Democracy Player final beta is out: next stop, Miro Player!

Democracy Player just shipped its last beta version before its 1.0 launch and its re-branding as "Miro" — a much better name! Democracy is the free and open media player that comes with Bittorrent and video podcast support, so you can install it, pick some channels, and get watching. It plays practically every video format under the sun, can scrape YouTube, and generally rocks the hell out. There are versions for GNU/Linux, MacOS and Windows.

I'm a proud member of the Board of Directors for the nonprofit, 501(c)3 charity that oversees Democracy Player, the Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF also has a couple complementary projects: VideoBomb, a Digg-like site for rating video, and Broadcast Machine, for making your own Internet TV). PCF has just scored a couple gigantic funding wins: $100,000 from the Mozilla Foundation and second place in the Netsquared conference competition, which comes with a $25,000 grant. They use to money to pay professional programmers to contribute more code to the free players.

The Foundation was started by the same people who gave us the copyfighting guerrilla group Downhill Battle, and Democracy/Miro shows the same admirable verve and energy. And the new version is just so cool.

1. Can't play a video? Try us.
Play virtually any video– Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID, and more. Browse your collection, make playlists, stay organized.

2. Get Internet TV Shows
Subscribe to any video RSS feed, podcast, or video blog. Explore over 1,000 free channels with the built-in Channel Guide.

3. Search YouTube
Download and save videos from YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and other sites.

4. High Definition and Fullscreen
Your computer screen is a high-def display. Watch free HD videos in gorgeous fullscreen.

5. BitTorrent Animal
Easily download any BitTorrent file. Fast. Then watch it in the same app. Simple.

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(Thanks, Nicholas!)