Miro (video software)
Internet television software
title: "Miro (video software)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["internet-television-software", "free-media-players", "windows-media-players", "linux-media-players", "macos-media-players", "free-bittorrent-clients", "free-software-programmed-in-python", "2006-software", "video-software-that-uses-gtk", "file-sharing-software-that-uses-gtk", "bittorrent-clients-for-linux", "software-using-the-gnu-general-public-license"] description: "Internet television software" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miro_(video_software)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Internet television software ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Miro |
| logo | Miro icon.png |
| screenshot | Miro-3-5.png |
| caption | Miro 3.5 running on Ubuntu, showing the Miro guide in the main window while playing a podcast. |
| developer | Participatory Culture Foundation |
| released | |
| latest release version | |
| latest release date | |
| latest preview version | |
| latest preview date | |
| repo | |
| programming language | Python using GTK+ |
| operating system | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| size | {{Plainlist |
| language count | 40 |
| language footnote | |
| discontinued | yes |
| genre | Media player |
| Internet television | |
| RSS+BitTorrent | |
| license | GPL-2.0-or-later |
| website | |
| :: |
| name = Miro | logo = Miro icon.png | screenshot = Miro-3-5.png | caption = Miro 3.5 running on Ubuntu, showing the Miro guide in the main window while playing a podcast. | developer = Participatory Culture Foundation | released = | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | repo = | programming language = Python using GTK+ | operating system = Windows, macOS, Linux | size = {{Plainlist|
- Windows: 28.50 MB
- macOS: 15.28 MB
- Linux: 2.0 MB
- Source code: 9.28 MB}} | language count = 40 | language footnote = | discontinued = yes | genre = Media player Internet television RSS+BitTorrent | license = GPL-2.0-or-later | website = Miro (formerly named Democracy Player or DTV) is an audio, video player and Internet television application developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation. It runs on Microsoft Windows, macOS, FreeBSD and Linux and supports most known video file formats. It offers both audio and video, some in HD quality.
The Participatory Culture Foundation no longer develops Miro. The last version (6.0) was released in 2013 and is no longer functioning correctly because of changes to the YouTube API.
Miro is free software, released under the terms of the GPL-2.0-or-later.{{cite web |url=https://www.getmiro.com/download/ |title=Get Miro download page |quote=...the software code, which is licensed under the GPL.
Features
Miro can automatically download videos from RSS-based "channels", manage them and play them. The application is designed to mesh with other Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) products such as Video Bomb, a social tagging video website, and the Channel Channel, a TV guide for Internet television.
Miro integrates an RSS news aggregator and podcatcher, a BitTorrent client (based on libtorrent), and a media player (VLC media player under Windows, QuickTime under macOS, and xine media player or GStreamer under Linux and FreeBSD). Since 2.0, Miro supports the adding of website bookmarks under the "Sites" category; by default, ClearBits.net is preloaded in Miro as a bookmark.
Examples of supported video files are QuickTime, Windows Media Video (WMV), MPEG, Audio Video Interleave (AVI), XVID as a video player. It also supports RSS BitTorrent. When a new video is available, the program will notify and download if possible.
The Miro Video Converter converts video formats. It is based on FFmpeg with profiles for the Theora (.ogv), .mp4, and WebM video formats supported by various devices.{{cite web |url = https://develop.participatoryculture.org/index.php/ConversionMatrix |archive-url = https://archive.today/20121220232927/https://develop.participatoryculture.org/index.php/ConversionMatrix |url-status = dead |archive-date = 20 December 2012 |title = Miro Video Converter FFMPEG Conversion Matrix |publisher = Participatory Culture Foundation |date = 8 April 2011 |access-date = 11 October 2011
A developer of Miro wrote that the Windows installer installs proprietary commercial software such as browser add-ons, also known as crapware, stating "This is one of the primary ways we fund continued Miro development."{{cite web |url = http://bugzilla.pculture.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15208 |archive-url = https://archive.today/20130901222623/http://bugzilla.pculture.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15208 |url-status = dead |archive-date = 2013-09-01 |title = Bug 15208 – Miro setup closes and restarts Firefox without notification |date = 2010-11-14 |publisher = Bugzilla
History
The application was first launched in 2005 as Democracy Player (sometimes abbreviated as DTV) and later on as Miro in 2007. Video searching of web-based video archives was included in 2007, with access to various archives changing over time.
Miro is mostly written in Python, although it links to various libraries written in a variety of languages. Versions through 2.x had an almost entirely HTML/CSS based UI. Miro uses embedded WebKit in a GTK window on Unix/Linux (Mozilla Gecko/XUL until 3.0.2), WebKit in a Cocoa window on macOS, and Mozilla in a XUL window on Windows. Since version 3.0, the macOS port uses Cocoa and others use GTK. The embedded web browser is used only for web pages.
Reception
Miro received a favorable review from Josh Quittner who wrote "I have seen the future of television and it’s an application called Miro."{{cite web |url=http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/11/13/the-future-of-internet-tv/ |title=The future of Internet TV |work=TechLand blog |last=Quittner |first=Josh |publisher=CNN |date=13 November 2007 |quote=I have seen the future of television and it’s an application called Miro. |access-date=27 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003034751/http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/11/13/the-future-of-internet-tv/ |archive-date=3 October 2011 |url-status=dead |title=Miro – CNET Editors' review |first=Seth |last=Rosenblatt |publisher=CNET |date=25 May 2011 |url=http://download.cnet.com/Miro/3000-2139_4-10587758.html |access-date=27 October 2011 |archive-date=18 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111018025053/http://download.cnet.com/Miro/3000-2139_4-10587758.html |url-status=dead |title=Watch internet videos like you watch TV |date=25 July 2011 |first=Elena |last= Santos |publisher=Softonic |url=http://miro.en.softonic.com/ |access-date=27 October 2011
References
References
- "Openness: translations". Participatory Culture Foundation.
- Nicholas Reville. (12 March 2007). "A Name Change".
- "PCF Projects". Participatory Culture Foundation.
- [http://www.mirovideoconverter.com/ Miro Video Converter]
- "Crapware is software that is bundled with a new PC or other software package that the user is not fully aware that they are installing.". about.com.
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