Welcome back to a new edition of our weekly roundup. As always, at least one of this week's picks should make a great addition to your Applications folder. We'll give you a hint: old school!


Poladroid - The easiest and funniest Polaroid image maker

Poladroid is by far the best Mac app we've seen in a while. Developed by Dominik Fusina, Poladroid makes even the worst pictures you've got look like the work of a professional. Either that, or they just look cool.

Using Poladroid couldn't be easier and more fun. After copying the app to your Applications folder, click on its icon in the dock to fire it up. Use the Finder to look up your photos and, once you've found some that you like, start dropping them onto Poladroid's way-too-cool user interface. Your pictures are now seconds away from getting spit out of the camera and scattered across your desktop in a random manner. But wait! Here's where the fun begins.

When you get 10 pictures done, Poladroid suddenly refuses to make any more. It's about then that one starts thinking that the release notes didn't say this was a trial version. And it's not. The camera simply runs out of paper, as the developer wanted to make the experience as realistic as possible. You will have to close and restart the program to begin a new shooting session with a fresh cartridge.

Also adding to the real deal experience is the wait-to-develop feature (and yes, you can grab the picture and shake it about to develop it faster), as well as a realistic Polaroid-like color variation. Poladroid can generate high-res pictures of up to 400 dpi – ready-to-print.


Example using Leopard's Nature pictures - Marked pictures are done

We really don’t need to waste any more time discussing this marvelous piece of software, so go ahead and grab it now. Poladroid is currently in beta, but you can download the current version of the application for free, and keep it for as long as you want. It needs only Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), but it works even better on Leopard. It's a Universal Binary too, so even PPC users are supported. You couldn't get a better deal for such a cool app.

Download Poladroid Beta (Free)

Miro - free and easy to access Internet TV

Miro player lets you automatically download videos from your favorite channels, watch new videos, even download torrents, recommend videos to friends and more. It is an RSS feeder for videos and a torrent client, all in one free Mac app.

Miro undergoes a rigorous installation process to help you set it up according to your needs. Miro can find the videos stored on your hard drive, and helps you organize your collection. It can look up videos in your Movies folder, or your entire Home folder, while browsing for a particular directory is also possible. As soon as you're done with the setup, you will be presented with a very intuitive interface that will make it easy to download and watch all Internet TV shows and videos. New channels arrive daily in the built-in Channel Guide. The videos are big, high resolution ones, and you can grab them one after another. You can even manage them, right from within the app. It is recommended that you tell Miro to launch at startup, to continue with those unfinished downloads so you can start watching the videos as soon as possible.

Miro is open source and built by a non-profit team of code-savvy blokes. They'd appreciate it if you took into consideration installing an additional piece of software that helps them get some funding to continue their work. The iHeartMiro Firefox extension is virtually invisible and absolutely non-intrusive. Once you add it to Firefox, it will never bother you, but it will look out for your shopping on Amazon. The extension will give a referral fee to the Miro team when you shop at Amazon. It won't cost you a thing, says the organization.

Miro requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and is a Universal app.

Download Miro (Free)

Treasured - Repair your corrupt video files

Did you ever find yourself spending days at a time finding a movie, only to download it and see that it's corrupted? How about putting an end to this frustration, once and for all. Aero Quartet is introducing Treasured, a free solution for Mac users to recover those missing bytes in corrupted video files.

Treasured deals with most of the popular video formats available today. The types of media that it searches for are MPEG4 family (MPEG-4 Video, DivX, Xvid, 3ivx); DV (PAL, NSTC); DVCPro HD (main profiles, 720p, 1080i60, 1080i50); JPEG family; HDV; H264 and Intermediate.

Treasured uses a Frames Preview feature to detect media and the presence of container structures. QuickTime (mov, mp4) and AVI container structures are searched for and analyzed. Some movies are almost intact, and can be repaired with a simple Container Structure Correction.

NOTES:

The application needs a folder to store the results of diagnostics and repairs. By default, a folder named “repaired” will be created in your Movies folder, if you go with the standard installation. You can also choose your own folder for repaired items. Also, if the repair comes after a storage failure, this folder must not be on the same storage device.

For H264, MPEG4, and HDV, a good file encoded with the same settings might be necessary to preview the movie. The good file is used to configure the data extracted from the bad one into a good image.

For DV, DVCPro HD, Intermediate and JPEG, a Preview is provided automatically.

According to the developer, Preview has been written with all the knowledge accumulated since 2007 in Movie Repair. Aero Quartet claims that this free app gives an accurate diagnostic in 90% of the cases, and a movie preview in 80% of them, having been tested on hundreds of real cases.

Mac OS X 10.4 or later is required to run Treasured. To download this Universal app, use the link below.

Download Treasured (Free)

See you next week!