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Benjamin Higginbotham
at TechnologyEvangelist.com.

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With me I've got Nicholas once again,
from the Participatory Culture Foundation.

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Those are the guys who make Democracy Player

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Nicholas, welcome! 
>> Hey, how are you?

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>> Doing great, how about yourself?
>> .... thanks.

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>> So you guys are on the cusp of 
releasing Democracy Player 0.9.5

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This kind of rolls right off the tongue.

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Tell us a little bit
about this new release.

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>> Yep this is a big update for us

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and it's the biggest update 
that you'll see before our 1.0 comes out.

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We have a lot of important stuff in here
a lot of it is behind the scenes

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but some of this up you'll notice ///
is a redesigned interface

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It's smoother and solider /// and slicker-

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We have some nice things, like,

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for mac users it'll generate thumbnails
automatically,

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if you want to download a video
you don't have that yet for 10 minutes ///

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And that's something that we're 
definitely working on,

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there's proxy support
that are a bit torrent support

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better -- it does a better job resuming
if something gets interrupted,

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and all knowledge .... ///
a smoother and cleaner experience

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and it's a big step toward the 1.0.

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>> You know, one thing I noticed is that
as each build keeps getting released

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the system seems to use less and less RAM
and get faster and faster and faster

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in its ability to just playback files
and download files,

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because I remember working with a beta,
I think like .8 or something like that

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and it was a pretty big RAM hog.

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How are you coming on the optimization
of democracy at this point?

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>> That's definitely a big focus for us,
and as you know,

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in the past two versions we've done a lot
to reduce the .... ///,

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improve the speed and that's going to be
something that we continue to work on

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which it's not clear right now whether
we'll be doing some big changes

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before or after 1.0 but you know,
over the next six months,

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we're going to continue to see
much better performance

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of using less resources,
feeling faster and more responsive.

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So we definitely see that as important.

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>> Now you mentioned that
this is one of the -- at least I believe

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you mentioned this is
one of the final releases before 1.0

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or at least it's very close
to your road to 1.0.

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What do we have left to get to 1.0,
what can we expect in 1.0?

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>> Yeah the big thing that you expect
-- you will see in 1.0s is stability

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and we're going to be doing
a lot of bug fixing

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trying to nail down some of
the last final bugs

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that we haven't been able to fix so far.

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the biggest challenge //////

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is just being able to reproduce 
the ////// system

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where we can see it happen

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because there's so many different kinds
of setups out there

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that above not only happen you
a specific circumstances

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and that makes it hard for us
to track it down and fix it.

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Once we see it happening, you know,
we can always fix it

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and so, stability clicking about is definitely
the biggest priority.

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There's also just, you know,
a few finishing touches.

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We want to make it easier for people that use
remote controls, komatsu //// player

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something like that,
to have a few more ways

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that people can customize and interact

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with it so it's sort of it's also going

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to be clean up around the edges but I

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think it will feel like more complete

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experience one of the biggest things

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that's about to happen we're going to be

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renaming democracy player and we've

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found that a lot of people get confused

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by the name and they when they first

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hear about it they think that it only

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has content related to politic on which

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is definitely not occasion that what we

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intend to rip Anene so we feel like it's

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important for us to find in your name we

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have one that we think is going to work

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or just you know going through some

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legal stuff and we're also getting a new

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icons and website design so as part of

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that one when I process we're going to

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be launching a new name new new style

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that's like their am asking you bid to

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the final thing and what I think right

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now is probably the weakest part of the

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democracy flight experience is the

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channel that you're rewriting that from

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scratch the version you see now is based

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on distance offers us out there it

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doesn't exactly fit on what we're doing

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is starting over from scratch making it

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very fast very responsive and once we

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have a good foundation

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built we're going to be a lot of work to

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add that a rating systems find more ways

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to turn off the best content as we've

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seen the talent that you know reach

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nearly a thousand different channels

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becomes more and more important find

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amazing filtering up the best stuff so

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want to make it easier for people to

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share channels great channels and see

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what people really liked and these are

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not a subscriber stuff that looks

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exactly when the service it feels like a

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next natural extension for democracy

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player is going to get PMP supports such

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as the PlayStation Portable the video

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iPod or other small portable video

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players and I know that that's not

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currently a feature of democracy player

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at least the ability to take the videos

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that I've downloaded and push it to

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these other devices mainly because it's

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extremely complex i mean the video ipod

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is going to take a totally different

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video format than the PSP which is going

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to take a totally different video format

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then a place for sure when is a mobile

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device now is that on your road map to

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actually add and is that going to be a

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one point 0 feature or later and you

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know how are you going to deal with that

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thinking the portable devices like the

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iPad or PSP something that we definitely

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and it's not going to happen for long

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point out we feel like our mission from

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one point hours to make a solid and

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excellent desktop you can we use every

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day and really rely upon that's that's

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what we wanted to go home when they'll

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get a good foundation in touch from

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there we'd like to see democracy player

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you know be able to get as content out

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more different devices getting onto your

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TV more usually onto any portable

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devices that you're using and so we're

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going to start tapping it make some in

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stages and in may and may mean that we

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start with the ability to sync to the

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most popular devices to sync file

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formats that they already play then

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later on we add the ability to transcode

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one format into another format and so

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that you know more of your videos are

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able to play on your ipod version but

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that's you know that's definitely coming

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Nicholas last time we talked we actually

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went to you and we we talked at that

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time itunes was one version lower

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really didn't have very good video

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support since then itunes has added a

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whole new video catalog you've got shows

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downloads of episodes of television

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shows and movies and whatnot and they've

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changed the way they deal with video how

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does that compete with the moxy does it

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compete with democracy and why are you

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different or why are you better than

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itunes in that front yeah I can't judge

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made some improvements to their video

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software but you know the focus that

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they have is really on accumulating a

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collection of videos for example movies

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that you buy out the store or music

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videos we both restore accumulating sort

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of a certain kind of collection and our

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focus is more on the flow of the

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internet the flow videos that is

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becoming more and more part of people's

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online experience and I think you know

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we're really offering an experience that

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that's very different to those way

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beyond the approach that itunes think so

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you know the channel model that we have

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really let you handle watch the videos

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coming in you know seeing seeing what's

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on a variety of channels organizing them

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in different ways and I think you know

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we still have them beads in terms of

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video experience you know from a

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publisher standpoint I think the big

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differentiator between democracy and

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itunes is torrent support I can directly

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download a torrent video file and as I'm

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publishing my high-definition 1080p

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videos which we do the bandwidth has

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taken off of me and so now I no longer

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have to pay for the full distribution of

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the file maybe a little bit now and I

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think that's really one of the big

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powerful features of democracy and you

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know you guys get kudos for that for

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having that from the beginning I mean

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that's that's really what makes you guys

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different and stand out from the rest of

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crowd yeah i think that the BitTorrent

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support that we have is definitely

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something that you know I to you know

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can't compete with and we also have a

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lot more flexibility on video form you

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know both on mac and windows now where

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is the play flash video files which is

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the most popular ominous video files are

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a lot bigger variety of

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then you could call you itunes and

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Windows Media Player or anything else is

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out there that has would be a video

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organizers will do down well Nicholas

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it's a great product and we always enjoy

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chatting with you and I hope you'll come

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back soon when you release version 1

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point 0 whatever it will be called at

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that point thank you so much that you

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have a great day I believe you come back