I use Miro (http://www.getmiro.com) pretty much every day to download and watch media. Today on my Windows box, however, it decided to no longer play back video. The audio played just fine but I only got a blank screen for video. I did some extensive googling, all of which turned up the same thing, a fix that could be applied by installing VLC (the media player Miro uses), tweaking the video settings, then copying a certain file to a certain directory and restarting Miro. Unfortunately, everyone that posted about this fix linked to some Miro documentation that no longer existed for the specifics. After a bunch of trial and error, I finally figured out where everything needed to go for the fix. Please note, these instructions are based on a “standard” Windows XP setup in which the system drive is C and your profile is stored in C:\Documents and Settings… in other words ymmv.
- Install the latest VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc)
- Open one of Miro videos using VLC.
- Go to Tools > Preferences > Video and change the settings until your video actually displays correctly (note: you will need to restart VLC between each change to notice any effects, the most common setting that causes problems is “Accelerated Video Output” being enabled.)
- Once you have your video displaying correctly in VLC, go to C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\vlc and copy the vlcrc file
- Open C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\PCF-VLC and paste the working vlcrc file here.
- Make sure Miro is closed, launch a fresh copy of Miro and voila! Video should not output properly.
Also, I’d like to say to the people that make Miro, I love your product and think you are doing a great job. The documentation on your site, however, is hard to use and sorely lacking. Perhaps you should consider implementing a more traditional wiki for issues such as this and keeping an archive in place so links to common fixes don’t go bad in the future.
Fixes, software, technology audio only, fix, Miro, no video, software
So, we all know that Comcast throttles traffic and is generally averse to fair use right? Well, now they have added a new form of bullying to their repertoire. Recently, they decided to block an entire /17 network range. Why? We have no idea. However, the /17 in questions happens to be assigned to the hosting company I work for. We have submitted multiple requests to have IPs removed from the blacklist as we have verified that they are not sending out spam. Comcast has refused every request. Now they are telling us we have to filter the outgoing email for our entire network or else they will not take the range off their blacklist.
That’s right… they are demanding that instead of them doing their job by only blocking actual spammers, we have to police all outgoing email for two full data centers. Nevermind the fact that the cost of the equipment necessary to take on a job of that size would likely put us out of business, but the suggestion that we should be responsible for filtering all our customers outgoing mail is just ludicrous! Do we like spam? No, in fact it’s strictly against our Terms of Service and we terminate the accounts of any spammers we find. That said though, why should our customers not receive the benefit of the doubt? Also, why does Comcast think they have the right to bully other companies into policing the Internet? I, for one, will be canceling all my Comcast services as soon as I possibly can. I strongly encourage everyone else to as well for clearly they have lost their collective marbles.
Rants, technology Comcast, Jerks, Rants
The preliminary mock-up for my QWiki project. Main page will be generated using php. All internal links will use javascript to dynamically load the actual content. Now to get to the hard part: coding.
Uncategorized mock-up, projects, QWiki, web design
I’m going to be starting a new project soon. I call it… QWiki (pronounced quickie). Planning on making it basically an AJAX-y little platform for quick references. Check back for more details as the project develops.
Uncategorized projects, QWiki, web development
Hardcore MySQL learning today. Made me want to post geek motivators. So what if it’s not Monday? Rules are for suckers anyway.
Humor, Motivator Monday companion cube, geeks, motivators, resistance
I watch Hak5 every week and you should too!
Uncategorized Evil Server, Fail Bus, Hak5, Technolust
