Digitivity » BitTorrent

How to Download Movies with BitTorrent Using Miro

Digitivity — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:48:52 +0000

I covered installing Miro on Windows the other day.

Miro is a free and open source podcast downloader and viewer. You can also download and view torrents in Miro.

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer media sharing network.

I wrote a guest post for the What’s Good Blog about BitTorrent and Miro.

Read about how to download movies with BitTorrent using Miro on the What’s Good Blog.

How to Install Miro Podcast Viewer on Windows

Digitivity — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:30:21 +0000

Miro is a free and open source podcast viewer for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Here’s a run-through of the installation process for Windows so you know what to expect before you start.

Go to the Miro download site at http://www.getmiro.com/download .

The website detects your operating system and shows you the download appropriate for your computer. Click on the download button:

In a default installation of Windows, Internet Explorer will pop up an “Information Bar” and also a dialog box telling you about it. Click OK to dismiss the dialog box:

The information bar tells you that Internet Explorer blocked the download for your security:

Choose “Download File”:

Click on the information bar to show options:

Internet Explorer shows a “File Download – Security Warning” dialog box. Click on Save:

Windows shows a file dialog to allow you to choose where to save the file. Just choosing the default (the Desktop) should be OK:

The installer starts downloading:

Once the Miro installer is downloaded, click on Run:

Internet Explorer shows a “Security Warning” dialog box. Click on Run again:

The “Welcome to the Miro Setup Wizard” dialog is shown. Click on Next:

Miro Setup asks you what kind of installation you want to do: quick or custom. Quick installation also installs an Ask.com bar into Internet Explorer as well as setting your homepage to mirostart.com, which shows results from Bing.

If you don’t want the Ask.com bar or to have your homepage reset, select Custom Installation above, and deselect “MiroStart” and “Ask.com”.

The installer then downloads the rest of the installation files (26MB):

Once it’s done, and setup is complete, it asks you if you want to run Miro. Click on Finish to do so:

Once you run Miro, it asks you if you want to run Miro every time you start your computer. Either select Yes, or you can start Miro manually every time from the Windows Start Menu.

Miro then asks you if you want it to find and organize your collection of media files. I view Miro as a good podcast downloader and viewer, but not so well as a general media center. I would select No:

Note that when Miro starts running, you may get a Security Alert from Windows Firewall. This is because Miro has to access the Internet to do its work. Click on Unblock:

If you don’t already have Adobe Flash installed (necessary to view YouTube videos), Miro may ask you if you want to install it:

To start Miro after installing it, just go the Windows Start Menu, then Programs, then Miro, and Miro again:

And here’s the main window:

Just browse to the podcast you want to subscribe to and click on “Add Feed to Miro”. I’ll have more on working with Miro later.

Mininova Effectively Shut Down, Limited to Content Distribution Service

Digitivity — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:14:53 +0000

Breaking news: Mininova, the torrent site, has effectively been shut down.

Granted, the site itself still running, but 99% of the torrents which used to be available on the site are no longer available. The only torrents which will be available are those vetted through its Content Distribution Service.

The Mininova blog entry for this news is on fire, with 2000 (yes, two thousand) comments in just minutes.

It’s unclear whether legal other than those associated with the new content distribution service will be available (such as OpenOffice releases or Linux distributions).

The cause of the shutdown was a court order in the wake of an ongoing lawsuit, the Brein case.

The matter is being discussed on Slashdot here.