In case you have been feeling out of options when it comes to watching Internet TV and finding video podcasts, the Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) on Monday released a major new version of Miro, its open source Internet TV and podcast player. Miro 2.0 brings integration with streaming sites like Hulu and Archive.org, a windowed video player, and much-improved performance.

The first noticeable change upon running the new version is some appreciated new UI polish. Miro's sidebar has been tightened up and now features separate sections for sites (we'll get to those in a minute), subscribed feeds, audio feeds, and playlists. The toolbar has been rearranged to place controls on the left and give more space to the timeline for scrubbing, and videos can now be played in an external window to allow for browsing and organizing while watching an episode. Miro's guide has also been updated and redesigned for this release, now featuring over 6,000 free video podcasts ("many" in HD) and a slicker experience when browsing and searching for shows. The rest of Miro 2.0's changes focus primarily on content and performance, though a number of drawbacks still remain.

One of Miro's most significant new features is pseudo-support for a variety of Web-based content destinations like Hulu, YouTube, Archive.org, and Legaltorrents.com (note, however, that Flash streaming only works in Mac OS X and Windows). Hulu support is interesting in that the site can be added to Miro's new "Sites" sidebar section, and Hulu shows appear among others when searching Miro's directory, so they can also be linked via the sidebar for quick access. Unfortunately, embedded shows at sites like Hulu and YouTube cannot be played in Miro's new video player window.

For Archive.org, Legaltorrents.com, and other sites that offer direct downloads, Miro can now capture those links and download the content directly into your library. This should save some clunky back and forth operations when downloading content. A new File > Download Item command can download files from YouTube and similar sites that permit downloading, though as a frustrating UI handicap, you will have to grab the URL from an external browser in order to download a video. You cannot, for example, search for a YouTube file in Miro and download it from the page you visit.

Miro 2.0 also brings much better performance and faster torrent downloads, thanks to an upgrade to the latest version of libtorrent. While we admittedly have not been heavy users of Miro in the past, this new version indeed feels a lot snappier all around. The UI is faster and more responsive, and download speeds do feel improved over our past experience.

All of these features are welcome upgrades for this cross-platform, open source video and audio player, though Miro still suffers from a few important drawbacks. There is still no support for synchronizing with portable devices like an iPod, though Dean Jansen, PCF's outreach director, told Ars Technica that these features are coming "hopefully soon." Miro also doesn't play very well with the living room yet, either. While some third-party software, such as SofaControl for Mac OS X, can control Miro with an external remote, Miro itself offers no such support out of the box. Some kind of "smart" playlist integration, in addition to basic playlists, also would not hurt.

Complaints aside, Miro 2.0 is a major step for the software not only as a video playing alternative to incumbents like iTunes and Windows Media Player, but also as a directory that now catalogs streaming video sites in addition to video podcasts.