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15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

jbkempf.com

71–80 of 153 posts

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#71
post #5

Still wished I could have VLC as an engine inside QuickTime or whatever's native to the platform/OS. Is that possible or do you have to source the web for several obscure codecs?

This is a thing already. It's an option as a qt phonon backend in Linux at least, so all qt apps that use it will support any of vlcs codecs.

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#73
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have quite a few files VLC doesn't play that MPlayer does. I use VLC as my main viewer but I get a file that doesn't work I try MPlayer.

Please share them with us :)

Lots of modern anime rips have had corruption issues with VLC in the past[0]. It's actually become a meme in those communities[1]. As x264 and 10bit encodings became ubiquitous, I think VLC's support also became fairly sufficient. However, the anime community is known for being early adopters of new encoding strategies. I believe it would benefit the development of VLC if some developers could check out what those encoders are doing every so often. It seems like they're always a few years ahead of how everyone else is encoding.

[0]: http://i38.tinypic.com/34gkavn.jpg [1]: http://i.imgur.com/RWIAe.jpg

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#74
post #56

A little know fact about the VideoLAN project is that it was started so that the student organization could justify the need to replace the old networking infrastructure of the campus with a brand new high-bandwidth fiber optics network. They really wanted to deploy a fiber optic network but the school would have never approved it so they thought "OK, we need something that uses a ton of bandwidth, let's make a video…

OP here: it's almost exact. The old network was TokenRing based, and therefore, the more people connected, the bigger the lag for LAN games was. So they wanted an Ethernet one :)

Thanks for the correction! I was remembering one of the members of VIA (the student association who manages the IT at Ecole Centrale) giving me a tour of their infrastructure and boasting about fiber optic networks but I guess that was was after VideoLAN and the switch from Token Ring to Ethernet. Maybe something related to the Renater backbone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renater)

Anyway! Goods times :)

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#75
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have quite a few files VLC doesn't play that MPlayer does. I use VLC as my main viewer but I get a file that doesn't work I try MPlayer.

Please share them with us :)

Codec not supported: VLC could not decode the format "CFHD" (No description for this codec)

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#76

A little know fact about the VideoLAN project is that it was started so that the student organization could justify the need to replace the old networking infrastructure of the campus with a brand new high-bandwidth fiber optics network. They really wanted to deploy a fiber optic network but the school would have never approved it so they thought "OK, we need something that uses a ton of bandwidth, let's make a video…

On a related note, VLC's traffic cone icon comes from a club member drunkenly stealing one, which then ballooned into the organization collecting them and eventually inspired the icon. https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=9792

Interesting. It’s a terrible, stupid, confusing symbol for this project.

[edit] if the point is to be cryptic and appealing to nerds, it succeeds in spades [/edit]

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#78
post #3

In the earlier days of mainstream desktop linux (~2005), video codecs were a complete shitshow. VLC was a godsend during those times - it just worked. Still the first thing I apt-get after a fresh install. If you're reading this team VLC, thank you for your work. Ways to contribute to VLC: http://www.videolan.org/contribute.html

Even until the last few years on Windows, codecs were a shit show. You could download codec packs, but it was pretty hit and miss. VLC was amazing - it would open everything, audio just worked, and subtitles just worked.

CCCP has worked great for me on Windows for the last 10+ years.

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#79
post #36

I used to promote VLC at every corner, until they dropped the ball on 4K support big time. Even with a good mid-price graphics card, they're unable to utilize the GPU hardware effectively, and if you don't have a good amount of CPU power, the app chokes when it's asked to play 4K video. Ridiculous, since even the integrated Intel graphics on CPUs are now capable of playing 4K without any trouble.

Out of interest, which media player do you use now? Are they cross-platform like VLC?

I still go with VLC out of habit, but switch to MPC to play 4k videos.

Re: 15 years of VLC and VideoLAN

#80
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have quite a few files VLC doesn't play that MPlayer does. I use VLC as my main viewer but I get a file that doesn't work I try MPlayer.

Please share them with us :)

I was going to say: an example that's fairly reproducible, any video recorded with Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is playable in WMP but not VLC.

However, I just tried it is fixed already, I love VLC.

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