0:00:00.000,0:00:04.400 Benjamin Higginbotham[br]with TechnologyEvangelist.com. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 With me, I've got Nicholas once again,[br]from a Participatory Culture Foundation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Those are the guys who make [br]"Democracy Player". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -Nicholas, welcome![br]-Hi, how are ya? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Doing great, how about yourself? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Brilliant, thanks. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, you guys are on the cusp of[br]releasing Democracy Player 0.9.5, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it just kinda rolls right off the tongue. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Tell us a bit about this new release. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, this is a big update for us, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's the biggest update you'll see before[br]our 1.0 comes out. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We have a lot of important stuff in here,[br]a lot of it's behind the scenes, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but some of the stuff you'll notice[br]is a redesigned interface, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's smoother and simpler and slicker. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We have some nice things like[br]the MAC users, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it will generate thumbnails automatically. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you want to download a video and[br]don't have that yet for Windows or Linux, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that's something that [br]we're definitely working on. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's proxy support,[br]better BitTorrent support. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It does a better job resuming downloads[br]if something gets interrupted. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And all in all, I just think it's a[br]smoother and cleaner experience, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it's a big step towards[br]the update coming out. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, one thing I noticed is that as[br]each build keeps getting released, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the system seems to use less and less[br]RAM, and get faster and faster and faster 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in its ability to playback files[br]and download files. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 'Cause I remember working with the beta,[br]I think it was 0.8 or something like that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it was a pretty big RAM hog. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 How are you coming on with the[br]optimisation of Democracy at this point? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's definitely a big focus for us as [br]you know with the past few versions 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we've done a lot to reduce the number use,[br]improve the speed and that's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 going to be something[br]that we continue to work on. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's not clear right now whether we will[br]be doing some big changes before 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or after 1.0, but, you know, over the next[br]6 months we're going to continue to see 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 much better performance, but using less[br]resources, feeling faster more responsive. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, we have to see that as important. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You mentioned that this is one, at least[br]I believe you mentioned, that this is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one of the final releases before 1.0,[br]or at very least, before your road to 1.0. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What do we have left to get to 1.0?[br]What can we expect in 1.0? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The big thing that you'll see in 1.0 is[br]stability and we'll be doing a lot of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bug fixing, trying to nail down some of [br]the last final bugs that we haven't been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 able to fix so far. The biggest challenge[br]on our end for that is just being able to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reproduce the bugs; finding a system[br]where we can see it happen because there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are so many different kinds of setups out[br]there that a bug may only happen in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those specific circumstances, and that[br]makes it hard for us to track it down 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and fix it. Once we see it happening, you[br]know, we can always fix it, and so 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 stability, fixing bugs is definitely the[br]biggest priority. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's also just a few finishing[br]touches - we wanna make easier for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people to use remote controls with[br]Democracy Player if they have something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like that. I have a few more ways that[br]people can customise and interact with it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so it's mostly gonna be cleanup around[br]the edges, but I think it'll feel 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a more complete experience. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the biggest things that's about to[br]happen is we're going to be renaming 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Democracy Player and we've found a lot[br]of people get confused by the name and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when they first hear about it they think[br]that it only has content related to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 politics on it, which is definitely not[br]the case and not what we intended with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the name, so we feel like it's important[br]for us to find a new name. We have one 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that we think is gonna work, we're just[br]going through some legal stuff and we're 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 obviously getting a new icon and[br]website design so as part of that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 1.0 process we're gonna be launching a [br]new name, new style for the player and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that's gonna be big too. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But the final thing, and what I think is[br]the weakest part of the Democracy Player 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 experience is the channel guide; we're[br]rewriting that from scratch. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The version you see now is based on some[br]existing software that is out there and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doesn't exactly meet our needs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So what we're doing is starting over from[br]scratch, making something very fast, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 very responsive and once we have a [br]good foundation built 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we're going to be doing a lot of work to[br]add a rating system, find more ways to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trickle off the best content. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 As we've seen the channel guides reach[br]nearly a thousand different channels, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it becomes more and more important for us[br]to find ways of filtering the best stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we wanna make it easier for people to[br]share channels, rate channels, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and see what people really like and not[br]just subscribe to stuff that looks 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 attractive on the surface or on the guide. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It feels like the next natural extension[br]for Democracy Player's gonna get is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 PNP support such as PlayStation portable,[br]the video iPod or other small portable 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 video players and I know that's not [br]currently a feature of Democracy Player, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at least the ability to take the video's[br]that I've downloaded and push it to these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 other devices, mainly because it's[br]extremely complex. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The video iPod is going to take a totally[br]different video format than the PSP which 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is going to take a totally different[br]format than a Place4sure mobile device. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Is that on your roadmap to add, and is[br]that gonna be a 1.0 feature or later? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And how are you gonna deal with that? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, syncing portable devices like that[br]is definitely something we wanna do. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's not gonna happen for 1.0. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We feel like our mission for 1.0 is to[br]make a solid and excellent desktop app 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you can use every day[br]and really rely upon. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's what we wanna do for 1.0; [br]get a good foundation in place. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 From there we'd like to see[br]Democracy Player be able to get us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 content out on more different devices,[br]get it onto your TV more easily, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on any portable devices that you're using. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So we're going to start tackling that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It may come in stages and it may [br]mean that we start with the ability to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sync to the most powerful devices to sync[br]file formats that they already play. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then, later on, we add the ability to[br]transfer from one format into another, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so more of your videos are able to [br]play under iPod, for example. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's definitely coming for us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nicholas, last time we talked, we actually[br]went to you and that time, iTunes was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one version lower and it didn't have[br]video support. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Since then, iTunes has added a whole new[br]video catalog, you have episodes of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 shows and movies and whatnot, and they've [br]changed the way they deal with video. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 How does that compete with Democracy?[br]Does it compete with Democracy? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And why are you better and different[br]than iTunes on that front? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, iTunes has made some improvements[br]to the video software but the focus they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have is really on accumulating [br]a collection of videos, for example, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 movies that you buy off of the store,[br]music videos that you buy off the store, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and accumulating a [br]certain kind of collection. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Our focus is more on [br]the flow of the internet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The flow of videos that is becoming[br]more and more a part of peoples' 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 online experience. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think we're really offering[br]an experience that's very different and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 goes way beyond the approach [br]that iTunes pitched. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The channel model that we have really[br]lets you handle lots of videos coming in. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Seeing what's on a variety of channels,[br]organising it in very different ways and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think we still have them beat[br]in terms of video experience.