why VLC?

VastOne · 2012-08-11 20:17:30

^ Of course it is, but it is nice acceptable bloat.

rizzo · 2012-08-11 20:55:14

Just out of curiosity and a question for Xfce users. Are there the same choppy playback errors etc with Xfce?

pidsley · 2012-08-11 20:56:43

el_koraco wrote:

VastOne wrote:
GUI overlay
i.e, bloat.

abstraction layer

VastOne · 2012-08-11 20:57:44

@omns Are you referring to the choppiness with VLC or in general?

If in general, I do not see it with the Bloated UMPlayer

rhowaldt · 2012-08-11 21:00:39

sorry you guys, i was out drinking on a barbecue somewhere.
mediaplayers are bloat. if you insist on seeing a movie, just open a terminal and type ascii-art really fast.

anyway, to chip in: for me, and for a lot of others i believe, VLC got carried over from Windows. on Windows, it used to be the 'one player to rule them all', so it makes sense to use it on Linux too. now i just use mplayer, mostly, without a (bloated) GUI. smile

GuruX · 2012-08-11 21:01:30

If you have trouble with VLC beeing laggy, then make sure you have the vaapi libs installed if you have an intel graphics card (sandy/ivy bridge or integrated laptop). Then check that you have GPU acceleration enabled under inputs and codecs in VLC.

VastOne · 2012-08-11 21:06:24

I thought that VLC was a Linux player that was so good it got ported to Windows, not the other way around....

rizzo · 2012-08-11 21:08:13

VastOne wrote:

@omns Are you referring to the choppiness with VLC or in General?

Oh sorry, I worded that poorly. I meant VLC in Xfce.

pidsley · 2012-08-11 21:20:07

VastOne wrote:

I thought that VLC was a Linux player that was so good it got ported to Windows, not the other way around....

wikipedia wrote:

VLC media player (also known as VLC) is a highly portable free and open-source media player and streaming media server written by the VideoLAN project.
...
History
The VideoLan project was originally started as an academic project in 1996. It was intended to consist of a client and server to stream videos across a campus network. VLC was the client for the VideoLAN project, with VLC standing for VideoLan Client. Originally developed by students at the École Centrale Paris, it is now developed by contributors worldwide and is coordinated by the VideoLAN non-profit organization.
Rewritten from scratch in 1998, it was released under the GPL on 1 February 2001. The functionality of the server program, VideoLan Server (VLS), has mostly been subsumed into VLC and has been deprecated.[8] The project name has been changed to VLC because there is no longer a client/server infrastructure.

vlahonick · 2012-08-11 21:31:34

@sunfizz98

Thanks, i will check it out smile

pvsage · 2012-08-11 21:34:06

^^ Yeah...I see neither Windows nor Linux in that Wiki quote, just "campus network".

pidsley · 2012-08-11 21:36:40

^ Is there other Windows software that was developed as an academic project, coordinated by a nonprofit? And released under the GPL?

VastOne · 2012-08-11 21:39:15

^ NO...

It has only recently made it to Windows, last 6 years or so is my guess.

rhowaldt · 2012-08-11 22:06:45

@VastOne: yeah, i believe you are right. however, the tables get turned (sorta) because even though it is native Linux, people will often use Windows first and will run across it there.

sunfizz98 · 2012-08-11 22:15:44

Honestly, I didn't like umplayer. Too much bloat for my tastes, although the youtube search function is tempting.

jotapesse · 2012-08-11 22:20:12

omns wrote:

VastOne wrote:
@omns Are you referring to the choppiness with VLC or in General?
Oh sorry, I worded that poorly. I meant VLC in Xfce.

Never had troubles with VLC, with Xfce 4.6, 4.8 and now 4.10. Either Audio or Video.

In response to the OP, I like that VLC seems to "always" work and doesn't require anything more than being updated. It just works, and well in my experience.

rizzo · 2012-08-11 22:23:05

jotapesse wrote:

Never had troubles with VLC, with Xfce 4.6, 4.8 and now 4.10. Either Audio or Video.

Ah, I suspected as much. It seems a shame to do away with a dependable favourite because of a buggy compositor.

pvsage · 2012-08-11 22:41:08

I've never used VLC (or any other software) with a compositor - on a regular basis anyway - before Waldorf. The glitches I'm experiencing are all compositor-free.

Perhaps there is something to the VLC claims about deb-multimedia, which I had always dismissed as FUD; I always add the multimedia repo and dist-upgrade immediately after installing so that ffmpeg/avconv can encode to mp3 etc. with the codec provided by libmp3lame0.

smoki · 2012-08-12 00:09:48

As i investigate, debs are provided from the begining:

http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.1.99/

and first win32 vlc build started with v0.2.80:

http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.2.80/

In TODO marked as Difficulty: Guru big_smile it says:

Description: Win32 port
Win32 is probably the most common desktop platform, we should support it
as well. Besides, most students at Centrale use Windows and VideoLAN was
originally designed for them.
Status: Todo

ivanovnegro · 2012-08-12 00:46:42

sunfizz98 wrote:

Mmm, I never liked the interface of VLC. Back in the Windows days, I used "The KMPlayer" for all of my media needs.

Oh I can remember about this player. Something I liked better about it than with VLC on Windows.

omns wrote:

Just out of curiosity and a question for Xfce users. Are there the same choppy playback errors etc with Xfce?

Never had real issues with VLC and on Xfce neither. But something makes me not liking the sound of VLC compared to mplayer.

rhowaldt wrote:

now i just use mplayer, mostly, without a (bloated) GUI.

Mplayer user too without any GUI. Though UMPlayer looks promising but too much bling. SMPlayer too many options too, I prefer config files. tongue Gnome MPLayer is also weird.

VastOne wrote:

I thought that VLC was a Linux player that was so good it got ported to Windows, not the other way around....

However it was, mplayer was the case you describe. And even if VLC is one of the Linux players, I have the feeling sometimes it is more of a Windows app just like Firefox, I mean I love the Fox but some features are first for Win users.

rizzo · 2012-08-12 04:15:37

pvsage wrote:

Perhaps there is something to the VLC claims about deb-multimedia, which I had always dismissed as FUD;

That rings a bell in the distant cavities of my mind. In the past when doing my custom builds I didn't use deb-multimedia for this very reason. I can't remember which package it was that broke DVD playback on VLC. Time to journey to the centre of the earth and see if I can track down what the problem was smile

Edit: Oh wait, that was it. As VLC plays everything I only ever needed to add lame for Audacity. As something in the deb-multimedia VLC package was broken I gave the repo a miss altogether and just installed lame manually.

p120d16y · 2012-08-12 17:11:58

GuruX wrote:

If you have trouble with VLC beeing laggy, then make sure you have the vaapi libs installed if you have an intel graphics card (sandy/ivy bridge or integrated laptop). Then check that you have GPU acceleration enabled under inputs and codecs in VLC.

I believe this may be my problem and that I need those libs, and I think this is probably the reason people have issues with VLC period. I certainly never had any issues before getting this new Intel graphics netbook. Out of tons of media players I've not found a better player for me.

falldown · 2012-08-12 17:28:37

I think I will give UMPlayer a run.. although I have had no issues with VLC. I have even got some of my older Blu-Ray movies to play in the latest edition, but it still has a ways to go before they get it down.

arclance · 2012-08-12 18:15:00

sunfizz98 wrote:

Honestly, I didn't like umplayer. Too much bloat for my tastes, although the youtube search function is tempting.

I agree with umplayer being bloated for a mplayer gui.
smplayer2 does what I want without having extra features I will never use.
umplayer also appears to not be separate from its mplayer so you can't update the mplayer you use until a new umplayer is released.

machinebacon · 2012-08-12 18:21:54

I hope you GUIs are aware that you can use cvlc for no-GUI big_smile

CrunchBang Linux

SEARCH

#26 2012-08-11 20:17:30

Re: why VLC?

#27 2012-08-11 20:55:14

Re: why VLC?

#28 2012-08-11 20:56:43

Re: why VLC?

#29 2012-08-11 20:57:44

Re: why VLC?

#30 2012-08-11 21:00:39

Re: why VLC?

#31 2012-08-11 21:01:30

Re: why VLC?

#32 2012-08-11 21:06:24

Re: why VLC?

#33 2012-08-11 21:08:13

Re: why VLC?

#34 2012-08-11 21:20:07

Re: why VLC?

#35 2012-08-11 21:31:34

Re: why VLC?

#36 2012-08-11 21:34:06

Re: why VLC?

#37 2012-08-11 21:36:40

Re: why VLC?

#38 2012-08-11 21:39:15

Re: why VLC?

#39 2012-08-11 22:06:45

Re: why VLC?

#40 2012-08-11 22:15:44

Re: why VLC?

#41 2012-08-11 22:20:12

Re: why VLC?

#42 2012-08-11 22:23:05

Re: why VLC?

#43 2012-08-11 22:41:08

Re: why VLC?

#44 2012-08-12 00:09:48

Re: why VLC?

#45 2012-08-12 00:46:42

Re: why VLC?

#46 2012-08-12 04:15:37

Re: why VLC?

#47 2012-08-12 17:11:58

Re: why VLC?

#48 2012-08-12 17:28:37

Re: why VLC?

#49 2012-08-12 18:15:00

Re: why VLC?

#50 2012-08-12 18:21:54

Re: why VLC?

Board footer