For those who prefer to watch videos and movies behind the computer screen rather than the television, Miro is definitely the best application for you.
Miro is an open source application that turns your desktop into an Internet TV. You can subscribe to unlimited channels and have Miro download the videos for you. Be it Windows, Mac or Linux, Miro works in all the platforms.
A variety of video formats are supported by Miro. Be it Quicktime, wmv, avi, xvid, mpeg 1, 2, 3, 4 or H.264, you can play them in Miro. Other than that, you can also save videos from Youtube, Google Video, Dailymotion, Veoh and other video sites. What is even better is that you can save a search term and get Miro to download new videos as they are posted.
Miro is also a bit torrent client that can download your torrents. Simply load the torrent files and Miro will automatically start the downloading.
Installing Miro on Ubuntu
The version of Miro on Ubuntu repository is 1.1.2, which is an outdated version. To get the latest version (1.2.6) on your desktop, do the following in the terminal:
gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the following line to the end of the file
deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/miro/linux/repositories/ubuntu hardy/
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install miro
After you have installed Miro, go to Applications->Sound & video -> Miro Internet TV.
Miro will load and guide you through the configuring process.
Once loaded up, you can see all the channels on the left pane. To add new channel, go to Channels->Add channels.
Miro Configuration
Go to Video->Options, this is where you can configure your Miro
You can set Miro to update your channel automatically by the hour or by the day.
Limit the number of downloads at any point of time.
Select the folder that you want the videos to be stored.
There is no need to worry about lack of hard drive space. You can set the download files expiry date. Once the expiry date is due, Miro will automatically delete them from your hard disk. You can also limit the minimum free space that you want to preserve on your hard disk.
This is where you configure the playback option. In Linux, the default video renderer is Xine. It crashes Miro after time I open a video. Change the renderer to Gstreamer will solve the problem.
Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.
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How much internet speed we have to need to watch movies ? 1 mbps ?
@cutts: I have tried on a 384Kbps network and it works fine. Of course, the faster the network connection, the better it is
Okay thanks damien.
One small doubt – I am very interested to watch movies online , so i decided to take 1mbps – 2mbps internet speed. Can watch movies online with this speed ?
@cutts: 1Mbps is sufficient for normal movie. For high-definition content will be a bit on demanding on the bandwidth
I get the following error:
jason@jason-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install miro
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
miro: Depends: libffi4 but it is not installable
Depends: python (< 2.6) but 2.6.2-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
E: Broken packages
jason@jason-laptop:~$
Jason, which distro are you using? ubuntu Hardy, Intrepid or Jaunty? You have to add the repository according to your distro. The one listed in the article is for Ubuntu Hardy. If you are using Intrepid or Jaunty, you have to change the repo accordingly.
oh I see. Im using Jaunty. Do I just change it to:
deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/miro/linux/repositories/ubuntu jaunty ?
Yes