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Free software that you install on your website. Post your videos to create internet TV channels, including video blogs and video podcasts (video RSS feeds). Easy to install, easy to use.

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From the replaced 'building a multimedia community' blog:

From the Participatory Culture Foundation comes the wonderful, open-source Broadcast Machine. This is software which allows you to publish your videos into a video RSS feed which can be incorporated into a website and are also designed to be recieved by the partner client software made available by the Foudation, DTV (only available for MAC at the moment).

Broadcast Machine allows you to either upload your videos, link to them or post a torrent of them. The latter of the three aided by Python, Bittorrent and Broadcast Machine Helper software that comes bundled with the product. Your videos can be assigned several details and even a Creative Commons licence. You also allocate each video to a channel of your choosing, each channel can have its own access permissions - some of your channels can comprise of videos prescribed only by you, whereas others can be free for anyone to contribute to. The inbuilt user signups/logins/sessions etc. feature is useful here.

The software is a front-runner in the new wave of "mini" (without the features of a large CMS system like Mambo) multimedia CMS' which distribute their content through RSS feeds (podcasts) and provide minimal, but generally stylish, web output which is based largely on CSS and highly customisable. Broadcast Machine, for example, gives the option of two automatically created front pages for your website: one a channel view of thumbnails of the videos which are contained within; and two a view of the three most recently added videos to each channel. Both however are not in the least styled, bar positioning. What's so exciting about Broadcast Machine is the ability to distribute your content via Bittorrent. With enough people simuntaneously downloading and seeding (server seeding can be enabled), your viewers can have practically instant access to high-quality, fullscreen, streaming video at minimal or zero bandwidth cost levels to you.

This project is very cool and I've been playing around with it and monitoring its progress for a while now, however there are drawbacks. Firstly the DTV platform is not available for Windows yet, although we are continually told that it is coming. The software also has no plugin or module system associated with it and hence the software is not easily expandable to accomodate more features without custom coding being required. I, personally, am waiting for this to be incorporated into a Drupal module before doing anything more than experimenting with it. And finally, there is also no forum associated with Broadcast Machine which I find unfortunate and prohibits from encouraging community support by limiting discussion of the projects. The mailing lists do seem reasonable, although they have lacked frequency recently - nevertheless make sure you sign up for all 3.

Watch this space :)

Update: 7th Feb 2006
I've just had an email to say that there is a new release date for DTV for Windows: February 21st, plus a new Mac version which provides for integration of PCF's new VideoBomb.com will be released on the same day.

Update: 22nd Feb 2006
As promised the DTV player for Windows beta has been released. It has a new name - Democracy player.

Update: 4th Feb 2007
Broadcast machine has actually ceased development now, and they are seeking funding. Check out this discussion.

http://www.getdemocracy.com/broadcast/