Democracy, who bill themselves as a free, open source, Internet TV platform, is now available for PC and Mac beta testing with planned support for Linux. The combination video player, publisher, and aggregator seems to be getting a decent amount of attention, but I’m not quite sold. I already have free software which handles video podcasts, home videos, and movie trailers just fine. And let us not forget there’s a reason why VH1 calls it Web Junk. Democracy’s biggest hook is that it will allow people to publish or retrieve BitTorrent content in an automated fashion… which is how folks will pick up what they really want: television shows and movies. So, what’s the over/under (in weeks) before the studios conclude Democracy sounds a lot like Piracy?
If you’re wondering what video formats are supported, the Windows player is powered by VLC and the Mac’s by QuickTime.
Democracy says: “The days of waiting for internet video to buffer and watching it in a tiny box are over,” says Participatory Culture Foundation co-founder Nicholas Reville. “With Democracy, internet video is ready to play when you want to watch it, like TiVo, and it fills the entire screen.” Democracy builds on cutting edge RSS, Firefox, and BitTorrent technology to empower anyone to watch, share, broadcast and download video over the internet in a way that enables higher digital resolution, full screen video playback, continuous non-buffered play, and an open standards environment free of adware or spyware — a much more TV-like experience than traditional web video, and with far more diversity and freedom than traditional TV.
I like the idea, now if they could just partner up with TiVo to provide the same type of features through an actual TV!