Get Democracy

For anyone who's loving the whole YouTube and podcast phenomenon that's currently revolutionizing the way we consume entertainemnt products and from whom we get them... if you haven't heard of democracy (the video player) go right now and check it out.
http://www.getdemocracy.com/

Democracy is more than just your average media player. It is a TV platform for the internet age.

When you first get it you will see a few sample channels in your subscriptions one of which is the channel channel. (previews of some of the other channels) Once you are done looking at those move into the channels pane and find some channels that really interest you. My current favorite is PixelPerfect with Bert Monroy. (from Revision3.com, the guys who used to do the Screen Savers on the old Tech TV channel in the old fashioned Cable and Satellite universe.)

Some of these are StandardDef, some are HighDef. (Pixel Perfect is a good HD example. ) Whether a show is low def or high def usually has more to do with budget and whether it is suitable for HD treatment (will the viewers gain some value from the bigger download) not based on advertising revenue. (of which there still isn't much in the new IPTV world. )

Democracy doesn't stop with the channels though (which use a combination of podcast and bittorrent technologies) it also extends to making You Tube and Google video (as well as a few others) more useful too. You can search these video sites from right inside Democracy and then download (yes I said download, as in you get a copy that you can keep or burn to a DVD to watch on an oldfashioned TV) your favorite videos and get this, the quality is better than if you went to YouTube to watch it and there's no animated banner ads for Home Depot to deal with.

Oh, and worry not, Democracy is Free and OpenSource and available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Mac users get a bonus in that if it is running in your Dock you get a little green button added to the icon to tell you how many new videos it has downloaded for you.