DTV is a free application that turns your computer into an internet TV video player. This release is still a beta version, which means that there are some bugs-- it will get smoother and have more features in future versions. This beta version of DTV is available for Mac OS X , with a Windows version coming soon (and a Linux version soon as well).
Mac OS X 10.3 or higher and QuickTime version 7, which you should be able to get through Software Update. Soon, Windows & Linux versions.
We decided to put out the Mac Beta of DTV because it was ready first and we wanted to get the ball rolling. When the Windows version is ready, we will do a full launch with all the user support and information that you expect to see in a full launch. At that time, we'll also be renaming DTV.
Before the end of the year, we believe. We have a working alpha version and are closing to finishing it up. You can sign up for our e-mail list on the bottom of our homepage to get updates about the Windows version release and to be notified when it's ready. Most of our code is cross-platform, which means improvements to the Mac version also come along with the Windows version.
Right now, the Mac version of DTV uses Quicktime 7 to play video. Anything that plays in Quicktime will play in this Mac beta version of DTV. This includes MPEG, MP4, MOV, H264, and others.
We strongly believe that format wars among corporations have been a huge stumbling block to advancing internet video. The best way out of the format wars is to support as many formats as possible -- and users shouldn't have to think about formats at all. We will be gradually adding support soon for AVIs, Flash, Real, and Windows Media.
In terms of open source, patent-unencumbered codecs like Theora, our goal is to support them as soon as we can, and -- once open source media players and publishing tools get a bit more solid and commonplace-- to nudge publishers to use them.
Our source code is licensed under the GPL and is available at our development center.
Open standards like RSS and Bittorrent mean that our technology is open for everyone to read and implement. Future versions of DTV will embed the open-source video player VLC.
Broadcast Machine is our open source publishing tool for videos. It walks you through making a DTV-compatible channel out of your videos. To use Broadcast Machine you need to have a website to install it on. You don't need bandwidth capacity, however, because Broadcast Machine helps you share files with BitTorrent (which makes publishing videos virtually free) or publish files that are hosted in free archival libraries like the Internet Archive. You can find out more about Broadcast Machine and upload the tool to your website here. Please see our Broadcast Machine help FAQ. For additional help, please e-mail: feedback(at)ppolitics.org.
The Participatory Culture Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in January 2005. We're based in Worcester, MA, but many of us are based elsewhere. There are nine full-time staff, and many volunteers. Our funding currently comes from private philanthropists and we'll soon be asking users for their support as well. Our mission is to build software and websites to create an independent, creative, engaging, and meritocratic TV system for millions of people around the world.
For technical questions, please check out the rest of this FAQ and our user forums, and if your question is still unanswered, then contact us at feedback(at)pculture.org.
For press, please contact us at feedback(at)pculture.org.
We love hearing general feedback -- for example, features that you'd like to see in DTV, or suggestions for the user interface. Write us anytime at feedback(at)pculture.org.
We're working to fix all the bugs that we know about in DTV and are releasing new versions regularly. We hope you'll come along for the ride. In the meantime, feel free to browse the existing bugs or submit a new bug on our bug tracker.
Clicking on the download link saves a .dmg (disk image) to your desktop. Double click on that to open it, if it doesn't open automatically. Drag the DTV icon into your applications folder and wait for it to copy over, then open the applications folder and double-click the DTV icon.
If you're upgrading DTV, just 'replace' your existing version and your Channel subscriptions and video collections will remain.
The system requirements for this beta version are Mac OS X 10.3 or higher and also QuickTime version 7, which is a software auto-update on Macs (run the second option under your Apple icon). This is most likely the cause. QuickTime 7 is available here.
Use the DTV Channel Guide to find whatever interests you. You can browse the Guide by category, tag (submitted by the channel publishers), date submitted, or by searching for keywords. Click on 'subscribe' next to any channel and it will be added to your list of subscriptions.
Click the 'down' arrow on a video to download it. Check off 'auto-download' box on a channel, DTV will automatically download new videos on that channel. Click on 'play' or 'play fullscreen' buttons whenever you'd like to watch the videos.
Next to each channel's name, two indicators may appear: a blue circle indicates that the channel has published new videos that you haven't seen and a green circle indicates that you have videos in that channel that you've downloaded but haven't watched.
First, hang out for a second and give DTV some time to make the connection. If after a few minutes the download hasn't started, there are a number of possible causes. Most likely, the publisher of the videos you've selected is experiencing difficulties. Their video publishing connection might have been interrupted, or the video might have been published using BitTorrent but no longer has seeders. You can try to click on the download button in a few mintues to see if the publisher's connection is back up. If you have a channel set to "Automatic Download" and you see the message "Pending Download" next to each video in the channel, don't worry, videos will download shortly. Videos in pending download mode are added to the download queue and will start downloading when there is space for more downloads (there is a maximum number of downloads at a time).
An internet TV channel is an RSS feed with video enclosures. An easy way to create a channel is to use our free video publishing software, Broadcast Machine, which is designed to dovetail with DTV. Broadcast Machine allows anyone to publish video affordably using BitTorrent or HTTP, with an easy, blogging-like interface. Broadcast Machine is software for websites, so you'll need your own web server on which to install it.
If you have already have an RSS feed and you'd like to make it DTV-compatible, click here for more info.
If you'd like to publish a DTV channel from your free webpage (e.g., Blogspot pages), please visit FreeVlog for step-by-step tutorials on how to get an RSS feed with video enclosures.
We're proud to offer open submissions to our Channel Guide, and DTV will play most video RSS feeds out there already. Channels can be RSS feeds with video links in them or webpages with links to videos. We encourage everyone to submit their channel to the Guide and we hope to grow it into a fascinating but welcoming labyrinth of internet TV offerings. We accept most channels, barring highly offensive or adult content. For more information, please read our Terms of Use. So by all means, come on in...
All right, here we go, channels in the DTV Channel Guide must:If you meet the above requirements, then go into the DTV Channel Guide and click on "submit a channel" (on the right-hand sidebar). You'll first need to register with the Channel Guide, and then you'll be able to submit your channel, which will then go into our moderation queue for approval by a member of the Participatory Culture team.
A few users have reported that the Channel Guide did not send them registration e-mails (even after diligently checking their spam filters). We are working to fix this. If this happens to you, email feedback(at)ppolitics.org and we can help you get an account working.
It's likely that your channel is in the moderation queue, where it will be tested and reviewed by someone from the Participatory Culture team or a trusted volunteer. We test all new channels for a couple of things: first, for appropriateness (we'll be talking more about our community decency standards soon). Second, that the requirements outlined above are met: that videos play, images display, and thumbnails are plentiful.
If your channel is ready to publish in DTV, it will likely be added to the guide in less than 24 hours. Otherwise, we'll be in touch to let you know what needs to be fixed.
Simple: click "add channel" in DTV, paste in the RSS feed, and let DTV find the available content.
Anything we're missing? Send questions / comments to feedback(at)pculture.org.