As the world of P2P TV continues its expansion, new kid on the block is TV Ants. The increasing unreliability of its Chinese cousin PPLive means that increasing numbers of users are changing to this simple but highly effective alternative.

The installation is fortunately pretty simple as everything is in Japanese – it’s simply a case of clicking on “Ok” a few times and away you go. The channel list appears in a simple window and you can reveal more by clicking “Renew”. The channel list is a bizarre mix of Japanese, public and private channels. If you want to find out how American troops keep up their morale in Iraq, check out “TV Pentagon” (the US army’s official channel) or if you’re looking for something a bit more scenic, there’s “TV Canada Tourism”.

Streaming is steady once it gets going and image quality is as good as anything you’ll get on PPLive. There are literally hundreds of channels to choose from although most are obviously of little interest to English viewers. The program is actually a project of Zhejiang University hence the plethora of mainly Asian channels. Its popularity lies in the fact that like most P2P TV apps, the channels broadcast live European football much to the chagrin of the The Premiership, La Liga, Sky Sports,etc.

Other channels include music, movies, news and fashion, mostly from Asian sources. Most of this can be found on Shanghai TV, Gungdong TV and Goal TV. Schedules can be found on various P2P forums around the net such as Free Football and you’ll certainly need them to get the most out of TV Ants.