teh intarwebs peeveearr

February 22, 2006 9:09 PM

Democracy Player. Watch internet videos like you watch TV. Cool trick to it, whichever OS you are on (OS X or Windows for now, *nix coming soon) the homepage will load the appropriate download link. Built in channel guide gives you access to tons of interesting content, and lets anyone share their vids.
posted by gren (35 comments total)

The Swedish Chef in: "Frog Legs" was the first thing I caught on this (from the del.icio.us/representordie/system:media:video channel)...this is definitely going to develop into an amazingly cool project fast.
posted by gren at 9:14 PM on February 22, 2006

Pretty neat stuff. Thanks.
posted by fenriq at 9:32 PM on February 22, 2006

If you subscribe to a Feedburner-ized feed from TVRss into Democracy, you get amazing results. I'm now subscribed to The Daily Show. Woot.
posted by slhack3r at 9:34 PM on February 22, 2006

slhack3r, how does one go about doing such a thing?
posted by stenseng at 9:37 PM on February 22, 2006

Searching for 'the.daily.show' at TVRss gives you a link to this RSS feed:

http://tvrss.net/search/?source=all&name=the.daily.show&mode=rss

Get a Feedburner Account, and enter the above URL into the Burn a feed right this instant box on your Feedburner page, making sure to check the "I am a podcaster!" box, then click Next. Click Next one more time.

Click "Add Channel" in Democracy. Copy and paste the Feedburner URL into this box (should start with feeds.feedburner.com).

Bittorrent Enclosures + RSS Feeds = crazy delicious (and the future of video distribution)
posted by slhack3r at 9:45 PM on February 22, 2006

This looks to be a very well done open-source project. Much better than I expected.
posted by D.C. at 9:54 PM on February 22, 2006

oh. freakin'. wow.

thanks. That=awesome.
posted by stenseng at 9:55 PM on February 22, 2006

Yep. I've been meaning to write it up on the ye olde blogge. Democracy is a bit a of processor hog when downloading torrents, but hey, let it go overnight and you've got some new shows in the morning. Great stuff.
posted by slhack3r at 9:59 PM on February 22, 2006

good god slhack3r, its as if my television has finally been pawned by my computer. The day has come.
posted by thisisdrew at 9:59 PM on February 22, 2006

Gawd. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for those poor schmucks stuck with Windows machines. This is awesomeness.
posted by spock at 10:03 PM on February 22, 2006

Watch TV over the internet: so 1990s.

RSS Feeds for bittorents: Kind of intresting.
posted by delmoi at 10:05 PM on February 22, 2006

Okay, now I understand the promise, thanks slhack3r. Nice dot to dot!
posted by fenriq at 10:06 PM on February 22, 2006

"Gawd. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for those poor schmucks stuck with Windows machines."

what.
posted by stenseng at 10:06 PM on February 22, 2006

OK. I now see that it is available on Windows too, but my sentiment remains.
posted by spock at 10:07 PM on February 22, 2006

When's the XBMC version out then?
posted by pompomtom at 10:09 PM on February 22, 2006

Yeah. I'm pretty bummed with my 64bit processor, gig and a half of ram, and 1.2 terabyte raid array. Gee. I should have bought teh mac insteads.
posted by stenseng at 10:09 PM on February 22, 2006

posted by stenseng at 10:13 PM on February 22, 2006

The Mac version also has a nice feature that Windows version doesn’t have yet: pause, fast forward, rewind controls when you’re in fullscreen mode. It looks really nice.
posted by spock at 10:17 PM on February 22, 2006

If it runs Windows, you have a right to be bummed.
posted by spock at 10:18 PM on February 22, 2006

Hahaha, stenseng's still on 64-bit, dude, my new Mac is on 256-bit and shoots frickin' lasers. And farts roses and and and and
posted by fenriq at 10:19 PM on February 22, 2006

By the way, nice timing, spock.
posted by fenriq at 10:19 PM on February 22, 2006

Still nothing on.
posted by HTuttle at 10:32 PM on February 22, 2006

Having a 64 bit machine will let you use more then 4 gigs of memory, which will be useful even for running 32 bit programs. Although the poster only has 1.5 gigs of ram total. I suppose you could use more virtual memory. Actually, 64 bit windows still uses only 32 bit integers, and only uses 64 bits for pointers.
posted by delmoi at 10:39 PM on February 22, 2006

spock,


"If it runs Windows, you have a right to be bummed."

you're right having access to timely codec releases is a real bitch, and having access to sli gfx cards again a real bitch, being able to play games on release date equally bitchy, not having to harp about how sweet my product is because i paid too much for it fucking priceless.

also i checked this out and decided it was kind of lame, no support for google video or you tube? wtf is that noise. I already have all of my rss set ups for the shows i be watching, and azureus has a web interface mmmm tastay... also vlc player == crap in comparison to K-Lite codec pack, i'll probably check it out again in a month or so, but in the mean time color me unimpressed.
posted by sourbrew at 10:42 PM on February 22, 2006

Having a 64 bit machine will let you use more then 4 gigs of memory, which will be useful even for running 32 bit programs. Although the poster only has 1.5 gigs of ram total. I suppose you could use more virtual memory. Actually, 64 bit windows still uses only 32 bit integers, and only uses 64 bits for pointers.


To be honest, I'm still running 32 bit windows anyway...=) XP 64 is a bit like the jock kid that can run really fast and bench 500lbs, but can't quite figure out how the milk carton works.

I'm also a happy mac mini owner. It makes a dandy livingroom mediacenter pc. Loves that frontrow =)
posted by stenseng at 10:42 PM on February 22, 2006

Yeah, thanks slhack3r for pointing out what I meant to say in the post itself...

Please please please please anyone post more .torrent RSS feeds...I'll add a bunch later. Right now I gotta shutdown for some casemodding (its 75ºF out right now and only gonna get hotter as summer moves in in FL) so extra fans are in order (that is, more fans in the right places...adding a 3rd 120mm panaflo to the front and an 80mm panaflo to the window).
posted by gren at 10:59 PM on February 22, 2006

As a side note to the 64 bit crowd. 64 bit Ubuntu linux has come a long way, but the codecs, and java VM aren't there yet.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:19 PM on February 22, 2006

Is there any reason why every TV show couldnt automatically be recorded, encoded + bitorrent wraped, and added to RSS through some distributed group project right now today?

In other words, a complete internet bypass of cable TV?

Or is that crazy talk.
posted by stbalbach at 11:34 PM on February 22, 2006

yeah, I wondered about that too, stbalbach. take your replaytv or tivo and feed it into bittorrent with a perl script or something. it doesn't sound too hard. on the other hand, all you'd get out of it is tv, so why bother?

democracy (the app) is really nicely done, though I suspect the novelty will wear off soon anyway..
posted by hattifattener at 11:49 PM on February 22, 2006

That's pretty much what some of the major priacy rings seem to do. Even the names of the files seem automatically generated with the codec and stuff shoved in obnoxiously. I think all that people still do is tell them when the commericals start and end.

If it were made legal tomorrow, I'm postive we'd see internet TV in a week. In 6 months we'd start to see 10Mb/s broadband becoming common. In two years we'd all have fibre into our homes.
posted by joegester at 1:23 AM on February 23, 2006

TorrentSpy has some good feeds....here is the TV Show RSS
posted by gren at 4:38 PM on February 23, 2006

hrm, so it seems just any old RSS feed doesn't actually work...it has to be done their way...real shame that is :(
posted by gren at 4:45 PM on February 23, 2006

Right. Why can't I turn this lovely Hogan's Heroes feed into acceptable RSS through Feedburner when the Daily Show one worked just as slhack3r said?
posted by yerfatma at 5:00 PM on February 23, 2006

How to Subscribe to TV Shows Using The Democracy Player, Bittorrent, & RSS
posted by crunchland at 6:48 PM on February 23, 2006

Thank you crunchland for completing this post ;¬)
posted by gren at 9:39 AM on February 24, 2006