Participatory Culture Foundation

Press Contacts

Holmes Wilson
Co-Director
hw[at]ppolitics.org
508-963-5645

General Inquiries
508-756-7496

Coming Soon :: DTV :: Free, Open Source Internet TV

June 14th, 2005 -- Coming soon: DTV, the free, open source internet video player from the Participatory Culture Foundation.

Combined with Broadcast Machine, the bittorrent video publisher released last month, it will soon be easy and affordable for anyone to create a TV channel online.

"This is how internet TV will get done -- with free, easy-to-use tools that allow anyone to create their own TV channel," says Tiffiniy Cheng, co-director of the Participatory Culture Foundation.

"We're already seeing an explosion of video content online," says Cheng. "DTV will make it even easier and more affordable to deliver high-quality video online with the same impact as television."

This new, open source video platform has been praised by early adopters on high-profile websites:

On June 6th, Slashdot featured an interview by leading videoblogger Steve Garfield with the PCF's Holmes Wilson about Broadcast Machine.

On May 24th, the popular blog BoingBoing praised the official release of Broadcast Machine.

On May 22nd, the pioneering blogger Jason Kottke wrote, "Broadcast Machine is the best interface to BitTorrent I've ever seen."

Organizations from a variety of backgrounds are planning to take advantage of Broadcast Machine and DTV as a way to publish video online and engage their communities:

Current TV, the new independent cable TV network launched by Al Gore, plans to use DTV to publish video content submitted by viewers and citizen journalists.

The Washington D.C.-based cable access TV show Pancake Mountain plans to use DTV to publish educational programming for children and reach a larger audience over the internet.

The labor union SEIU plans to use DTV to publish video footage that documents contemporary life for working families.

... and thousands of other organizations, videobloggers, independent filmmakers, musicians, journalists, and more.

The non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation is working to cover both sides of the internet TV equation with software tools that will promote independent voices and provide an alternative to commercial television.

Broadcast Machine, released last month, is the easy-to-use video publishing software that uses bittorrent technology to virtually eliminate bandwidth costs for hosting video. Using Broadcast Machine is just as easy as using blogging software.

DTV, coming soon, is the desktop video player (embedding the open-source video player VLC) that brings internet video to the fullscreen. Users subscribe to channels (RSS feeds) and receive high-quality video that they manage like TiVo channels -- no more buffering, streaming, or poor quality video. Web browsers simply weren't made to show high-quality video, but DTV will give viewers a TV-like experience watching video online.

For more information please visit: www.participatoryculture.org

To view previous blog & press coverage of the PCF video platform, please visit: http://vmserver.participatoryculture.org/press

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