mpv is our saviour.
Ain’t nobody want thisHowever, he also clarified that plans for this were not finalized yet, and if it were to happen, it would be optional for VLC users.
Happy to see some sanity prevails.
Having read the article, it sounds like the logical evolution of VLC. FAST Channels are here to stay and they actually are a vital thing in a world where Google have a monopoly on online video. While they’re not what I would go for, I’m glad they’re available as even my cable provider offers FAST channels.
Will be interesting to see VLC compete with JWPlayer and the various forks of it.
Also I don’t think anyone disagrees that the core needs rewriting and the UI needs a refresh. Wonder when Android will start seeing these builds on the beta channel.
Slightly wondering whether this is a roundabout way of creating Ad-Free YouTube playback capabilities. “Hey community, we are adding support for ad enabled streams. Would be a shame if you hated that so much you wrote some ad blocking plugins.”
Ad-Free YouTube playback capabilities.
The last time I tried, VLC could already do that.
That’s great, I had no idea!
Very generous of you to assume that adding native support for advertising is a move to protect users from advertising…
Now you put it that way… 😃
You can already watch youtube ad-free with VLC…
That’s pretty cool, I didn’t know!
Damn Lemmy users are no different from Reddit. Don’t read anything. Take anything you did read out of context. Be sure to rage post your own ignorance so we can all read about it.
Damn Lemmy users are no different from Reddit
We’re do you think Lemmy got all its users?
Where do you think Lemmy got all its users?
Fixed that for you.
/le reddit larping
tips fedora
forgets to untip fedora
unzips fedora
sudo-es Fedora to mount a cbt device to the unzipped path
What are you even talking about? Do you feel better after getting that off your chest?
You can help by clarifying the article
There are a bunch of free channels on the internet that some TVs can just stream without a dedicated app. These channels are supported by ads like cable/whatever channels, but not locked behind a subscription. VLC is supporting whatever formats they use to allow (or make it easier; IDK) people to watch them if they want.
The other part is that they’re working on web assembly to allow sites to use VLC as their embedded video player.
Arent HTML5 players there for that?
you don’t even need a player script; browsers today can play media on their own.
and scripts with added features is a very crowded market.
I’m so conflicted about web assembly. I’m a web developer and I think it’s going to be amazing eventually but 20% of me thinks it’s going to be a security nightmare and require a decade of fuck ups to reach its potential.
require a decade of fuck ups to reach its potential.
That’s quicker than people, heck I’m going on my 3rd decade and still not at my potential. Or so I like to tell myself.
I’m mostly worried about how much less open this will make the web for simple local hacking. I often add small features to webapps I use by injecting code and hooking into their systems (when it’s not an app with open source, where I send a PR instead - and if I can work around issues I do contact the owners with a working fix).
This will be much harder with WebAssembly. Sure, there’ll be decompilers in time - but in the time it takes me to change a small piece of behaviour in such cases, I can add multiple features in the current JS environment, even if the code is obfuscated.
I’m more concerned that the web will get even slower and bloated. We are already seeing the first frameworks that ship a webassembly .NET runtime, Python runtime, JVM, … . I kinda fear that in 10 years when you visit a site you need to download runtime xyz in version abc for the 1000th time. All because some people or companies just can not be bothered to learn any new technology.
Can web elements be sandboxed in any meaningful way?
He shouldn’t have to, the point is read before commenting about a clickbait headline. If he has to spell it out that only furthers his point.
Yes, he has no responsibility to explain it. But if he would like to help anyways, he could.
Yeah sure it’s user fault and not the click bait headline, I’m sure they can describe the whole article in one headline without any confusion, oh and probably half of lemmy user are used to be redditers
Was this comment meant for another thread? I’m confused
You forgot to mention it’s no different from Reddit with the horrible titles either.
Not a fan of that tbh
Dude, they are not starting their own ad supported streaming service. They are merely adding dupport for one more streaming protocol that happens to be used for that. If these services were using RTSP for their streams, they’d already be supported. This is absolutely in line with VLC’s swiss army knife-approach.
Otherwise, new GUI sounds good to me. The old one is proven but a bit clunky.
I think there should be local-only players. VLC was one forever. There are tons of streaming service clients out there and I personally don’t want VLC to add this feature. But it is just my personal opinion. I never said it’s bad
Yes, “VideoLAN Client” doesn’t sound like anything which might have network support.
One doesn’t have to use the feature and it’s not like it’s going to be felt, nor noticeably use any resources when not in use.
But it has had networking capabilities for like… ever? RTSP, HTTP, …
It also supports some funky stuff like raw H.264 over UDP if you use ffmpeg to prepend special packets to the start of the video stream (Ideal for a DIY low latency video streaming solution ). If you decrypt digital OTA tv signals (DVB format), VLC will play the live underlying raw mpeg stream just fine.
Truly a swiss army knife of video playback, especially the underutilized network url file open option
Idk about that. I don’t even care much cuz I don’t use VLC at all. Lol I just wanted to send a regular short controversial unpopular opinion comment. I hope it’s not considered wrong here
VLC stands for VideoLAN Client, and was originally designed as a player for network streams provided by the VideoLAN server. It also supports local media playback, which has become its most common use. It adding additional streaming functionality is just reinforcing its original purpose.
I don’t have anything against that. The dev has the right and adding that feature can make the client more popular
Fork it is.
Maybe read more than the headline.
I’ve used MPC-HC on windows and MPV on Linux for ages, just saying for no reason in particular
(In all seriousness this sounds like VLC has gone super corporate for no reason, abandon ship)
Please actually read the post.
plans to support ad-supported online media streams
Why are they saying it like it’s something good and exciting?
rewriting the whole core of VLC for the 4.0 release which will see a new interface
Where have we see it before? It’s basically the classic scenario where popular software/service makes a complete chnage of design nobody asked for and it fails miserably. I recommend everyone to make a backup of the installer of the last version before this release…
I really don’t see the what the fuss is in this thread. The source does make it seem a bit nefarious, but even so, it appears the changes in VLC amount to adding support for a streaming format and adding a channel listing of some sort.
FAST is simply a streaming format. Whether to run ads is an individual decision of each channel.
If I can have a streaming client that can play certain streams versus one that can’t, I’ll obviously pick the former. (Unless they employ a DRM scheme which does weird things to my devices but it doesn’t appear that’s part of the discussion here.)
Yeah, I think evil bastard streaming services choosing open source (VLC) is rather a win for the society.
Yep, here’s the section
When he was talking about that, he also shared that they plan to add support for FAST channels and other kinds of ad-supported online media streams that would allow users to watch ad-supported movies, TV shows, and more.
However, he also clarified that plans for this were not finalized yet, and if it were to happen, it would be optional for VLC users.
.
It does when you consider that there are over 1,500 FAST channels in the US alone, plus countless others around the globe, with the number still growing.
They already support other forms of streams, why not this. It would be weirder if they chose to not support it
They dont display ads, the channels send video streams that have embedded ads for money purpose things (whoever buys shit because of ads)
Why would that need special support? If the ads are embedded, that should work out of the box.
They support adding online streams which is currently not there or hard to find
I mean, the guy who made vlc hasn’t charged for like 15 years now.
For most people the only time they open VLC is to view a file locally. I’m surprised they’re not also trying to become more like plex/jellyfin then pivot to ad supported streaming
I’m surprised they’re not also trying to become more like plex/jellyfin then pivot to ad supported streaming
Well, not people are driven by money, but I do agree that several costs need to be addressed, and sadly ads are one of the means to achieve this (and more depending on your greed).
Isn’t this an optional feature? Wouldn’t you have to log in to that service?
Some of the new stuff looks cool, and for all of these knee-jerk reactionaries… optional.
Stick a fork in it, it’s done.
Why lmao?
Sorry, that was supposed to be a pun on “fork”, in release-management sense of the word.
The question was “why,” you may as well be protesting the addition of a new codec
This is bad news. FAST streaming is an ad-riddled nightmare. VLC already supports streaming video just fine. Native support for FAST services just means native support for ads.
VLC already includes support for IPTV streams and M3Us. If you want to load FAST channels, you can do that now using a playlist from here: https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv
You’ll even get an ad-free / ad-reduced experience this way. FAST providers like Pluto and Tubi rebroadcast some TV channels and inject their own targeted ads. If you pipe the video stream into VLC, you’ll just see “commercial break in progress” filler video instead of commercials. Try it out with a local news station, they are all almost completely add free this way.
Enjoy this while you can, I guess…
I mean it’s just another format they’ll be supporting. If you don’t want to watch in that format, don’t.
FAST isn’t a format, it’s an integration. The format is streaming mpeg like everything else.
If FAST services want to be a part of VLC, they can just write their own extension.
I mean it’s just another service they’ll be supporting. If you don’t want to watch that service, don’t.
Better?
No, I don’t want any pro-profit ad-supported services integrated directly into a critical FOSS project like VideoLAN. This is a form of enshittification. VLC should NEVER implement native support for targeted advertising. Pluto and Tubi are already cramming ads into my smart TV, they need to stay the fuck away from VLC’s core code.
Freedom of choice is writing a channel service extension for VLC that I can install if I want to, not integrating non-free anti-consumer bullshit into the application itself.
I really don’t see how this is enshittification or anti-consumer. Nothing about your use of or experience of VLC changes if you simply don’t use FAST streams. To me this seems similar to whether or not to ship patent encumbered codecs.
What if Disney wanted to integrate their own DRM support into the Linux Kernel so you could watch Disney Blu-Ray movies? Would you accept the “you don’t have to watch Disney movies” justification?
I’d be fine with VLC having a way to watch proprietary Blu-Rays. I think it has that feature and it does seem useful for those who want to watch Disney Blu-Rays. VLC is supposed to be pretty much a swiss army knife of media players, after all.
If you wanted to compare to the kernel then best comparison would be to something like proprietary drivers or something.
I just saw the screenshot of the early design of the new UI, looks like crap.
I even disliked the change from wXwidgets to Qt way back in the day, I have come around and like the Qt interface now, I don’t expect that to happen with the new UI
It seems to have the “Classic” option as well, so it’s fine.
new ui is literal trash.
media formats it already does, and it is expected to support nearly everything. but as far as a front-end for whatever tf they’re planning–there are plugins and extensions already, it should be there. not in the base code.
Yeah, it looks like they are trying to port the mobile UI to their main program, going backwards in terms of usabillity on mainstream computers
10 years later
“vlc is updating their UI again! I liked the one we have now, this just looks stupid. I don’t think I’ll like the changes.”
That’s fair, though the change from wXwidgets to Qt was fairly minor compared to this
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I’ve met the devs in person. They keep turning down literal suitcases full of cash from people who want to bundle adware and crap in one of the most popular programs ever. Don’t assume VLC is going down that road – they’ve stuck to their ethics for decades.
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almost 1 download for every human on earth
“BUT IT’S NOT POPULAR! ALL THE DOWNLOADS ARE FROM JANUARY 1ST 2005 AND NOBODY EVER DOWNLOADED IT EVER AGAIN! IT’S ALL A CONSPIRACY BY BIG TRAFFIC CONE! I DON’T WANT FACTS LALALALALA” --this guy
Big Traffic Cone is coming for you. It cautions us all. That’s why it’s orange with reflective stripes. You should have heeded it’s warning. Be afraid, very afraid.
Big Traffic Cone is coming for you
damn me if this is not the best Brand New Sentence I have seen in a long time. congrats!
If all those downloads were from 2005 to 2015, and there’s only been a few hundred in the last nine years, that would mean the popularity has declined.
But we don’t know that. We don’t know if the downloads have increased, decreased, or stayed the same based on the proffered numbers. We only know a flat number from the last twenty years.
Thats the point theyre making, not that its unequivocally unpopular now.
Also you’re about three billion shy of one download for everyone on earth.
(to the entire public) STOP HAVING FUCKING BABIES
When I was in my prime it was 6 billion, and we liked it. Now get off my lawn!
The original article (https://www.lowpass.cc/p/vlc-five-billion-downloads-vision-pro-app) states
The app surpassed three billion downloads in early 2019
so there has been at least 2 billion downloads in the last 5 years. Also,
The latest version of VLC, which was released in November, has already been downloaded more than 335 million times by desktop users alone.
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How would they earn money on this? It’s still a FOSS project. They are simply revamping their GUI and adding support for one more protocol.
Plex is NOT FOSS! Plex is a private company’s cash cow.
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Changes are looking good, great to see it is still very active!
