VLC has been downloaded over a billion times • Hacker News Board

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#31

Post by danso » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:12 PM UTC

This is an incredible number...I didn't believe it at first but it makes sense given the cumulative version downloads.

But except for other techies (fellow students in comsci/comp. eng), I ran into very few people who ever used VLC. They just put up with WMP/VLC/iTunes.

Now with Netflix/Amazon/iTunes, I've found myself rarely ever needing another video player. Not that these commercial entities are "better" than what VLC offers, they're just easy enough and provide enough content that I no longer feel the "need" to go to VLC...but that's also because I'm older and have less time to watch things overall.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#32

Post by liotier » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:13 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #5

No Linux stats. That's too bad! I would really love to see how they would compare to mac and windows download counts.

About 25% of Debian users who submit to the Debian Popularity Contest have VLC installed on their computer : http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=vlc&show_... - that includes servers, so the actual proportion of Debian desktop users with VLC is much higher.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#33

Post by derefr » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:17 PM UTC

xyzzyb wrote: post #24

fierarul wrote: post #2

I cherish the VLC.app for iPad that was pulled from the AppStore! It's just great to copy a movie in the app folder and know it will play in VLC without any conversion, etc. It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go. Edit: But the new VLC on OSX is horrible. Had to revert to the older version, mostly due to the way on…

Try hosting your video files on a Plex media server paired with the Plex iOS app. No need to copy files to the iPad, Plex streaming works great even over 3G. You can register your server with myPlex then sign on Plex clients to make getting to your video collection super easy. Custom video categories are fantastic for keeping track of programming screencasts. I just setup my Plex with Peepcode, Destroy All Software,…

That doesn't really solve for the parent's use-case of

> It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go.

though. You'd need to bring something to run Plex on.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#34

Post by xyzzyb » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:21 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #33

xyzzyb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try hosting your video files on a Plex media server paired with the Plex iOS app. No need to copy files to the iPad, Plex streaming works great even over 3G. You can register your server with myPlex then sign on Plex clients to make getting to your video collection super easy. Custom video categories are fantastic for keeping track of programming screencasts. I just setup my Plex with Peepcode, Destroy All Software,…

That doesn't really solve for the parent's use-case of > It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go. though. You'd need to bring something to run Plex on .

Plex runs on a computer at home. You then stream that computer's media over the Internet on the iPad/iPhone using the Plex app. To make things super-easy you can register your home Plex server on myPlex and sign into it using myPlex on the iPad/iPhone.

Bam! No need to bring a computer OR move files to the device. You can even stream over 3G with pretty decent quality.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#35

Post by afterburner » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:23 PM UTC

I've always been impressed at what VLC accomplished under the hood, but the usability and configurability of Media Player Classic always pulls me back.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#36

Post by praptak » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:26 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #15

praptak wrote: post #14

If you value all the the time you saved by skipping "unskippable" DVD crap in VLC, please consider donating to this amazing project.

Doesn't it just use mplayer's libraries for playing DVDs? Seems like they would be a better target for donation (particularly since most efforts to support new formats e.g. bluray seem to happen there)

To be honest I had not analyzed this like the other posters did. I just trusted the people I donated to will contribute upstream (downstream?), if not in money then at least in code. In general, yes, I agree that care should be taken with choosing the best target for donations.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#37

Post by cema » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:27 PM UTC

VLC is a great product. Has consistently been among the top media players for the big platforms for quite a while. (Despite occasional slips like the recent changes on OS X, still one of the best.)

I have, as others mentioned too, noticed a certain reluctance among the non-techies to download and install VLC. Even so (or maybe especially so), I promote it whenever I can.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#38

Post by danssig » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:29 PM UTC

xyzzyb wrote: post #24

fierarul wrote: post #2

I cherish the VLC.app for iPad that was pulled from the AppStore! It's just great to copy a movie in the app folder and know it will play in VLC without any conversion, etc. It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go. Edit: But the new VLC on OSX is horrible. Had to revert to the older version, mostly due to the way on…

Try hosting your video files on a Plex media server paired with the Plex iOS app. No need to copy files to the iPad, Plex streaming works great even over 3G. You can register your server with myPlex then sign on Plex clients to make getting to your video collection super easy. Custom video categories are fantastic for keeping track of programming screencasts. I just setup my Plex with Peepcode, Destroy All Software,…

Or you can use AirVideo. It converts while it streams or you can have it just do the conversion and dump it in iTunes so it will sync to the ipad automatically for offline usage.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#39

Post by NathanKP » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:35 PM UTC

Every time I see the VLC website I have to laugh, because I coded it a few years ago back when I was still doing general consulting. It has changed a little bit but it is still nice to be able to look into the code and still see some of my old stuff in there. And yes.... I know some of the markup is terrible. :P

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#40

Post by adaml_623 » Mon, May 14, 2012, 3:49 PM UTC

xyzzyb wrote: post #34

derefr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really solve for the parent's use-case of > It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go. though. You'd need to bring something to run Plex on .

Plex runs on a computer at home. You then stream that computer's media over the Internet on the iPad/iPhone using the Plex app. To make things super-easy you can register your home Plex server on myPlex and sign into it using myPlex on the iPad/iPhone. Bam! No need to bring a computer OR move files to the device. You can even stream over 3G with pretty decent quality.

I think the previous poster understood the technical details and was implying that internet access is not always there. Also a lot of people have limited mobile quotas so wouldn't want to use their 3G connection for streaming something.