There's a new version of Democracy Player, the free and open source Internet TV program that can play any video format and that's as easy to use as a TV.
Democracy is produced by the Participatory Culture Foundation, the same activists behind Downhill Battle (remember the Christmas when they sent a lump of coal to the RIAA for every $100 donated to EFF?). They're now registered as a charity, taking donations to pay programmers to improve the user-interface behind Democracy.
Democracy is made by combining the popular open source program VLC with a free RSS reader and a free BitTorrent client — so you can subscribe to any channel of video and it will be pulled down cooperatively with all the other subscribers, and played right there regardless of the video format.
The new version plays on Windows, MacOS and Linux, and, while still in beta, is far more stable and robust. If you want to live on the edge, you can also sign up to test the next version.
(Disclosure: I am a proud member of the Participatory Culture Foundation's Board of Directors)
