VLC is the supreme of all open source projects, you used it in school, college, work and home.

I used it since I was a child and it has never failed on me. It didn’t matter what type of file you chucked at it, it would run it.

Do you disagree or agree with VLC being the best media player? What are your thoughts?

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    VLC is one of the greatest achievements of the modern era imho (along with Linux, Wikipedia, etc).

    A good dev who didn’t sell out, fully FOSS, always up-to-date before-the-date, no nonsense or bloatware, no UI changes every month to get more engagement, etc.

    This is how all products of humanity with our level of tech should be like (even non-software).

  • 0x01@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    We don’t deserve our open source heroes, so grateful for the incredible free software ecosystem

    Gimp, 7zip, blender, vlc, open office, the kernel, thousands of others, I feel like our lives have been universally improved by these inverted charity projects. The few taking care of the undeserving many.

  • Julian@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    I’ve actually moved away from vlc. It’s had some weird issues with videos that MPV doesn’t have. Plus, MPV has a much simpler interface which I like. I’ve also learned how to use ffmpeg to convert media so I don’t need that functionality from vlc anymore.

    It’s still a great program though, especially for windows where there’s not many better options.

    • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Same here 👋 still i’m a bit sad I had to move on from VLC… It was always one of the first software I would install on my setup… But that was mostly on windows.

      On linux/macos, MVP seems to work way better. I’m very thankfull for all these years of service, but everything has an end and like ICQ ended recently, VLC will probably die off in a few years…

      Except if they make a come back? Who knows !

    • refalo@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      I still have some videos that mpv cannot play that VLC can. Also some esoteric audio formats like SPC, only work in VLC.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    VLC is the best media player, but the Linux kernel is the “supreme of all open source projects”.

    • tabular@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Linux contains (edit) proprietary (/e) binary blobs. Not sure if that disqualifies it for being supreme of “open source projects” but if the question was about “free software projects” I am certain it would.

  • mbryson@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    My only comment is I was surprised my work - which uses Windows and has closed source software exclusively - has VLC installed on all workstations and even as the default media player as well. It’s a testament to how ubiquitous and approachable VLC is to be included in such a fashion over just Windows Media Player or some other form.

  • unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 months ago

    Let’s face it, if you install Linux (or even Windows!) for your mom, you put VLC in there.

    Yes, some other tools are better at some things, but VLC is the perfect choice for the “standard” user.

  • beeng@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 months ago

    VLC for the everyday person, all the way until you get to enthusiast class, then you use MPV.

    Shortcuts, lightweight, CLI etc…

  • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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    6 months ago

    VLC has pretty mediocre rendering, it stutters a lot even on a fast PC, or renders with grey artifacts. MPV is open source, renders much clearer and faster and can be used as the backend for any simple or advanced GUI video player.

    That said, VLC was great back in the early 2000’s, when it and it alone could open basically any media file and file containing media including mkv. Nowadays every video player does that.

  • LaggyKar@programming.dev
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    6 months ago

    I used to use it, but then I switched to MPV, as it works a lot better with hardware acceleration. MPV supports more methods for hardware decoding (e.g. nvdec), and also MPV will keep the frames in VRAM when doing hardware decoding, and do additional processing and presentation using the GPU, while VLC copies everything back to system RAM and processes the frame on the CPU.

    At the time I switched hardware decoding with copy-back would actually result in twice the CPU usage compared to software decoding, but that was a long time ago. Also, I would get tearing in VLC and not in MPV.

  • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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    6 months ago

    As a friend of mine said some years ago “VLC will play a slice of cucumber” that pretty much sums it up.

    • Colonel Panic@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I’ve been waiting for a Dark Mode for VLC for over a decade. It’s absurd. Yes I know some skins sorta do that, but they all suck because they change everything around and remove buttons and options instead of just making the default UI darker.

  • Synapse@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    We all have Jean-Baptiste Kempf, and many other brilliant volunteer developers to thank for it Jean-Baptiste Kempf

  • f00f/eris@startrek.website
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    6 months ago

    VLC’s file format support is amazing for a project that rolls its own codecs, etc, but it’s missing some important features for me on the music front, primarily gapless playback and library management. I generally prefer to use software tailored to my DE. I’ve yet to find a better video player anywhere though; GNOME Videos and Kaffeine come closest and are a little easier to use, but are still far away from VLC’s capabilities.

      • f00f/eris@startrek.website
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        6 months ago

        Currently Elisa for my digital music library, and for individual files I prefer to use VLC. I’ve had good experiences with Strawberry Music Player (and its predecessor, Clementine), too, and am thinking of switching back to it. And when I was a GNOME user, I preferred Lollipop.