• @LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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    10210 months ago

    I moved away from VLC because of the somewhat boring UI. Then I used potplayer, then I discovered MPV - which is awesome because it’s so performant you can easily customize it.

    But I think VLC helped pioneer the library that allows decoding and playing videos without the mess that were video codec drivers on desktop.

    • @TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      6510 months ago

      If I try to play 3 random videos in VLC, they all three will play perfectly. If I try those same three on anything else, at least one of them will be buggy in some way.

      Yes you can argue there could be encoding problems in the video file of that buggy one, but somehow VLC just always works. Shit’s unbelievably good, so I won’t be switching.

      • DrMango
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        2510 months ago

        I remember the first time I encountered the Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) media type which ultimately lead me to downloading VLC as it was the only player that could handle it at the time

        • PopShark
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          210 months ago

          Same story. I even remember where the files came from - ripped from Daft Punk’s Homework album (I had and have the physical CD)

      • @racemaniac@startrek.website
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        510 months ago

        Sadly i recently learned VLC doesn’t just always work.

        About a year ago i had an issue with playing FLAC files on VLC, where there would be short periods of no audio. I had recently made some upgrades to my audio hardware, so i was looking at my new hardware/cables/config… but in the end i realized it always happened at the same point in the same files, so a software issue was more likely:

        https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/27696

        Nice quote from this issue: VLC is broken since months Use their nightly version, it has a nice new interface too, and no bugs. I don’t get how they can keep a huge breaking bug like this in vlc from MONTHS.

        And neither can i… until a year ago VLC was for me the pinnacle of “it just works”. Now after them leaving a bug causing audio playback issues into their stable version for months, they broke my trust in them… they’re probably still the best option out there, but now i’ll just say probably, not for sure, and there is room for improvement…

        And if it were some obscure format, sure, but FLAC? …

        • @TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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          610 months ago

          Damn, that sucks. I’ve rarely used VLC for anything but video. I wonder if it’s not super high priority because it’s not a video bug? Sucks either way because yeah it has always seemed very solid

      • @CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com
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        10 months ago

        Not a 4K movie.

        edit: the only reason I switched from VLC to potplayer was because VLC couldn’t play my 2160p videos

      • @LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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        310 months ago

        How many porn videos do you need to watch simultaneously?

        spoiler

        (for me it’s 4 but I might have to go up to 9)

    • @abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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      3710 months ago

      MPC-HC and MPV both rock, but VLC will always stay on all my machines because any time I have a problem with a video file, VLC opens that shit no issue.

      • Ann Archy
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        310 months ago

        I can trust VLC as software. Trust is a rare thing to have for any software these days.

    • @KingRandomGuy@lemmy.world
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      1310 months ago

      As of right now VLC also doesn’t properly support Wayland, but MPV does. It’s a great piece of software!

      Agree on the sentiment about VLC though, having an open source project demonstrate what is possible and stand the test of time definitely paves the way for future work and improvements.

    • @wersooth@lemmy.ml
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      810 months ago

      I still have PTSD from those codec-install-infested-times… God bless VLC and it’s Author / Creator!

    • Kilgore Trout
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      710 months ago

      Still mpv’s gpu-next video output driver is based on VLC’s libplacebo.

      VLC is really slow to integrate their own development efforts though, VLC media player 4.0 has been in beta for years…

      • @bitwaba@lemmy.world
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        -110 months ago

        Dude should try adding some ads to the program to generate some income to spend on more dev time…

        • Ann Archy
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          10 months ago

          Popups, I suggest, bing bar on installation, and it runs as a service, auto-startup (non configurable).

    • @webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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      410 months ago

      I rarely ever use vlc but i almost always have it installed just in case something doesn’t work. It has never let me down.

    • Dog
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      210 months ago

      I moved away from VLC because compared to MPC-HC, VLC was super slow. If only MPC-HC could come to Linux, that would be amazing.

      • Ann Archy
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        210 months ago

        MPC comes with those inexplicable keybindings, and it’s a hassle setting them, as far as I remember. Or it lacked some deal breaking customization option for me, some stuff is essential.

          • Ann Archy
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            110 months ago

            Ease of use, I suppose. I can certainly set it up, but it would be another investment of time. I have a hundred other software that needs similar treatment, so one have to triage, if you know what I mean.

              • Ann Archy
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                210 months ago

                It has become my life. I have a map on the wall with red pins and lines and everything.

        • Dog
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          110 months ago

          Fair point. It’s not for everyone.

    • Johanno
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      27 months ago

      Vlc has many custom ui that you can download. And the current default isn’t that bad either.