SQLite is probably a contender, but think a pretty good case can be made that the JVM is the best software ever written.
Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
571–580 of 666 posts
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#572VLC. There have been so many times I thought "man it would be great if there were this crazy hypothetical feature in my media player" only to find out it's like a stable long-established feature that's a keypress away from activation after a quick google search or glance at a dropdown menu.
On the Mac I'm far happier with MPlayerX: http://mplayerx.org/ It's UI is optimised for playing video (example: if your window is not fullscreen, but playing it will stay in front). It has smoother playback than vlc, I can actually skip by seconds with my cursors etc.
How does it compare to mpv?
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess it only becomes a real power tool if you learn to navigate and harness the power of the 2 side-by-side panels by keyboard. Long story short, let me sum up some of my favorite features: - Tab to switch between panels - Navigate with arrow keys through the files list (very handy if you have it on 'brief' view, especially since you can walk through whole directories with left/right arrow until you hit the '..')…
Just out of interest, what are your thoughts on Directory Opus? https://www.gpsoft.com.au/ I've not used Total Commander or Directory Opus much, but I figured DOpus was something you might be interested in.
I have no thoughts on DOpus other than: it looks horrible GUI-wise
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
VLC has the same problem as Chrome vs. Safari for me on OS X: It's not color correct, ignores monitor color profiles and colors look washed out in direct comparison to QuickTime. I'm guessing many people are not aware of that on their Macs. At least Chromium seems finally to work on this after more than 5 years https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=44872 I wished I do not need to switch to QuickTime o…
Chrome has color problems? I am curious about this. Can you point me to more specifics?
look at the linked chrome bug link. But you can also see it yourself. Open an image you know very well on both Chrome and Safari and compare side by side. I can even see it on opening http://imgur.com in Chrome and Safari and comparing the results. I recognize it the most on skin tones. Chrome is washed out a little and in Safari it looks nice.
You can see it even more on videos. Go to the same minute/second and compare Chrome and Safari.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#575Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
I would go mad if I don't get to blow someones head off :D
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
All these players use the same code, you know. Here it is: https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/blob/master/libavcodec/hevc... I'd be pretty surprised if there was a major difference between them. Maybe some bugs in the rendering path, or one player isn't doing threads properly?
They should run the same in theory - but they don't in practice. It is typically more noticeable on older hardware, on my current rig I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Maybe that's changed in more recent versions, but I no longer have my older rig to do comparison tests. Also what gcb0 said is true as well - but not everyone needs subtitles for their videos. My 'expertise' in media player selection…
This definitely falls under "bugs in the rendering path". In this case the question isn't which one looks better, but which one the media author intended.
Your two culprits are that someone's YUV->RGB math forgot that Y needs to be expanded from 16-235 to 0-255 - possible but really surprising! - or that one player implements gamma correction and the other doesn't.
Gamma correction might look nice, but it can't be called correct unless you've profiled your monitor, set the brightness level, not changed your ambient lighting levels, and turned off all the nonsense LCD options like "contrast".
BTW, the only rendering bug I ever expect to see is the difference between Rec.601 and Rec.709 colorspace, which just kind of makes green colors look different. So this is pretty extreme!
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#577Checkvist, a checklist, task management and planning tool. I mainly use it for brainstorming and planning and its great. Been using it for many years now. Just wish the mobile experience was better (its too easy to accidentally move items on mobile), but they have a decent API, so maybe one day I'll hack one together that works how I want.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#578Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#579iTerm on mac. You'll appreciate it more if you've used a linux (Ubuntu etc) OS for a long time before.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question you should be asking is, "does it properly ignore DVD menus?"
The question you should be asking is "can it find its way around DRM?" When I play some bought DVDs with VLC the DRM stops the DVD getting to the menu stage (on Linux especially) and I need the menu to change the language for my children who don't always want English[1]. Skipping the menu doesn't let me change the language, and not using the skip-menu option means the DVD won't play. Disney are not alone in this, but…
I was usually able to switch the language by right-clicking, there's a submenu that lets you select which audio stream (i.e. which language) you want to listen to.