Random Thoughts of Mine...

Miro is our core project. It's a free open-source desktop video application that is designed to make mass media more open and accessible for everyone.

Television is the most popular medium in our culture. But broadcast and cable TV has always been controlled by a small number of big corporations. We believe that the internet provides an opportunity to open television in ways that have never been possible before.

Miro is designed to eliminate gatekeepers. Viewers can connect to any video provider that they want. This frees creators to use the video hosting setup that works best for them-- whether they choose to self-publish or use a service. It's the kind of openness that the internet allows and that we should all demand.

How many of you have ever heard of Miro before? I had never heard of it until after I downloaded Firefox 3 one day. On the Getting Started page, they have links to some Internet sites that they think people will enjoy. One of the sites was Miro, which is an open source Internet TV and video player.

I went to the site to check it out. It looked interesting, so I decided to download the application last night. They get videos from all over the world, from sites, such as YouTube, and even some P2P sites. There are currently over 4,700 channels of videos in different categories, such as: Comedy, Family, International, Public Broadcasting, etc. You can find all of these channels on the Miro Guide website, which is easily accessible from the Miro application. The player comes with 4 basic channels to start you off, along with some tutorial videos on how to use the various functions of the Miro application. You can see a screenshot of Miro here.

The channels go along the sidebar on the left side of Miro. You can easily add or delete channels, even rename them, if you so desire, with the click of your mouse. While surfing the channels, I found one called Carribean Beats, which is a half-hour show featuring videos from West Indian musicians. I subscribed to that channel. When you subscribe to a channel, you have access to all of the videos on that particular channel. After you find the channel on the Miro Guide, you can preview a few of the videos on that page without subscribing to the whole channel. Videos that you do download, are kept on your computer for 5 days. After 5 days they are automatically deleted from your computer, unless you decide to keep them or delete them before that time. Once you subscribe to a channel, new videos are automatically downloaded when they become available.

I've been testing it and the application runs well on my 6-year old PC. Miro runs on Mac, Linux and Windows. Download it, give it a try, then let me know what you think of it. Here is your chance to Get Miro. Enjoy!



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