Team Miro

The folks at Liberation, a French newspaper, chose to promote Miro for the distribution of their audio and video podcasts. Luc (our amazing French developer!) decided to translate the Liberation blog post about promoting Miro.

We asked the authors if they were OK with us reposting the translation, and they were!

 The article in full:

We confess, we played with the Miro Internet video player for quite a while. With the same peaceful impression than the Videolan  audio-video player: you just have to click a video and it works. Whatever the video, without having to bother with formats, with .mpg, .flv or .mp4. Without having to fight with a user manual. Without having to go through YouTube or DailyMotion. With Miro, we watch ‘Les Concerts à emporter’ (http://www.concertsaemporter.com/),  public domain movies (https://www.miroguide.com/channels/1039) and  american video podcasts (https://www.miroguide.com/channels/625). We can also watch the Liberation videos (http://www.libelabo.fr/category/dvd-cinoque).

iTunes is efficient too. It reads videos perfectly -audio too- and,  miracle, synchronize them with an iPod. But only if those podcasts  are published by a site where productions have been tinkered for  hours so they are readable by iTunes. And only if you have an iPod - and not a Creative player or any other. iTunes is by far the most efficient audio, video and podcast player when everyone -the audience as well as the publishers- accepts to eat Apple, breath Apple, and sleep Apple. In that case, then yes, Apple is the best, the most simple, the coolest. This is why so many people use Apple software without giving it another thought. It’s also why no publisher can ignore Apple. That’s specifically the case of LibéLabo and Libération in general: our audio podcasts work with the Appled branded products and we even launched an innovative service on the iPhone (http://iphone.liberation.fr/).

Our desire to publish our programs on iPod and others is not a walk in the park: this morning, before writing this post, I sent an email to my contacts at Apple France to ask them to push some of our programs on the forefront of the iTunes Store. In december, I wrote them that I was surprised that the illustration pictures of our podcasts did not show up on their store, for no specific reason, while they were showing up correctly on all other podcast directories, like Podemus. I waited. And the the pictures showed up. I don’t know why. Neither their documentation nor the Apple people explained it to me, and I can only say: thank you Apple. Thank you, thank you to allow us to reach a larger audience.

With Miro it’s nothing like that: it’s free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.fr.html), which aims at playing videos -and sounds- coming from everywhere, without favoring such and such. It targets efficiency AND freedom for the user. Does this puzzle you ? Obviously: it’s hard to grasp how the production of free software -which aren’t controled by a single company- radicaly differs from the Microsoft or Apple way. Some half-monks-half-soldier dudes have worked to death for years trying to explain this difference, here (http://www.april.org/articles/intro/ll.html) or there (http://www.framasoft.net/article3338.html).

At Libé, we currently don’t have the time or the energy to spend hours formatting our videos for Apple, following the Apple rules when they actually agree to give them to us. Our job, is information for everyone, not information for Apple users, even if they are a lot.

So, here. After many hesitations and tests, we have decided, at LibéLabo, to rely on Miro -and all other open software- to publish our videos. To encourage you to use this software. To accept and comprehend what it involves: reading our videos on your iPod will be difficult, at least for some time. If you have an Apple shaped tatoo on your arm, you might find us a bit inefficient, or not hype. We already feature two programs which you can subscribe to using Miro: the “5 jours à la Une” (http://www.libelabo.fr/category/5-jours-a-la-une/, where the Libération board looks back at the news of the week using the front pages of Libé) and the “DVD du cinoque” (http://www.libelabo.fr/category/dvd-cinoque/, commentaries for movie buffs). One day soon, these programs will also be available on the iTunes Store and on your iPods. Even if it’s against our philosophy, we will make this effort.

And while writing all this, I’m even sure that Apple won’t be angry with Libé: they know it very well, individually, the employees of Jobs’ company, that we all have the same goal: to not make information a prisoner of the technology. At Libération, we want to be faithful to our name even if it’s a difficult goal. And we will of course answer to all your questions or call for helps, whatever tool you are using.

To download Miro, go here (http://www.getmiro.com/).