Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Miro 4 screenshot Ubuntu

Miro is an open source music / video player and converter that features an integrated BitTorrent client, podcast support and many other interesting features. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac.

Miro 4 was released a few days ago, getting some major new features like Android sync (with makes use of the media file conversion that was already built in Miro), Amazon Mp3 Store and Android store support, Ubuntu AppIndicator, share files with other computers that use Miro in your local network and well, there's a huge list so check it out here.



Install Miro 4 in Ubuntu 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04


The official Miro Ubuntu PPA was finally updated yesterday so you can now easily install the latest Miro 4 in Ubuntu. Add the Miro PPA and install Miro 4 in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and 10.04 Lucid Lynx using the commands below:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pcf/miro-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install miro



Get Miro To Convert Videos Under Ubuntu



Miro 4 Ubuntu - convert videos

That was the easy part. The problem is that by default, Miro can't convert to almost all the formats that show up in its menu. So let's fix this:

1. Open Ubuntu Software Center, select Edit > Software Sources, then on the first tab ("Ubuntu Software") enable the "multiverse" repository (you'll probably want to check all the boxes on this tab except source code), then close Software Sources and when asked, click the "Reload" button.

2. Now either search for "libavcodec-extra-52" in the Ubuntu Software Center and install it or run the command below:

sudo apt-get install libavcodec-extra-52

Installing this package will result in some errors that shouldn't really show up since we're installing it. The same errors were displayed both on my computer and in VirtualBox:

libavcodec-extra error


But don't worry, this is not a real error since the package APT complains is not installed is currently being installed.

After this, converting videos using Miro worked both on my computer and in VirtualBox, but on my computer I couldn't play any videos anymore (yet playing videos worked just fine in VirtualBox). Why? I couldn't find an exact answer but I'll tell you how I've fixed it. (Only run this if you can't play videos anymore) Open a terminal and type:
rm -r ~/.gstreamer-0.10

Now everything should work.