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The version of Miro on Ubuntu repository is 1.1.2, which is an outdated version.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.
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