MACINTOSH OWNERS LIKE VIDEOS TOO

It happened to me again just the other day. Someone sent me an email with a video attachment. I eagerly downloaded the video and double-clicked on it.  But instead of watching the anticipated movie, my Mac came up with an error message saying that the video was in some type of unknown format.

I sat there for a moment staring at the screen and then made a somewhat less than complimentary statement directed towards the person who sent me that video file. Now upon reflection, I know that person really didn't deserve that comment about his ancestry. He just made the assumption that if his computer could play that video file, then every other computer out there should be able to play it as well. You would think that would be a reasonable assumption but unfortunately, that's just not the case.

When it comes to video file formats, there are a whole bunch of them out there and finding a player that will play all of them on any platform has proven to be quite daunting. No many how many video players you have, sooner or later you're going to come across a file format that refuses to play no matter what video player you throw at it. It's frustrating, especially when you get a video that you really want to see.

Currently my list of video players is a fairly impressive one. Of course I have Quicktime Pro and it's loaded up with all kinds of video player plug-ins that I've acquired over the many years. I have Real Player. I also have several varieties of Windows media players and the list goes on and on. Then there's my "last resort" list of exotic media players that I'll try in a final fit of desperation when I begin to realize that I will probably never get to see the video play. Included in that list is VLC which bills itself as the cross-platform media player. And evidently not being able to play less-popular video formats is not the sole lament of Mac owners since there are versions of VLC for Windows, Linux, Solaris and other operating systems as well.

But when even my copy of VLC refuses to play a video file, I now have one more recourse to try and it's not new. In fact this video player has been around for quite some time now. So long in fact that they are about to relaunch the player with a new name in about a couple of months.

Currently, it's call Democracy Player, not because of any political affiliations but because it's supposed to be a player that plays everything for everyone and uses open-source technology to accomplish what it does.  Billed as the "Only video player you need," the player is a free download and is currently available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. So far, Democracy Player has played everything I've given it to play including Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI and XVID files. However it won't play Real Player files. Dean Jansen, Special Projects director for the Participatory Culture Foundation that publishes Democracy Player told me on a recent Computer America interview that they are aware of this and have no immediate plans to support the Real standard. All I know is that it plays everything so far except for files that have been protected by Digital Rights Management.

You can also use Democracy Player to get Internet TV shows and play videos downloaded from YouTube, Google Video and Yahoo Video. It also supports high definition and full screen playback. You can even download and watch any BitTorrent file.

Evidently the player's name has caused some confusion so they will shortly be changing the utility's name to "Miro" which is Spanish for "I watch." But whatever they call it, be sure you download a free copy because I can assure you that someday, someone will send you a file or you'll download one from some website and you won't be able to watch it. Spare yourself the anguish and frustration of not being able to watch something.

Right now, the best place to download the Democracy Player is at www.getdemocracy.com
 

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