
The latest release of TVUPlayer has seen some much improved interface and usability enhancements. Now all of the channels feature a flag next to them so you can see which country they're from. At the top of the channel list, you can also filter channels by language. Most importantly, however, a very handy search function has been integrated enabling you to search by topic. So for example, 'Soccer' will return a snapshot of channels that are broadcasting soccer games. You'll be able to see from the snapshots whether the channel is broadcasting what you're looking for. You can even search by tags. Equally impressive is a new TV Guide menu - you can select most channels available on TVUPlayer and immediately see what's on - something seriously lacking in other P2P efforts.
Finally, as with Sopcast, you can broadcast your own channels on TVUPlayer, although in my mind, this isn't as obvious as with the former. You'll have to check the developer website to find out how to do this though as nothing indicates this on the main interface itself.
TVUPlayer is one of the best P2P TV streaming apps available for Mac and the latest improvements mean it can finally be compared on an equal footing with Windows version.
