VLC hasn't fixed the many-years-old bug where seeking causes pitch to randomly shift (https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/14287, previously https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/10056). And IIRC when VLC plays network streams (eg. Youtube) and they get disconnected, VLC often aborts playback instead of reconnecting (don't know if this bug is tracked or not, or fixed, since I use mpv for Youtube now).
The team that powers VLC (2019)
61–70 of 74 posts
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like how? What can it do that vlc can't?
loads instantaneously, simple config, fully-keyboard driven, vim-like bindings, great to use from the command line or terminal-based file managers like ranger.
> loads instantaneously
I've never encountered a case where VLC did not load "instantaneously". Unless you're using a baked potato this should always be the case. If you have proper benchmarks for different video files and different hardware, cite them. "Instantaneously" doesn't mean a thing.
Your other points are equally subjective and meaningless. Especially vim bindings, really? That is now considered a feature? And I don't get how directly changing the configuration from the GUI where each option is explained in detail is simpler than a error-prone process of modifying a text configuration.
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
You completely missed the point about man pages. It doesn't matter what the man page was written in, it's still a man page, optimized for viewing in text terminal. It makes no sense to use this format for web browser. Vlc also had a man page, but the developers know the difference between a man page and proper documentation. It's completely unsuitable for new users using any sufficiently complex application like a vi…
What it was "optimized for" is irrelevant if it's legible and has good information. The mpv manual read in a web browser is both of those. The VLC manual is a mediawiki (if we're talking about subjective appearances, mediawiki has always been fugly) that's both sparse and out of date. Changes to mpv make it into the manual because they're both in the same repo and people making changes to the code are expected by com…
> What it was "optimized for" is irrelevant if it's legible and has good information.
It's not having good information that is important, what's critical is finding relevant information quickly, tagging and linking it to other parts of the document and external sources. Also information does not have to be limited to text format, especially for manuals a graphic or a small video can be worth more than thousand written words. Welcome to 21st century. All information you'll ever need is present in the source code, then why even bother creating a documentation? Manpage is limited for even text terminals, texinfo is so much better.
I agree regarding the need to keep the documentation updated. However, it's quite easy to get support from the community and putting a request to update an outdated article or section.
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont think VLC is bad by any means or that anyone shouldn't use it, I just don't understand the comments I often see on HN acting like it's some unprecedented software that's unlike anything else.
VLC is unique in its support for every codec under the sun. If it refuses to play a video file, it's probably because it's damaged beyond recovery, or not a video file at all. The default Windows and smartphone video players choke on all kinds of files, so you can't really expect that any given file is supported.
Isn’t it just a wrapper for ffmpeg?
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#65Anyone know if it’s possible to run shaders in VLC like you can with mpv? e.g. https://github.com/igv/FSRCNN-TensorFlow/releases
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
loads instantaneously, simple config, fully-keyboard driven, vim-like bindings, great to use from the command line or terminal-based file managers like ranger.
> loads instantaneously I've never encountered a case where VLC did not load "instantaneously". Unless you're using a baked potato this should always be the case. If you have proper benchmarks for different video files and different hardware, cite them. "Instantaneously" doesn't mean a thing. Your other points are equally subjective and meaningless. Especially vim bindings, really? That is now considered a feature? A…
My comment was not meant as a slight on VLC. If I was incorrect about load time that does not invalidate the other points. The concept of a "feature" is subjective and if someone finds them valuable, then they are valuable features by definition.
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont think VLC is bad by any means or that anyone shouldn't use it, I just don't understand the comments I often see on HN acting like it's some unprecedented software that's unlike anything else.
It plays any media file you throw at it out of the box and doesn't require any codec packs installed. On top of that, it has a ton of other features including network support. Simple as that.
> It plays any media file
I also believed this until I got a family support case a couple of weeks ago.
I learned that if the bitrate is too high for the PC to handle vlc badly fails. (This was a fanless Intel PC, so the CPU is very much low end despite not being particularly old.) Of course I would not expect vlc to do any miracles here, but at least I would expect an error message explaining the problem. ffmpeg gives me warnings all the time if buffers are too small etc. In vlc I'd expect it a bit less cryptic...
Ideally it would still play the video with reduced quality. Whether that's at all doable I don't know. Just decoding I-frames would be the most naive approach, but probably also a not lead to very much usable results.
Actually the family member found one solution themselves: Play it at reduced speed. VLC could have figured out that automatically. (And of course give a clear message to the user why it does that.)
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I've personally always wondered why people advocate MPC. During like 15+ years of use I can't recall having a single issue with VLC. And that's from consuming basically everything from the VCD era and onwards. In my experience VLC has been as close to flawless software as one can get.
It is[1] popular to recommend MPC over VLC in the anime fansub community, especially on /a/. When H. 264/10bit was newish and had just started to come into regular use in the scene[2], I distinctly remember a lot of people shitting on VLC because at the time it didn't handle it very well right out of the box, and there were tons of guides floating around on how to download/setup MPC-HC with CCCP or k-lite and haali m…
VLC had no styled subtitle support at the time, and often didn't seek to keyframes so clicking around would corrupt the video. It was also pretty inefficient on macOS.
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It plays any media file you throw at it out of the box and doesn't require any codec packs installed. On top of that, it has a ton of other features including network support. Simple as that.
> It plays any media file I also believed this until I got a family support case a couple of weeks ago. I learned that if the bitrate is too high for the PC to handle vlc badly fails. (This was a fanless Intel PC, so the CPU is very much low end despite not being particularly old.) Of course I would not expect vlc to do any miracles here, but at least I would expect an error message explaining the problem. ffmpeg giv…
> Ideally it would still play the video with reduced quality. Whether that's at all doable I don't know.
It isn't really. It's possible if the video has B-frames but it's hard to predict how much dropping will cause how much recovery, and if you drop almost anything else the possible error is unbounded.
Re: The team that powers VLC (2019)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're arguing that MPC is better than VLC because of an issue you encountered 13 - almost 14 - years ago?
No, I'm pointing out that a better player already existed since the inception of VLC.
Lots of better players existed at the inception of VLC. Most existing players that worked at all were probably better. That's how most projects start off.