Public service announcement: VLC is on iPhone in the App Store, too. (Some people don't know this.)
VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
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Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#12The award is well deserved, VLC was a godsend a few years ago but I’m not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays. All other players play videos just fine on Linux now. I guess VLC is only a thing on Windows because the default software is crap. On Linux almost everyone now use whatever is the default player or MPV for the nerds.
> I’m not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays
Lack of backdoors?
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#13The award is well deserved, VLC was a godsend a few years ago but I’m not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays. All other players play videos just fine on Linux now. I guess VLC is only a thing on Windows because the default software is crap. On Linux almost everyone now use whatever is the default player or MPV for the nerds.
So, the same value-add as always!
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#14So many hours of fun watching videos over the years, without the constant fear that some odd codec would make the experience impossible. Thanks, VLC!
“If you insert a slice of bologna into the disc tray, VLC will play it.”
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#15I’m old enough to remember crappiness before VLC. Such a useful piece of software. Well deserved. What a dude.
K Lite Codec Pack + Media Player Classic was great
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#16The award is well deserved, VLC was a godsend a few years ago but I’m not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays. All other players play videos just fine on Linux now. I guess VLC is only a thing on Windows because the default software is crap. On Linux almost everyone now use whatever is the default player or MPV for the nerds.
I use it on my Android phone. Is there a better FOSS media player (or better any media player?).
VLC also still (or at least recently?) provides APKs you can download to install on very old Android versions. I have it installed on a few old Android tablets (and by old I mean something like Android version 4).
MPV everywhere else though.
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#17I remember using VLC and figuring out how to download subtitles and use them within it.
I suddenly became the computer person of my family at 11 because of that
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#18Still really hoping his game/app streaming system Kyber eventually materializes! https://kyber.media/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39929602 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RvosCplkCc
Incredibly accomplished already. What gravy this would be though.
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#19The award is well deserved, VLC was a godsend a few years ago but I’m not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays. All other players play videos just fine on Linux now. I guess VLC is only a thing on Windows because the default software is crap. On Linux almost everyone now use whatever is the default player or MPV for the nerds.
I might be wrong but I think the guys at VLC are still very important contributors to ffmpeg, which is still a big deal.
They also (kinda recently) developed some really low latency tech for streaming called Kyber
So bottomline the player might not be used that much (although on mobile the app is very popular still) but the tech they develop for it, is
Re: VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
#20The award is well deserved, VLC was a godsend a few years ago but I’m not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays. All other players play videos just fine on Linux now. I guess VLC is only a thing on Windows because the default software is crap. On Linux almost everyone now use whatever is the default player or MPV for the nerds.
Yep.
VLC was not important on Linux. Because we have ffmpeg as foundation, used by mplayer and nowadays mpv. The later is my recommendation. Whether on the tty (awesome!) or on Wayland. If you prefer a native Gtk an interface is available, named Celluloid. In all these cases mpv is mighty, reliable, fits into the environment with a frugal interface.
We’ve also players based on gstreamer but ffmpeg is more reliable.
But the need for a reliable player on Windows, Android, macOS, iOS and tvOS is big. Because their default players suck. VLC comes with an awkward UI and the weird built-in stuff for SMB. But from a 2001 point-of-view it makes sense, LAN-parties are nice and back then they were everywhere. And Windows doesn’t support WebDAV well.
My favorite is mpv. But I’m still tankful that I’ve one usable player in my iPhone.
PS: VLC also uses ffmpeg?