Democracy Player is what ushered me into the weird and interesting world of vlogs and if it were not for their channel guide I might not have discovered gems like Terra Video with their insightful nature shows or Telemusicvision which is a much better way to enjoy music videos than VH1 and all the MTVs combined. However, Democracy is designed with the notion that form should precede function so as a result it can be a stiff and awkward experience at best so after a few months of use I began to wish I could find a feed reader that was more like a media-centric version of Liferea*. PenguinTV appears to meet that need as it is designed with function first but offers enough polish to make media browsing and viewing an enjoyable experience.

Show here is Democracy Player’s channel guide which most users of cable or satellite TV would be quickly comfortable with searching and finding new shows to watch. Beyond that the interface is clean and easy to understand.

PenguinTV is more a feed reader than Democracy Player as it will parse feeds for all the content including information in the post about the content making it more of a comprehensive experience. Additionally, the upper right-hand corner always shows how much media has been downloaded helping the user better manage disk space.

Both Democracy Player and PenguinTV are very capable programs but it would be worthwhile to run down the pros and cons of each.

Democracy Pros

• Channel Guide makes for easy discovery of new shows.
• Integrated player allows for a seamless experience.
• Auto-expire content to conserve disk space.

PenguinTV Pros

• Fast
• Renders full feed contents making it a true RSS reader.
• Can limit the total amount of disk space used.
• Small memory footprint.
• Back up feed list as an OPML file.

Democracy Cons

• Slow loading and navigating between feeds.
• Buggy, occasional crashes when starting or exiting videos mars the experience.
• No way to back up feed list.
• Cannot render mixed media feeds, only ones with just video, which limits its utility.

PenguinTV Cons

• No integrated way to discover new feeds.
• No self-discovery of feed from base URL. (Fixed in 1.92!)
• Shelling out to external video player can be slow though that is more an issue of the players load time. (Really a non-issue, especially since it creates playlists for content queuing)

In the end, the flexibility and stability of PenguinTV wins out for me. The ability to back up the feed list as well as import is a huge win along with its ability to render the full contents of the feed rather than just the media aspects of it are huge pluses that cannot be ignored. Now, I will certainly keep Democracy Player around for its channel guide and to see where the team heads with the product.

* Note: Liferea does handle media-centric blogs well but it is designed with reading in mind rather than managing the consumption of media files, that and my enormous feed list is too unwieldy to add media content to it.

** Update: After using PenguinTV for the last two weeks it is hands down the app of choice and with self-discovery of feeds fixed in 1.92 things are even better. Also, my concern about shelling out to a video player is really a moot point as Penguin creates playlists so you can stack up all your unwatched content for easy viewing.