And Now Miro 1.0...from the Painter's Apprentices

Update, update to my post of August 16, 2007!!!

For a open source project, the Miro folks have been doing an amazing job. Here are the main features of Player 1.0, now officially off the beta threadmill:

* Watch Full Screen
Since Miro works so well for HD content, you'll find lots of video that looks beautiful in fullscreen on even the largest displays.

* Resume from Where You Stopped
Miro will remember where you stopped watching a video and will start at that point when you play it again.

* Play Almost Anything
Forget about the format wars. Miro can play MPEG, Quicktime, AVI, H.264, Divx, Windows Media, Flash Video, and almost every other major video format.

* One After Another
Set your Miro preferences to either play videos one after another (in the order they appear) or to play a video then stop. If you have Miro set to play videos one after another, you can always right-click on an individual video and have it play then stop.

Congrats and lots of luck!

Our Video Ad on Million Dollar Web TV

What's in it for us, in addition to having our ad always on the front page for 10+ years?

How about:

* Displaying our video for free?
* Expusure to at least 100,000 targeted visitors a month?
* Ability to add new videos and rotate them?
* Sharing in profits in proportion to our investment?
* All this for spending only $1,800?

I made the video ad myself, combining the animated gif camera with the other graphics elements in a 320x240 web page. Voice-over came from a text-to-speech synthesizer, courtesy of BlueGrind. I recorded both running at the same time, using Ambrosia's SnapzPro X, then converted the clip from QuickTime to Flash with Cleaner 6.5. Hardest part was to visualize and design the ad!

Cybercast credit: Million Dollar Web TV

The New, Improved "All-in-One" Real Video Player

Real Networks' (remember them?) new RealPlayer, in beta this month, will allow you to download Internet video instantly from YouTube, Yahoo and virtually anywhere else on the Web. Build a library for full-screen playback on your PC; better yet, stream it from your PC directly to your TV with Apple TV; or burn it to disc.





I checked RealPlayer's home and was treated to an earful: "Your nephew's first steps. The speech that moves you. The hilarious clip your co-worker forwarded. With the new RealPlayer , you'll be able to download them all to your personal video playlist. Grab videos from thousands of Web sites with just one click. Watch them any time, create a video playlist or even burn your greatest hits to DVD. Find the Web video you want- and Real it in."





Hype notwithstanding, the free player does enable you to download or record non DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected videos from multiple formats - including not only Real, but Windows Media, Quicktime and even Flash. (I'll wait to see how that works in the final version before giving you my take.) You can also burn your videos to disc - to DVDs with the RealPlayer Plus pay version and to CDs in Video-CD format with the free version. Transfer to your mobile entertainment / communication device of choice - iPod? (not likely) ; iPhone (ditto); Zune (possibly); etc. will be available in the future, says Real.

Are you being realed in?