Democracy Player 0.9.6 Released - Last version ever! (before name change)
We have just released version 0.9.6 of Democracy Player. It is a *big* update, with lots of new features, bug fixes, and improvements. It’s also the last version ever of Democracy Player. The next release from us will be under our new name, Miro.
And here it is: Download Democracy Player 0.9.6
Below are all the new features in this release, but I’d like to talk a little about the most exciting new feature, “folder watching”. It’s a new preference panel that let’s you pick folders on your local computer to include in your video collection. When a new video shows up in that folder, it will appear in your collection. Do you download videos from your browser to your desktop? Set Democracy Player to watch your desktop for new videos. Do you keep all your videos on an external hard drive? Add that hard drive to your collection and get all your videos organized in Democracy Player. Try it out.
The new features:
1. Folder watching (what I just wrote about above).
2. Resume playback. If you’re watching a 15 minute video and stop halfway, we’ll remember where you were when next time you watch it. There’s a preference setting to turn this on and off.
3. Auto-updating for Mac users. This should be the last time that Mac users will need to go to their browser to download a new version. From now on, when a new version is released you’ll be able to install it within the app and relaunch (we’re now using Sparkle). Windows users don’t have auto-update yet, but we’ll be able to give you details about what’s new in each release from within the app (right now it just tells you that there’s a new version, with no details).
4. Minimize to tray on windows– when you click the red x in the upper right, the application will hang out in the system tray. A much requested feature.
5. Windows Vista compatibility. This solves playback issues for some Vista users.
6. Resizing of thumbnails. We now resize and cache thumbnails so that the images displayed are smoother. This also makes switching between channels much faster.
7. More thorough proxy support.
8. Ability to play audio files on mac (previously we sent you out to an external player).
9. Many more keyboard shortcuts on Windows. This will make remote control support easy. Full keyboard shortcuts for Mac are coming soon with the first version of Miro.
10. Bug fixes, memory use reduction, memory leak fixes. Updated Perian on OSX to version 1.0b5.
We hope you enjoy all the improvements, please let me know what you think.
From here until Miro 1.0 we are focused almost exclusively on fixing bugs. If you find a bug, you can file it here.
June 4th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Are you really serious about the name change?
June 4th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Any RSS (OPML) export/import yet?
June 4th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Any idea when the packages will filter down to http://ftp.osuosl.org for Ubuntu? I’d second the opml import/export feature too.
June 5th, 2007 at 7:49 am
christiano - dead serious!
peter - not yet, but i hope soon
devang - ubuntu versions will be in our repository in the next few hours
June 5th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Did they finally change the Delete function to delete to the Recycle bin / Trash can?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:09 am
[...] 0.9.6: the last version before name change, a lot of new features and bug fixes. [source] The News: 05.06.2007 by Luca, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. [...]
June 5th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Out of curiosity, what is the origin of the name “Miro”? And why the change? I kind of liked “Democracy”.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:59 am
yea what is with the name change… “I like democracy” sure its a bit broad and has been heavily orwellianized by our supreme leader to mean ill-conceived wars of aggregation followed by foreign occupation with imperial divided and conquer strategy with massive sectarian violence…. but I am an optimist I think the word can still be reclaimed for a media player that aims to democratize media!
June 5th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
@The Cat
Miro is “I watch” in Spanish
June 5th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Hm…. Name Change.
I hope you also change the icon. I liked the old one, not the current one (on osx anyhow).
In fact I’d say the when you put the new icon on the app is about when I quit using it. So… how about a new Icon? pretty please?
Jeff
June 5th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
[...] Vía: Sitio oficial Comparte el artículo:Estos íconos enlazan con webs de marcadores sociales que permiten a los lectores compartir y descubrir nuevas webs. [...]
June 5th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Please correct download webpage for ubuntu… there is saying for Fiesty and not Feisty… the same mistake was with the deb line:
deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/democracy/linux/repositories/ubuntu fiesty/
that should be:
deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/democracy/linux/repositories/ubuntu feisty/
June 6th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Thank you for minimize to tray!!!
June 6th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
This version is wonderful, keep up the good work!
I have just blogged about your success
June 6th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
KUDOS & SUGGESTIONS. . .
First of all, this is the best software I’ve seen for accessing streaming video. Nicely done. But I’ve a few nits to pick over UI, as follows:
(1) Add an option to display a browser address bar. It’s often the case we find a video on links that are part of our normal web browsing which we could use help with from a program like this. I know it’s possible to paste links into this program, but frankly it’s too circuitous, too obscure. There’s a virtue to being plain & obvious and it would be nice to see a plain & obvious place in this UI which invites pasting in a link I’ve just copied from the addressbar in my normal browser. We don’t need this concept retitled or reinterpreted in the next program, we need it reiterated!
(2) Respect the windows TASKBAR. This program behaves atypically relative to the taskbar. Frankly I find “windows” clumsy and tend to run my foreground task full screen. I can do that because the taskbar makes it easy to switch between tasks. But when this program is in full screen it won’t relinquish the taskbar space when it’s “auto-hidden”. I know I can press Ctrl+Esc to overcome this problem, but I’m a geek. Most other people will be stuck.
(3) Why are there no keyboard control hooks in the player? You guys would do well to adopt several of the more common standards used in other players, like SPACEBAR as a Play/Pause toggle, ESCAPE to exit full screen, UP/DOWN to change volume, etc. If the phone rings in the dark I don’t want to have to track down the mouse, then find the right part of the screen to pause the proceedings, I want to instantly flick my hand at the spacebar and stop things cold!
June 7th, 2007 at 9:21 am
[...] Democracy Player 0.9.6 has been released, the last version before the name change to Miro will take place. [...]
June 7th, 2007 at 10:54 am
You’ve got the best player by far. Comparatively, Joost is a joke. It won’t be too long before you’ve all the aggregator features you can. Then what? You may end up being be the largest portal for videos. I love the way you can add a youTube or Google search as a channel. Anyway, if you’re interested, I have the voters.com domain– if you’d rather use that. In the future, you might want to add some kind of centralized DB to allow users to vote on each video. Click your vote and the player advances to the next video.
June 7th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
[...] Democracy Player 0.9.6 is out, and the open source media player has added a host of new features for finding and watching videos on the internet or stored on your computer. [...]
June 8th, 2007 at 12:40 am
[...] Nicholas Reville claimed that this version contains huge update, with a lot of new features, bug fixes and improvement. In addition, it will also be the last version ever of Democracy Player, as the next release will be under the new name, Miro. [...]
June 8th, 2007 at 11:44 am
My Democracy player notified me today that there was a new version so I downloaded and upgraded. Am I the only one that going to this new version completely blew away all of their subscriptions? Also, it found all the unwatched video but the title is just the file name.
The folders are cool but surely replacing my subscription list with the default set is not the intended behavior. I imagine it’s user error but I followed the same upgrade path I always use and this is the first time it has happened.
OS X 10.4.9
June 8th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Ok, looks like I had a corrupt database. I see a corrupt_database directory in ~/Library/Application Support/Democracy. And the dtv-log has this:
2007-06-08 08:02:02,448 INFO Upgrading from previous version of database
2007-06-08 08:02:02,645 INFO Upgrading database…
upgrading database to version 40
upgrading database to version 41
2007-06-08 08:02:34,643 ERROR exception while loading database
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “storedatabase.pyo”, line 552, in __init__
File “storedatabase.pyo”, line 740, in loadDatabase
File “storedatabase.pyo”, line 688, in upgradeDatabase
File “databaseupgrade.pyo”, line 45, in upgrade
File “databaseupgrade.pyo”, line 541, in upgrade41
File “util.pyo”, line 564, in unicodify
File “util.pyo”, line 564, in unicodify
File “feedparser.pyo”, line 258, in __getitem__
KeyError: ‘tags’
Is there any chance of recovering my old subscription list?
Thanks.
June 9th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Not a bug
but a good update would be MP4/h.264 ipod support. I rmr i used to use TED to download my tv shows and those only used mp4 rss feeds.
This method was bad b/c the uploader usually had bad conversion and was bad qualitiy or bad resolution
i suggest first dowlnoading in w/e format and then hav a built in converter (preferiibly a videora ipod converter like)
June 9th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Why would you change an outstaning name to something dull. Miro sounds like some kind of cheap- run of the mill - indistinguishable from all the other junk…name.
Keep it real, Also please lighten this app up. It runs like a gorilla on os x.
June 9th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
There is already a video related product named Miro. Actually a few product that incorporate the name.
June 9th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
“Democracy”. What a great name! Which lawsuit are you afraid of?
Democracy for the world now!
June 9th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Mmm. I ‘m usually not the person to react negatively to name changes. I kinda have respect for the developers taking the leap into darkness.
But this time i really regret the name change. I really liked the concept of Democracy Player (there are to many big media corporations, so we give you community driven tv). Democracy player is a great name for an app like that. That and maybe I have an affinity with “democracy” because of my legal education.
People want democracy, it’s so sad to see them loose it.
June 9th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Thanks for keeping to improve a great a app.
You should SERIOUSLY reconsider the name change though (not to mention the misguided political bent) while you still have time.
June 9th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
As someone else pointed out above, there is already a video-related product with the name Miro. IIRC it’s a TV tuner card or NLV editing suite. I already like Democracy TV/Democracy Player and the “Get Democracy” tagline. “Get Miro” somehow just doesn’t seem play well with my already established concept of a Free as in Freedom Internet TV.
It looks like the name change is a done deal. Heck, they even have a new website and logo. I wish the developers luck with the name change.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Love the new player, finally working on Feisty - so thanks!
But Miro? Oh how sad that makes me. Democracy is a great name. It makes it sound like a movement, not just a bit of software. It has resonance, and it’s memorable. “Miro” is a meaningless, forgettable, bog-standard web 2.0 type of disposable name. Seriously, you could come up with that in two seconds flat, it’s just vacuous fluff. Utterly uninspiring, and I honestly think it’ll make the product harder to ‘market’, harder to understand, harder to distinguish from the crowd.
Please say it ain’t so.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I didn’t want to post a long comment about my thoughts on the new name, but anyone who’s interested can read a short blog entry about it: http://mattwilcox.net/archive/entry/id/904/
June 10th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
[...] Noticias Completa (Ingles) : Democracy Player 0.9.6 Released! [...]
June 10th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
This programme looks awesome, I hope to explore and broadcast soon. Okay?
June 10th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
never been able to install this, not for a year or more. Still cant. Are you going to commit to linux or not?
June 10th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
I would like the option to play back in date order. Makes catching up on missed videos a lot easier.
June 12th, 2007 at 2:49 am
Oh yes! Don’t change the name! If this program was called “Miro” from the beginning, I think I’d never downloaded it!
June 12th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Steven: you can sort the videos by date (forward or reverse), then select play and they will play back in the displayed order.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Marketing mistake. Ball dropped. Balls lacking. You will do that one most shocking thing and take something that is already perceived as a separate entity and shove yourself deeply into the middle of the pack. And then it will be far, far too late. Have guts, reverse your field.
June 12th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I totally understand everyone’s issue with the name change– after all we wouldn’t have named it Democracy Player in the first place if we didn’t like the name. But really it just comes down to the fact that way to many potential users think that the software is only for watching videos of politicians. It really limits our ability to grow, so we need to make a change.
June 13th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Nicholas I see your point. I love the old name and think Matt’s comment above to some extent sums it up very nicely. But, Miro is well ahead of the pack and at the end of the day, its not the name that counts but the number of active users (and contributors) that will define the app. After all, people pay good money for things with stupid names all the time, provided they perform well. But back @ u Matt: Miro as a name is not that bad, certainly much better than the stupid web2.0 stock standard made up names that are out there…the novelty has really worn off but people still use them. So in sum: Miro…name ok but the software is grand and that’s all that matters..
June 13th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
[...] Democracy Player 0.9.6 versiyonu 1.0 dan önceki son sürümü.Çıktığı zamanda büyük ihtimalle adı MIRO olacak. [...]
June 14th, 2007 at 5:08 am
“But really it just comes down to the fact that way to many potential users think that the software is only for watching videos of politicians.”
I would really love to see the data that this comment is based on. Have you asked people? How was this conclusion reached? Because, to be frank, I’d be amazed if _anyone_ thought that, let alone any significant proportion of the potential user base. I may be wrong, there may be evidence galore for this - but its not been shown to us as far as I’m aware. Seems like a conclusion based on not-a-lot of evidence, and I’d be relieved if someone could give me some evidence, as it would at least vilify what you are saying (please understand I’m not intending to imply fibbing going on, but more that there is a lack of clarity with your users here).
I fully understand the reasoning that’s gone into the name change - but I remain unconvinced about the validity it. I’m also a bit peeved with the fact the name change went ahead without any consultation with the user base. When I got to this site and downloaded the player, and read through the mission statement, and experienced the whole thing - it seemed all about working as a group and empowering everyone. Something as fundamental as a name change I’d have expected you to ask for community feedback.
June 14th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
So you have made your mind about the name change. I think is a poor move, but what can I say? I’m just a face in a crowd…
Perhaps you consider a suggestion though, don’t let democracy die, and append it to the new name:
Miro: the democracy player
Sounds better than just Miro, people will recognize the software and associate with the things that the democracy player stands for, a community based, free as in freedom, tv.
June 16th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
This latest release of the player does not work on my system (XP MCE). It shows no list of channels and video will not play.
Also has hijacked all my previous video settings.
Help.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
[...] http://www.getmiro.com/blog/2007/06/democracy-player-096-released-last-version-ever-before-name-change/ Democrazy heisst ab der nächsten Version 1.0 Miro [...]
June 16th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Curiously, “mite” or “mieru” is the Japanese verb for “to see” (or “to watch”).
June 19th, 2007 at 12:58 am
booooooo! why the name change? i don’t like the new one.. anyways, keep the good work guys, (and keep the current name if you can). you should also implement a way to read text, so i won’t have to use another RSS reader for my text based news.
June 20th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Hello,
I’m using Version 0.9.6 (r4688) and I’m very sorry I miss the previous version.
I keep having prolems with it: Not only did it deleted my ongoing dowloads from the previous versions, but it does it again with the stuff I’m dowloading. After I’ve relaunched it, everything was back to 0ko!
:-(((((
All the best for the upcoming version,
U.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I vote for keeping the name Democracy… great product.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
I’m sorry sir,
But I must say that changing the name..is a very bad mistake, and once you step to the new name..
you will not be able to step back.
If you MUST change the name…then at least include Democracy Player as part of that name.
GDI
Sincerely,
Fritz
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:11 pm
You guys are great and show to the world that Apple TV is a waste of money in my view.
This is my all time favorite Open Source project
Thanks
Toby
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:42 pm
I never post to comment threads like this, but I have to chime in with everyone else…
The name change is a HORRIBLE idea. Especially to something that will mean nothing to anyone.
If you insist, at least find something that implies freedom.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
[...] Download of the Moment: Democracy Published June 24th, 2007 Download of the Moment Note: I would like to point out that Democracy will soon be renamed Miro. [...]
June 26th, 2007 at 7:36 am
I agree with everyone else about the name change… you’ve had a great success with a marketing campaign that has wide name recognition and general good vibes.
Practically speaking googling “democracy player” gets ~500,000 results with you guys as the top site and the next 100 links referring directly while being documents that are genuinely about you. Clicking on google images and video reaps even better focus on your name.
Miro returns more than 19,000,000 results about things that are completely unrelated to the Democracy Player project.
The name “Miro” is too generic… and has no real meaning. “Democracy” is an understood principal… and “Democracy Player” or “Democracy TV” tells you what it is what what is is about in one shot.
I say to a friend here is “Democracy Player”… you can watch anything… you can produce anything… freedom. They get it. The name prepares them for the explanation. Then they want a copy.
Miro?…. feels forgettable.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:56 am
I just did a scan for some of the the other key “Miro”’s out there:
http://www.miro.org - under construction
http://www.miro.com - German display company
http://www.miro.net - cyber-squatter parked
http://www.miro.fm - cyber-squatter parked
http://www.miro.jp - cyber-squatter parked
http://www.miro.cn - cyber-squatter parked
http://www.miro.ca - cyber-squatter parked
http://www.miro.tw - under consutruction (Taiwanese)
http://www.miro.tv - Korean apparel site
June 26th, 2007 at 10:51 am
“Miro” is Spanish, who cares really how narrow minded can a guy be in a English website, do you think everyone in the world understands Spanish, man that just plain stupid. Give it a name that makes sense in all languages. like “TV” “Jesus” lol not Miro, wake up, hello anyone home???? or do plan on teaching everyone Spanish so they can read the name, dumb dumb. When i saw Democracy Tv , it made me interested enough to give it a look and then a download, if i would of seen “MIRO” i would of never looked at it for more then a second, first thought some dam other language, ratz, do the right thing and leave the name alone. Don’t confuse people, don’t put Spanish down peoples throats, The End
June 26th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Great application, keep up the good work :).
Regarding the name, it is your app., so it is your call to name it as you want
and Miro is easy to pronounce(and for all of those having issues with the new name: guys you can always refer to it as the player previously known as Democracy Player ;)).
June 26th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
for if the 9 out of 10 are not happy with name and weren’t informed about the name change, I suggest take the project to http://sourceforge.net/index.php and go alone, split the project, better to jump of a sinking ship then to go down with it
Hey let the little spanish loverboy kiss all his spanish people, and let the rest of the world around 90% of the planet enjoy Democracy Internet TV the way it was invented and NAMED. MIRO sucks period.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
plus does anyone have a slackware link????
June 27th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I just got stumbled upon this website and I can honestly say the ONLY reason I checked it out and will now download the player is because of the name “Democracy”. It’s entirely unusual in the software market and it manages that rare feat of telling you what it is about in one single word, at one single glance.
Had I seen a site with the header “Miro - the only video player you’ll ever need” I’d have rolled my eyes, said “yeah, right…” and would have clicked away without a second thought.
June 27th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
ttuuxxx:
kinda funny that you claim to love the idea
of keeping the name “Democracy” and at the
same time you sound a bit racist with
your posts.
June 28th, 2007 at 6:26 am
Well, looking at the comment thread - no one has a good word to say about the new name that isn’t a developer.
And there’s a lot of people that really don’t like it.
I never did get any feedback about the justification for the name change (nice story, no facts to back it up) - and that’s as worrying for the software as anything else. Seems that the ‘democracy’ in the project will be removed as soon as the name is.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Matt- I’m not sure what you mean by ‘facts’. I talk to people about this project every day and I consistently hear confusion about the name. And, in my general polling, I’ve found that most folks prefer the name change, even among people who already know about us. I think the comments here are coming from people who think it’s a bad idea, and they are more likely to chime in, but that doesn’t reflect the majority opinion as far as I can tell.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
As I said in my comment above (http://www.getmiro.com/blog/2007/06/democracy-player-096-released-last-version-ever-before-name-change/#comment-28040) - the rational provided for the name change is:
“…it just comes down to the fact that way to many potential users think that the software is only for watching videos of politicians.”
I’ve asked for numbers on that, for evidence that backs up that statement, the research it’s based on - because, frankly, I’d be amazed if this is the case for the internet using public who will be using the software.
I’m not saying that the Democracy team is wrong - I’m trying to understand why the democracy team have come to the conclusions they have. Because it is _my_ experience that there is no such problem. And I’m curious as to whether any quantitative research has been done at all, or whether this is based on the general experience of a select few running in select circles.
Further to that, I’m also concerned that the current user base is giving feedback about the name change which is simply being ignored (presumably because the developers do not like that feedback). I think it is dangerous and not entirely nice to be ignoring the concerns of the people who are your existing user base. They are the ones that allowed Democracy to get where it is, and they are not being addressed. There’s something impolite at the very least about that.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Matt- we don’t have any numbers on different name concepts, we haven’t done any market research and probably couldn’t afford to. My statement is based on my own anecdotal experience and that of other people in the organization. We’re not ignoring the concerns of people that disagree with the name change, and we share a lot of the same feelings about the name (after all, we picked that name in the first place). But even after considering all the comments that I’ve read opposing the name change, I still strongly believe that we’ll be able to reach more people as ‘Miro’.
June 30th, 2007 at 10:32 am
“we haven’t done any market research” - yep, that was what I feared. I completely understand the reasons why that is the case, but I also feel that basing decisions on the select experiences of a select few running in select circles is a bad idea. And despite the fact that a number of people in your organisation have the same viewpoint - that’s a microcosm of feedback, not a macrocosm. For all of your experience in favour of Miro, there’s counter-evidence against it in this very thread.
The question perhaps shouldn’t be ‘can we afford to do market research?’ but ‘can we afford NOT to do market research?’.
If the objective is about getting the Democracy service and software to the maximum number of users as possible, market research is critical to understanding how to do this. Internally derived experiences and ‘common sense’ do not work well as indicators of success with people who are outside of that circle. Nor does market research need to cost much. What would it take to get the opinion of random internet users? A form with a couple of questions - deployed on some sister sites (I wonder if Mozilla would help out on that front). OK, it’d take a developer a day or maybe two days of work to get the database set up, the forms designed and deployed. But at least there would be some real numbers to look at.
Please understand I’m not intending to be critical for the sake of being critical - I like Democracy player, and I appreciate the software and the effort of the people behind it. I want to see it succeed. I’m just concerned that mistakes may be being made that will be hard to rectify later. Again - I’m not saying that Miro is wrong - but that there is no real evidence to say either way. That being the case, throwing away a very strong brand image that clearly resonates with existing and new users seems reckless.
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:30 am
The name change is a great idea. Think about the people behind the great red firewall, who cannot access anything with “democracy” on the web page. Unfortunate but true! I had to send a copy to a friend of mine who was ex-patting in the east, so he could take a look at the player.
So, no matter what, the name really *had* to change, we don’t want to stop a big chunk of the world’s population from accessing one of the best bits of code out there…
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:43 pm
I agree about the name change. Throwing away such strong brand-recognition is a bad idea. I am another one who only clicked on the link in Google b/c of the name. As for those who think that Democracy Player is only for political vids…five seconds on the website will show that to be a false assumption. Would a name change make those people more apt to check it out? I doubt it.
July 4th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
[...] Als Collector’s Edition wird die neueste Version 0.9.6 des Democracy Players angekündigt: “Last version before name change!” Eine nicht ganz ernsthafte Ankündigung eines ernsthaften Themas: Der Player, der für die Demokratisierung des Mediums Internet-TV steht, soll spätestens ab der Version 1.0 den Namen Miro tragen. Die Begründung dafür lautet wie folgt: “… the name [Democracy Player] … confused a huge number of potential users. In all our debates about whether you could call something ‘Democracy’ and how people would react to the name, we hadn’t realized that so many people would simply assume that the software was for politicians and videos about politics. We hear this response over and over, and it’s a real limitation to our user base. So we’re changing the name to Miro.” [...]
July 5th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Of all the potential names that exist Democracy must have more appeal than virtually any other. People that live in all kinds of countries want Democracy. Americans who live in a republic call it a Democracy because it sounds better. Britons, etc.
Democracy equates to freedom and individual power. Ergo- “I the individual am empowered!”
July 6th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
I think you should call it “Dictatorship Player”.
At least, none would feel entitled to argue about it…
July 7th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Miro, Miro …… on the wall,
a name-change, brewing, what’s the Call.
‘They’ say change, and change it be,
don’t sound much like democracy.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I think that the problem with the namechange boils down to this:
‘Democracy’ sounds like it’s the product of a talented, independent group of people making something that might be so much better then what the big players are trying to do. And they do it because they want to create a true, viable platform that is really just about releasing the power of online media to the users.
‘Miro’ sounds like it’s the product of a talented, independent group of people making something that might be so much better then what the big players are trying to do. And they do it because by creating a true, viable platform that releases the power of online media to the users, they are creating an unbelievably valuable asset for one of the big media players somewhere down the line.
True or not, that is, I think, the feeling you get when you read that henceforth, ‘Democracy’ will be rebranded as ‘Miro’. THAT is why people react so strongly to this.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:46 am
And I just have to add: I have started and stopped using Democracy a few times over the last year or so. Somehow I didn’t really seem to need or want it. I do get back to it everytime, though. And I am sure that is because of the association with the ‘Democracy’ concept. Called Miro, I would have mentally filed it as ’some sort of media-filesharing thing’ and forgotten about it long ago.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Berend– that’s a very interesting point. I should make it clear that we’re setup as a 501c3 non-profit, which means that we can never be acquired by another company. It also means that no one in our organization stands to gain personal wealth through the success of the project. We don’t have any ’shareholders’.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:05 am
@Nicholas Reville - and that right there is something to be shouting about. “We won’t screw you over - ever”. That’s important, especially when people are now used to the idea of a good service being acquired and going downhill - flickr is one example of that.
July 12th, 2007 at 2:03 am
Hate the new name. The old name was one of the greatest attractions to this software, and I think you are very mistaken about the associations with the name (as many have stated above). As someone said above, I would almost certainly never have tried the software under the name “Miro.”
I really like the software itself, but until you have a right-click context menu (with a full-screen option) anywhere within the window, I find myself continuing to use Media Player a lot. Which is unfortunate.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I too, tried Democracy Player because of the name initially. I believe that you folks are making a HUGE mistake in changing the name. I was planning on creating a channel for for the Democratic-Republican Party which has recently been reformed in America, but HALF OF THE POINT IN DOING SO WAS TO HAVE THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY CHANNEL ON DEMOCRACY PLAYER AS A HAND IN HAND PR OPPORTUNITY, but if you’re just going to change the name to something SPANISH, then what’s the point? I would actually embarrass myself in doing so.
By the way, you guys aren’t selling out, are you? Been approached by someone with enough cash to persuade you to sink your own project?
July 12th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
P.S. I will dump this project & software if the name actually changes.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Well, I have this to say. I use a LOT of software, as I am constantly looking for the best to put on my customers systems. I would still uses this player if they called it the “Fluffy Bunny Media Friend”. I mean, really, what does “Linux” or “Ubuntu” say that makes it so appealing? They are still out there. People still get them. Nero doesn’t sound all that appealing, and it’s big. Safari, though it is one of the worst browsers I’ve ever used, doesn’t have a name that jumps out, but it gets used. I think that performance will push this excellent software. I mean, if Macintosh can survive being named after fruit, I think that a media player could make it OK. This player has been installed on every new machine we sell, and we are preparing a link to it on our (quickly posted, not finished, not polished ) website. I will stand by it even if it becomes “Your Mom is Ugly Player”. Kudos!
July 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
cam– that was our fallback name, glad you would have been with us!
July 13th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Hi Nicholas, thanks for the response.
From what I have read on your site over the months - including some of your excellent writings on the whole rss-feed thing (which I use in arguments to get the popular science mag. I work for to finally get serious with their net-activities) - your standing on the whole independance is clear. My point was that it is not just where you stand, but also how you are perceived. I maintain with many others in this thread that this perception is not changed for the better with the namechange. But having said all that, I really appreciate your efforts and would support you even if you changed your name to AOL (well…but you get the point).
July 14th, 2007 at 3:24 am
I wouldn’t discount the positive aspects of having the name cause confusion. There are entire schools of advertising dedicated to building confusion in order to create “buzz”. Confusion causes thought and thought causes memory. Unless the people at Miro Displays GmbH are turning their domain over to you or buying you out I don’t think the name change is going to be positive. Miro Displays has been around forever and your use of the “Miro” mark for a video playback technology may very well constitute trademark infringement.
I agree with all of the people above. “Democracy Player” has a real ring to it. I know that when I talk about it to friends that the phrase illicits interest and the confusion is precisely what makes that happen. There are a million good software projects out there that no one notices. I wouldn’t switch the name if it was me because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Its your project though. I’ll use the player no matter what you call it. Respec’!
July 15th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I’m still not sold on the name change (I don’t think I ever will be), but I retract my concerns about the Democracy/Miro team being closed and not-very-democratic. Turns out they are listening, and they’re doing a great job, but the name-change is simply something we’ll have to get used to.
I suggest we start trying to get ‘Miro’ in the same recognition band as ‘Democracy’ rather than continue arguing over the benefits of each name.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I’ve changed my mind, too. My vote now goes to “Your Mom is Ugly Player.”