KatchTV is an “Internet TV” application — it lets you watch TV for free, but not your standard mainstream shows. People all over the net make TV shows and publish them for free, just like on Youtube, only better.
Technically speaking, KatchTV is a media aggregator (also known as a broadcatcher), which is similar to a podcatcher, but with video. If you know Miro, KatchTV is similar.
Screenshots
Zencast in KatchTV
KatchTV downloading show episodes via bittorrent, HTTP, etc.
Watching a show in KatchTV
Features
- Video podcasts (”vodcasts”)
- Bittorrent-based broadcatching
- Audio podcasts
- Multiple background downloads of media and updates of feeds, all while you watch/listen to your favourite shows
- Manages any media you download, so that you don’t lose track of your disk space
- Built-in KHTML-based web browser, with specific customisations for this application
- Automatically subscribes to any feeds you click on while browsing
- Uses KDE’s default embedded media players, for flexible configuration and KDE integration
- Supports Macromedia Flash movies, if you have a suitable plugin
- Built-in bookmarks of major vodcast/podcast sites, so you don’t have to look to hard for great content
- Stores episode details along with downloaded media to make tracking easier
- Allows manually adding any feeds (in case some site makes it awkward to add them
- Can also read standard RSS news feeds, if you prefer not to run separate media and news aggregators
- Feed for KatchTV updates, so you never have to miss the latest features
Benefits over similar media aggregators
- Independence — support for multiple channel directories, including Miro’s, but without depending on any of them
- KDE Support, including KDE mediaplayer and konqueror integration
- Faster and more lightweight (at least for people who already have KDE loaded)
- Good feed recognition, using a very reliable parser, and also some manual overrides for specific sites. Have a feed that doesn’t work? Just let us know!
Requirements
KatchTV’s main requirement is python-kde, otherwise known as pykde. Only the KDE 3 version is currently supported. For other packages to be installed on your distro, check the included documentation.
Download
Development
Want to contribute? Just jump in… sign up in launchpad, and take on bugs, answer questions, work on blueprints, or whatever takes your fancy. Just contact me if you need access, or before committing code.
