Miro Online Video Player: Review

For some time now we have seen Miro 2.5 is making its presence felt on the web world.  Even I’d been a great fan of this free and open source, cross-platform internet video player, since I had been using it to catch up with the latest YouTube videos. On the other side, there’s a big game going on with independent producers looking for better platforms to put out wondrous video content. However, keeping up with it by visiting the favorite video hosting web site is difficult. This is where Miro has grown its wings.

What sets it apart is that you can automatically download online video series via RSS feed or BitTorrent, and play it as you have almost all the video formats supported. Yet more, Miro not only keeps track of the videos that you watch, but also queues up the new ones to be watched.

Miro acts as your online video library and web browser for online video and podcasts. It’s somewhat a video-podcast-seeker software that uses video feeds to automatically download new episodes for you and keep track of what you’ve watched and not watched. What’s most exciting is that the application can play high definition video for you.

Interface

Miro offers a simple and self-explanatory interface that is designed for fullscreen HD video. Since Miro downloads most videos, you can take your shows with you, while you are flying. Quite simply, Miro is a better way to watch all the video you care about. There’s a fine selection of HD vidcasts and podcast directory on Miro companion site Miro Guide.

Highly customizable

Organizing videos and playlist is simple as you can add anything to your sidebar and group it into folders. It’s easy to set videos to play one after another or you can also autodownload podcasts. There are keyboard shorcuts.

Core features

Highlighted list of unwatched subscription

Miro queues up the videos you subscribe to and stores them as long as you want. In the left column you can see email inbox-like interface listing your unwatched items against each subscription.

Auto-expiry of old videos

In Miro you can set the numbers of days after which you want the subscribed videos automatically and delete video. For more you can set it to stop downloading videos further if it exceeds a certain number of unwatched videos.

Video search, folders and playlists

It’s quite easy to keep your video organized. Creating playlists of clips is hassle-free. To keep your video organized and easily accessible, you can drag and drop subscription and playlists into the folders and subfolders in the left column.

Playing video

Miro marks the point where you stopped watching a clip and resumes it from that point onwards whenever you request.  To get a full screen press the key CTRL+F and you have watch the video Full Screen.

Ability to Adding Channel

In Miro you come across a lot of jargon’s with confusing meanings. Like for instance channel is actually a feed of clips. Suppose you are in a YouTube page. In order to subscribe to that channel in Miro you need to copy the video RSS feed to your clipboard.  Once you’ve copied that link to your clipboard, in Miro from the Channels menu, hit the Add Channel. Miro automatically enter the link on your clipboard into the URL entry box. To subscribe you have to just hit Enter or OK to subscribe.

Keyword based search channel

In Miro you can also create a dynamic, keyword-based search channel. For instance if you wanna see YouTube videos involving Google. In the Channels menu, choose “New Search Channel” and enter your keyword and source - engine, playlist, or URL.

Watching Web series

Miro allows you to watch continuous, consecutive playback of a group of videos. When you wanna watch a web series, you have to sort the subscription for each episode, then start playing from the first one and the rest will follow on their own. It will continue until you watch the last video.

Shoot, Edit, and Publish Online Video

Miro offers a book-quality set of guides for shooting, editing, and publishing online video.

Compatibility

Virtually Miro any type of video file that you throw at it. Plays all standard video file including Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID, and more.

Download videos

You can use Miro’s built-in BitTorrent client to download your favorite TV episode torrents from the web.

Cons

A significant demerit with Miro is that it is resource hungry. Miro is somewhat stable in slower systems but grabs a chunk of resources when playing the subscriptions.

Conclusion

Clearly Miro is for those of you who love to watch online video in style. Essentially those with broadband connection and looking to take their online video watching experience to new heights, Miro could be the best.