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DemocracyPlayer posts

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source

Democracy Player relaunches as Miro

WindowsMacLinuxby Brad Linder Jul 18th 2007

MiroOkay, we know that Democracy was supposed to be renamed Miro when it hit version 1.0. But Miro 0.9.8 is out now. Whoo hoo.

Technically, this is a technical preview of Miro. But as with most of the beta releases of Democracy, it's already a pretty full featured video aggregator/player.

While new programs like Joost and Babelgum aim to provide a peer-to-peer streaming video experience, Miro lets you find, download, and organize videos you like. When you first launch Miro, you'll see a series of popular podcasts/vlogs that you can check out, including Ask A Ninja, Diggnation, and Rocketboom. Or you can search out your own video feeds and add them to the list.

So what's new in version 0.9.8?
  • Keyboard shortcuts on all platforms (Mac, Windows, and Linux)
  • Full context menu from Windows system tray
  • Added "report a bug" menu item
  • Added Veoh.com as a search engine
  • A whole slew of bug fixes

Tags: democracy, democracy player, DemocracyPlayer, miro, online video, OnlineVideo

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source

Democracy Player 0.9.6 released (last release before 1.0!)

WindowsMacLinuxby Brad Linder Jun 6th 2007

Democracy Player 0.9.6
Democracy Player 0.9.6 is out, and the open source media player has added a host of new features for finding and watching videos on the internet or stored on your computer.

Here's some of the new features:
  • Democracy Player 0.9.6 fixes some compatibility issues with Windows Vista.
  • Folder Watch monitors selected folder on your PC. When you add videos to that folder they show up in your collection.
  • Democracy Player will save your place if you stop watching a video in the middle. Next time you watch that same video, it will pick up where it left off.
  • Mac users can now download and install updates through the client. No need to download an installer using a web browser.
  • There are also a bunch of bug fixes, memory leak fixes, and reduced memory usage.
The Democracy team is pretty much done adding new features for now, and will focus primarily on bug fixes until version 1.0 hits the streets, at which point the media player will get a new name: Miro.

Tags: democracy player, democracy player 0.9.6, DemocracyPlayer, DemocracyPlayer0.9.6, internet video, InternetVideo

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source

Democracy Player as poor man's TiVo

WindowsMacLinuxby Jordan Running Oct 4th 2006

Democracy as poor man's TiVo
Sketchy legal issues aside, I'm a big fan of the "poor-man's TiVo," i.e. downloading TV shows via BitTorrent. There are a lot of ways to automate this--many BitTorrent clients can read and filter RSS feeds, and there are even stand-alone apps dedicated to the task. Lifehacker introduces us to yet another method, using the awesome open source app Democracy. Democracy, of course, has built-in support for feeds and is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and Lifehacker's Adam Pash walks us through setting it up to find and fetch the latest episodes of our favorite shows, just in time for tonight's Lost premiere.

Tags: bittorrent, democracy, democracyplayer, download, feeds, rss, tivo, tv

Filed under: Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source

Democracy Player now better, stabler

WindowsMacLinuxby Jordan Running Jun 22nd 2006

Democracy PlayerI got a little notification in my Inbox today telling me that a new version of Democracy Player is out. Version 0.8.4.1 (note to software developers: when your version numbers start to look like IP addresses, they've gotten out of hand) is available for WIndows, Mac, or Linux. The biggest improvements to the RSS-and-BitTorrent-enabled internet TV viewer from the Participatory Culture FOundation are in the stability department, but it also comes with a few new features. In particular, Democracy now pulls double-duty as a desktop video player, allowing you to play videos from your hard drive and add them to your library. Democracy is free as in speech, so go download it already.

Tags: bittorrent, democracy, democracyplayer, dtv, linux, mac, opensource, osx, participatoryculture, pcf, rss, tv, video, windows

Filed under: Developer, Fun, Internet, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Web services, Open Source

DTV now for Windows

WindowsMacby Victor Agreda, Jr. Feb 22nd 2006

democracy player
We mentioned DTV a couple of times before, and what caught my eye wasn't another video content aggregator, it was the surrounding toolset that had been developed to fill that aggregator with usable content (more on this in a moment). DTV is now Democracy player, and there is now a Windows version. Just like the iPod had to become Windows compatible to achieve critical mass, perhaps now Democracy player will become much more popular than other aggregators. Why am I hoping this? Why such a big fan of this odd little group known as Participatory Culture? As I said earlier, it's not about the player, it's the tools to support the player. So they created a player, and it works quite well, but they also have a website for sharing your videos without the player. There's a channel guide built in to Democracy player, like the iTunes music store. But the most critical component is Broadcast Machine. While I don't see the ability to add hyper links, which I felt was a killer feature, there are all sorts of great things about it still. The most powerful is, once again, being able to easily graft video content together and publish it auto magically.

There's other stuff to love about Participatory Culture and their work: namely, their apps are GPL'ed, and they are a nonprofit, whose apparent only goal is to put the means of distributing video content on the web into the hands of as many people as possible. Note that Democracy player is not yet a full 1.0 release (it's 0.8 right now), and the Windows version lags in the features department (no rewind or full screen). Still, I love their focus, and the tools are good, so let's get to clogging up that Internet with kooky videos, shall we?

Tags: democracy player, DemocracyPlayer, dtv, participatory culture, ParticipatoryCulture

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