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Filed under: Audio, Multimedia, Video, Internet Tools

BBC does the right thing: will support Macs with iPlayer

A while back we posted about a bit of an uproar that arose when it seemed that the BBC was going to roll out a Windows-only online TV offering. Well the BBC suits have apparently responded to numerous complaints and today they announced that their "iPlayer [service] will be re-engineered to work with Macs." Of course they couldn't do this without a little bit of snarkiness, with BBC New Media boss Ashley Highfield saying that Apple's "proprietary and closed framework for digital rights management gives us headaches [but] it is one of our top priorities to re-engineer our proposed BBC iPlayer service to work on Macs." Further, it will still be on Windows first, with Mac support only coming later. Nonetheless, UK Mac users should count themselves lucky, and kudos to the BBC for at least allowing themselves to be pressured into doing the right thing.

Thanks to Chris and everyone else who sent this in!

Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Video, Beta Beat

Ars' First Look at Joost



We recently mentioned that the Joost IPTV streaming video service had released an Intel Mac compatible beta version of their client. Now Ars Technica has put up a First Look and it looks pretty darn cool. While there are still some rough edges to be ironed out with text and performance, Ars reports that "the Mac client is a near replica of the Windows client" and "provided a good Mac experience, with no real navigational or functionality problems to speak of." This sort of thing is exactly what makes the Intel transition so great. It's hard to imagine that we'd be getting nearly as many of these sorts of things on the Mac were we still on PPC. It's unfortunate that owners of PPC Macs are shut out, but perhaps they can console themselves with the thought that now they have yet another good reason to upgrade! Unfortunately, the Joost service is still closed to new users (though you can register for an invite). I've been waiting for a while, but reports like this make me that much more eager to get one so I try it out for myself.

Filed under: Beta Beat

Beta Beat: Joost 0.8 for Mac

Remember Joost, aka the Vienna Vilnius Vegemite Venice Project? It's the new free streaming TV service from the guys who brought you Skype. And the new Mac beta just went live. Joost for Mac Intel 0.8 is available for all Joost beta testers and it works great. Smooth playback, nearly identical interface to the Windows version. It's still limited to the same very narrow streaming content (National Geographic, some reality shows, music videos, etc), but hopefully this will grow over time. You can apply for the beta over at the Joost site or track down someone with a beta token to share with you. Just FYI, I have not received any tokens.

Filed under: Video, Internet Tools, Beta Beat

Beta Beat: We all missed the Joost Mac Alpha--but stay tuned

For a very brief time today, Joost opened up to Mac Alpha seeding. They filled their download quota within minutes. Joost nèe "The ViennaVenice[1] Project", if you're not familiar with it, offers high quality free online streaming video channels. It's from the people who brought us Skype and it's fast, clean and watchable. The good news is that next week the "final proper public beta" goes live for OS X users, although I believe it will be limited to Intel CPUs.

Keep checking in at the Joost site, and if you're one of the lucky 200 who got in early let us know in the comments how it's going.

[1] A famous European city that starts with "V"

Filed under: Software, Video

Democracy 0.9.2

I am a fan of Democracy, the video podcast client from Participatory Culture which is free and open source. That is why I am more than happy to recommend everyone upgrade to version 0.9.2 of the beta. I am assured that many bugs are squashed, less memory is used, and the UI is snappier.

I am not a fan, however, of no release notes. What's up with that? I can't find a single place on Democracy's website that lists all the changes in this version. That's not cool.

Filed under: Audio, Software, Video, Internet Tools

Democracy Player goes Intel (not quite Universal)

The Democracy Player is a cross-platform internet television viewer (or IPTV, for buzzword-compliance) that boasts over 500 built-in channels for your endless entertainment pleasure. It takes a bit of a different approach to internet television with support for a wide variety of aggregation services, including BitTorrent, and a full-blown channel guide.

The player was recently updated to version 0.8.5 for all platforms, and there is now an Intel version of the app available - not to be confused with Universal. Their Mac OS X download page offers two separate downloads for PPC and Intel versions, stating that a Universal version is pending.

Democracy Player is donationware and available from getdemocracy.com.

Tip of the Day

To get an instant map to any address, just go to your Address Book and right click on the address field of any one of your contacts and select "Map Of." The address will then be revealed in Google Maps on Safari. You can do the same if a data detector determines there is an address in an e-mail in Mail.


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