Miro: Internet TV with a political motive

I've been trying Miro and I like what I see so far. I've used it to download a video by the Shins and some Simpsons clips in German.

Miro is a free, open source program that lets users subscribe to 2,200 different video channels - from HBO Films to National Geographic . Unlike proprietary programs such as Windows Media player and Quicktime, Miro can handle just about every video format, and allows users to subscribe to video feeds so programs get downloaded in the background.

Miro has a political mission as well: to give individuals more control over the TV they watch and produce. The project is being led by the non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation, which is dedicated to free, open access to media.

Following is an interview with Miro's Nicholas Reville:

REVILLE: Miro is a desktop video player, and when you start it up, you see a directory of over 2,000 video channels that people publish on the Internet that you can subscribe to. When you subscribe to a channel, it will download any video that comes out on that channel as soon as it's available. So it's a bit like having a Tivo for the internet. It's also similar to audio podcasting but in this case it's for video.

wavLength: How does Miro differ from other players on the market?

REVILLE: The biggest difference is the idea that we want people to be able to access as many different types of video as possible, from as many different creators, from as many different sources. We're a non-profit organization. We're not trying to lock viewers or creators into any particular system. We want people to have access to as much as possible. And we want the people who are creating content to be able to publish any way they want and reach a really large, mass audience.

wavLength: Is it safe to say that your primary motivation is political?

REVILLE: Absolutely. In a lot of ways we are a media reform project in the form of software. What we want to do is take advantage of this opportunity to make television on the Internet more open, more accessible, more diverse than it's ever been in traditional broadcast, cable or satellite television. There's a really unique moment happening right now, but there's also lots of companies that are trying to rush into this space to build proprietary systems that want to become gatekeepers between creators and viewers. There's no reason why the Internet needs to work that way. Everything that's exciting about the Web happens because it's open. We think the same thing should be true for video online.

wavLength: Give me an example of a media player that is closed and a gatekeeper.

REVILLE: Joost is a good example of that. It's a streaming video system where anybody who wants to be part of their network has to do a deal with them to publish through them. And anybody who wants to watch needs to use their software. We think that's a threat to video online because if you're a creator and something like that becomes a dominant system or there's similar systems that are in the works from companies like Comcast or Charter that control your cable box, if there's a proprietary system between you and the viewers you're really forced to use their system regardless of whether it works for you.