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Get Ready to cut Cable TV: A Look at Miro
13 Comments »Posted in Open-Source, SoftwareAug 29, 2008
I’ve always been an advocate for cutting subscription costs out of my life: I guess I just don’t like the idea of having to constantly pay for a service — which won’t be there when you run out of money. The only essential I’ve never really even considered cutting was cable TV, perhaps because there’s really nothing like it. At least, there wasn’t — before Miro was introduced.
Miro is an application that is reminiscent of PVR: using the Miro Guide, you can subscribe to channels that you want to watch. Episodes will be downloaded regularly via RSS feeds, and quality is not compromised because the actual video is being downloaded, not streamed. Download speeds are impressive for me, but will depend on your Internet service’s download speed. The best part about having the videos downloaded is the ability to play them more than once and pause them when you need to. Just like PVR.
The GUI is impressively laid out: very simple, and colourful, but without overdoing it. The word I’d like to bring out is “pleasant” — in fact, it somewhat reminds me of Mac OS X’s GUI a bit.
The Search function also contributes to Miro’s wow-factor: it allows you to download videos from YouTube, Veoh, and other video sites. However, as of version 1.2, it was a bit slow when reloading different searches. The search function does allow you to save the results as a Channel though, interestingly enough.
And the videos: there is quality, and much potential. However, at the moment, the shows are somewhat less mainstream: I would expect that eventually, mainstream shows like Heroes and even music videos and all will be put on Miro, just as Joost is proceeding to do. Still, there’s plenty of fun and games with Boing Boing TV, GeekBrief, and even National Geographic.
I know I had taken an earlier look at Miro, but I totally felt like it deserved a second revealing. Alright, I’ll admit it: I forgot that I had already looked at Miro (grins sheepishly). Still, it’s a great piece of software and totally out of Beta, so you should give it a try! If you’ve got the storage and the Internet speed, then what are you waiting for?
[...] 5. Miro Miro is the crown jewel of our five: we definitely saved the best for last. Miro is available to the entire world, and actually, has already been mentioned a couple of times on QuickOnlineTips. I felt the need to bring it back up to do it some justice: you haven’t actually experienced Internet TV until you’ve tried Miro. Quality is excellent, GUI is reminiscent of a PVR, and download speeds are acceptable. I won’t rant anymore about Miro, since this should be a quick online tip, but if you’re curious about it, hop over to my post at CutEdge. [...]
Hey thanks for the tips! Currently, my cable company will not give me just internet.. I must subscribe to their cable tv as well. But I’ll be moving soon and with the new company over there, I plan on using freetv on the web by using cable internet! yay! And it’s all cuz of you.
Nice, I’m glad to be of service. Who knows, you might realize that you don’t need cable?
miro blows, it has nothing worth watching and constantly asks you to buy it. way better off with hulu or straight up torrents.
Faultschematics: Much as I respect self-expression, I’m afraid you’ve got your facts a bit mixed up this time around. Miro is actually an open-source piece of software, so it’s free. It’s not shareware or a demo. It’s free for life. You CAN’T buy it.
Agreed, Hulu is sweet. I won’t advocate Torrents though, they’re pretty large and often take a while to download.
I feel that Miro’s content is pretty solid, but I guess it’s all a matter of opinion and you’re entitled to your own. Thanks for commenting.
[...] 5. Miro Miro is the crown jewel of our five: we definitely saved the best for last. Miro is available to the entire world, and actually, has already been mentioned a couple of times on QuickOnlineTips. I felt the need to bring it back up to do it some justice: you haven’t actually experienced Internet TV until you’ve tried Miro. Quality is excellent, GUI is reminiscent of a PVR, and download speeds are acceptable. I won’t rant anymore about Miro, since this should be a quick online tip, but if you’re curious about it, hop over to my post at CutEdge. [...]
[...] Miro, since this should be a quick online tip, but if you’re curious about it, hop over to my post at CutEdge. This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under [...]
[...] Miro, since this should be a quick online tip, but if you’re curious about it, hop over to my post at CutEdge [...]
[...] Get Ready to cut Cable TV: A Look at Miro | CutEdge.org – http://cutedge.org/get-ready-to-cut-cable-tv-a-look-at-miro/ – http://www.GetShawty.com [...]
I highly recommend that you check out these sites.
http://justin.tv
http://bit.ly/dk3OCQ
Do you guys know of any other places where you can watch TV on your PC?
Thanks for sharing, Josue.
This is a grea post, thank you. I don’t have cable tv, so watch what I can on the web I’ve found some good sites to watch television, but most of them want you to fill out a survey to watch them, do you know of any sites that do not require this?
No sites Arlen, but I definitely know that there are methods to download episodes via torrents or direct download even. They’re usually updated pretty quickly, here’s one that I follow on Twitter. http://twitter.com/torrentbird
This is also how I managed to find the latest episode of Entourage, as I don’t have HBO Canada.