Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

videolan.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 111 posts

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#41

Post by base698 »

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.

That works so well on an airplane without wifi, or a tent in a valley in the wilderness :)

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#42

Post by blhack »

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,…

This isn't going to work at all on most airplanes.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#43

Post by rytis »

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.

Some people go where there is no 3G/WiFi coverage. Sometimes it's also financially not feasible to do this (think roaming costs).

Example - a ferry trip from UK to France. No 3G for about 1.5hrs, or in other words - no 3G for a average length movie.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#44

Post by xyzzyb »

danssig wrote: post #38
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,…

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.

Sure, but then you'll have to use up precious gigabytes for video storage. Via plex I have streaming access to my entire video library.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#45

Post by freehunter »

hackermom wrote: post #30
program wrote: post #26

I know that it's a fallacious statistic but here is the VLC all time OS market share (rounded): Windows: 89.38% OS X: 10.27% Other: 0.35%

I wonder how many percentiles of the Windows number comes from Windows' re-re-re-re-install-ish nature. "Dang, my FPS is low, I gotta "format Windows" again."

I've always held install/download statistics to be just a rough, rough estimate. Personally, I know I can spin up a Windows VM within the span of a lunch break and run a script to automatically install all my default applications (even if I don't plan on using them). When I'm finished with whatever task I'm doing, I delete the VM.

With VLC and Firefox et al, I know reinstalls contribute to a lot of "downloads" numbers. I take the number at face value: it's popular enough to have been downloaded 1 billion times, regardless of how many people are using it right now.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#46

Post by st3fan »

hackermom wrote: post #29

If you want something smaller, faster and tons more efficient for OS X, I highly recommend MPlayerX instead. It's everything VLC is, and more, with none of VLC's bloat.

Or just install Perian. Which installs most popular codecs system wide.

That means things will work fine in any app that uses the OS X APIs to render video.

Including QuickView .. really nice to be able to just hit space bar in the Finder to see a quick preview of a movie.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#47

Post by ElliotH »

There's a lesson in how to make a product in VLC's success. It has a horribly unfriendly interface, and is certainly not pretty, but it doesn't matter - Whatever media file you point it at, you can feel confident that VLC will play it, without hassle.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#48

Post by efnx »

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…

VLC is open source right? It would be nice if they put up the source for the iPad app so at least developers could make a build for themselves.

Re: VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

#49

Post by RobAtticus »

hackermom wrote: post #30
program wrote: post #26

I know that it's a fallacious statistic but here is the VLC all time OS market share (rounded): Windows: 89.38% OS X: 10.27% Other: 0.35%

I wonder how many percentiles of the Windows number comes from Windows' re-re-re-re-install-ish nature. "Dang, my FPS is low, I gotta "format Windows" again."

I haven't had to reinstall Windows since upgrading to 7, and didn't really reinstall that often with XP either. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think this has been a big issue in quite a while.
Post reply on HN