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I dont think VLC is bad by any means or that anyone shouldn't use it, I just don't understand the comments I often see on HN acting like it's some unprecedented

I dont think VLC is bad by any means or that anyone shouldn't use it, I just don't understand the comments I often see on HN acting like it's some unprecedented software that's unlike anything else.

twostorytower 5y ago
It plays any media file you throw at it out of the box and doesn't require any codec packs installed. On top of that, it has a ton of other features including network support. Simple as that.
- usr1106 5y ago
  > It plays any media file I also believed this until I got a family support case a couple of weeks ago. I learned that if the bitrate is too high for the PC to handle vlc badly fails. (This was a fanless Intel PC, so the CPU is very much low end despite not being particularly old.) Of course I would not expect vlc to do any miracles here, but at least I would expect an error message explaining the problem. ffmpeg gives me warnings all the time if buffers are too small etc. In vlc I'd expect it a bit less cryptic... Ideally it would still play the video with reduced quality. Whether that's at all doable I don't know. Just decoding I-frames would be the most naive approach, but probably also a not lead to very much usable results. Actually the family member found one solution themselves: Play it at reduced speed. VLC could have figured out that automatically. (And of course give a clear message to the user why it does that.)
  - astrange 5y ago
    > Ideally it would still play the video with reduced quality. Whether that's at all doable I don't know. It isn't really. It's possible if the video has B-frames but it's hard to predict how much dropping will cause how much recovery, and if you drop almost anything else the possible error is unbounded.
selfhoster11 5y ago
VLC is unique in its support for every codec under the sun. If it refuses to play a video file, it's probably because it's damaged beyond recovery, or not a video file at all. The default Windows and smartphone video players choke on all kinds of files, so you can't really expect that any given file is supported.
- kdjfjf7d7 5y ago
  MPC with K-lite can play anything and has done it before VLC, calling it unique for that reason alone is a stretch.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  Isn’t it just a wrapper for ffmpeg?
- zardo 5y ago
  >VLC is unique in its support for every codec under the sun. If it refuses to play a video file, it's probably because it's damaged beyond recovery, or not a video file at all. Last I checked the recommended method to play h.265 files in VLC was to re-encode them.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Realtime 265 decoding requires hardware support. There's not much they can be done by software it your driver/OS/graphics card combination cannot support that.
    - zardo 5y ago
      MPC manages stutter free playback provided the resolution isn't too high.

I dont think VLC is bad by any means or that anyone shouldn't use it, I just don't understand the comments I often see on HN acting like it's some unprecedented software that's unlike anything else.

twostorytower 5y ago

It plays any media file you throw at it out of the box and doesn't require any codec packs installed. On top of that, it has a ton of other features including network support. Simple as that.

usr1106 5y ago
> It plays any media file I also believed this until I got a family support case a couple of weeks ago. I learned that if the bitrate is too high for the PC to handle vlc badly fails. (This was a fanless Intel PC, so the CPU is very much low end despite not being particularly old.) Of course I would not expect vlc to do any miracles here, but at least I would expect an error message explaining the problem. ffmpeg gives me warnings all the time if buffers are too small etc. In vlc I'd expect it a bit less cryptic... Ideally it would still play the video with reduced quality. Whether that's at all doable I don't know. Just decoding I-frames would be the most naive approach, but probably also a not lead to very much usable results. Actually the family member found one solution themselves: Play it at reduced speed. VLC could have figured out that automatically. (And of course give a clear message to the user why it does that.)
- astrange 5y ago
  > Ideally it would still play the video with reduced quality. Whether that's at all doable I don't know. It isn't really. It's possible if the video has B-frames but it's hard to predict how much dropping will cause how much recovery, and if you drop almost anything else the possible error is unbounded.

selfhoster11 5y ago

VLC is unique in its support for every codec under the sun. If it refuses to play a video file, it's probably because it's damaged beyond recovery, or not a video file at all. The default Windows and smartphone video players choke on all kinds of files, so you can't really expect that any given file is supported.

kdjfjf7d7 5y ago
MPC with K-lite can play anything and has done it before VLC, calling it unique for that reason alone is a stretch.
symlinkk 5y ago
Isn’t it just a wrapper for ffmpeg?
zardo 5y ago
>VLC is unique in its support for every codec under the sun. If it refuses to play a video file, it's probably because it's damaged beyond recovery, or not a video file at all. Last I checked the recommended method to play h.265 files in VLC was to re-encode them.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Realtime 265 decoding requires hardware support. There's not much they can be done by software it your driver/OS/graphics card combination cannot support that.
  - zardo 5y ago
    MPC manages stutter free playback provided the resolution isn't too high.