5 ms·

Good for them, I guess. Though VLC's popularity still makes me pretty sad and how better video players like MPC-HC (on Windows) and mplayer/mplayer2 (on everyth

by Hupo 14y ago

Good for them, I guess. Though VLC's popularity still makes me pretty sad and how better video players like MPC-HC (on Windows) and mplayer/mplayer2 (on everything else) are much more unknown in comparison. I mean, most of VLC's development outside of the streaming stuff has been about playing catch-up with these two for years. But well, the unfortunate truth is that many people are bad at computers and if they manage to mess their system playback up, VLC can certainly feel like a "rescue" with its stand-alone nature. But well, I doubt most people care about high-quality media files to begin with, and VLC sure plays those 700MB XviD AVIs and so on just fine...

Nursie 14y ago
VLC has been able to handle pretty much anything you throw at it for many years and always been available across diverse platforms. It's an awesome product. Why so negative?
- Hupo 14y ago
  Because better and equally free and open source alternatives have existed for about as long yet remain more unknown. VLC sure plays a lot of things, but it's a a real jack of all trades and master of none. I certainly understand it's appeal, but there's certainly better yet equally simple solutions out there as well (eg. CCCP for Windows, various MPlayer2 bundles for OS X like MPlayer.app). Of course, the "downside" of DirectShow-based playback solutions on Windows is that if a user has managed to fuck up their DirectShow beyond recognition, it's going to need a lot of unfucking before you can do anything about it, whereas VLC in its stand-alone nature can play stuff even in a situation like this. Though you could also always get a SMPlayer2 & mplayer2 bundle in such a situation too...
  - irahul 14y ago
    What does other players do better than vlc?
    - Hupo 14y ago
      Subtitle rendering (with xy-vsfilter/vsfilter in general and newer versions of libass). High-quality video rendering (madVR). I'm not at home right now so I can't reliably confirm if certain long-time issues still remain in the latest version (2.0.4), but VLC has also for the longest time had issues with pause not being completely instant (despite claiming so), the audio glitching slightly when pausing/unpausing, and seeking in H.264 video producing a garbled mess (this at least has gotten better with over time). Matroska ordered chapters support has also been shoddy for a very long time. Subtitle rendering was also absolutely hideous before they started using libass in version 1.0 (IIRC), at which point softsubs had already been in use for quite a long while. As I mentioned, VLC's development in terms of high quality playback has mostly been about playing catch-up with the better players, at worst being years behind them.
      - jbk 14y ago
        Subtitles rendering of VLC 2.0.x is quite high quality, since the video output changes of 2.0. Audio pausing is fixed since a long time on all platforms and on development version for Windows. Seeking on H.264 and MKV ordered chapters issues have been solved since quite some time too. Subtitles quality has nothing to do with libass, but the video output rendering, and this was fixed in 2.0. madVR is very CPU heavy, and is EVR only, so not usable for cross-platform.
        Hupo 14y ago
        >Subtitles quality has nothing to do with libass It most certainly does when we're talking about complex ASS subtitles. >madVR is very CPU heavy Actually, it's more GPU-heavy. And while it's only available for Windows, it doesn't change the fact that it's basically the best video renderer out there. Anyway, I'm certainly going to give VLC 2.0.4 a spin with some of my files when I get home in a couple hours. If some of these issues have finally been fixed, then good for VLC, but again, it sure took them a while to do so in comparison to other players.
    - kmfrk 14y ago
      Video quality for one. If you run Windows, using Media Player Classic - Home Cinema with madVR[1] will give you much, much better quality. VLC handles some large video files - or file types - very poorly in my experience, too. VLC is great, because it has an excellent standard of video quality, and it's easy as heck to use and set up for others, but for people who really care about optimal playback, it isn't really the best choice. --- I think the main allure of VLC used to be that the tortuous labour of finding and installing codecs was suddenly moot. Using MPC-HC requires a lot of painstaking effort, especially once a codec stops working all of a sudden for some reason. VLC is very Apple-esque in how it does everything for me and gives me an ease of mind, but with no guarantee that I will get the highest quality. And MPC-HC is very Windows-esque in how it requires a bunch of tweaking and pulling out hairs, which will eventually result in superior quality, but all in all perhaps an inferior experience and enjoyment, because it takes jumping through so many hoops to just get there. Moving on from VLC to MPC-HC is very much like moving on from using primes in typography to curly quotes; it might be more aesthetically pleasing, but most of all, you kinda wish you could just unsee the difference and quit pursuing the folly of proper typography. These days, I can hardly stand reading books with justification, which unfortunately is quite a large majority of them. It's a blessing and a curse, and I'd properly just recommend most people to find a video player similar to VLC in how easy it is to use, all while providing superior video quality and performance. If you're watching a movie or TV show, I recommend that you watch it on Netflix or Blu-ray, if the option is available to you. That's what I do. :) [1]: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228 http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228
  - ucee054 14y ago
    "jack of all trades" = superior product "master of one" = inferior product see also: Worse Is Better, Innovator's Dilemma
    - Hupo 14y ago
      The difference here is that the better players also play a similarly wide range of formats (since it generally all comes down to libavcodec at some point), but due to various factors they overall do it better. I keep VLC installed for testing purposes and as a backup were my main playback setup with MPC-HC ever fail to play something, but I've never actually had to resort to VLC for this reason.
      - ontheotherhand 14y ago
        "the better players also play a similarly wide range of formats" I guess the keyword is "similarly" here? VLC is the only player that plays all video clips from crappy digital cameras I owned over the years; out of the box, or with a million codec packs, neither VirtualDub nor Premiere nor other video players can parse them. I don't really care about those clips, and they sure are shoddy quality; but it always impressed me, VLC is quite the omnivore. It plays stuff even GSpot can't make heads or tail of. This might not matter for videophiles, who by definition would want their movies to be in a good and modern format, but still, yay VLC :)
- kimmel 14y ago
  VLC has always lagged behind in proper x264 decoding. For most of the 1.x and the first few versions of the 2.x series I had dozens of video files with visual artifacts whilst the newest versions of mplayer at the time did not. I maintain this kind of test suite since I do video production using open source software and I have to make sure it works in all the major video players. VLC is useful and important but it is no where near perfect.
  - jbk 14y ago
    No software is perfect. However, for H.264 (x264? sigh) decoding VLC 2.x with multi-threaded decoding should eat all the files without issues (no reports so far).
- jbk 14y ago
  The main reason, is that VLC is too mainstream... For people who want to spend hours to configure their system, MPC-HC with madVR can give better upscaling and foobar gives better audio fidelity. Most of the rest is usual rants from issues that VLC had in the past, but that 1337 video people like to bring up to explain how their setup is soooo much better.
  - andyzweb 14y ago
    I have to ask. Do you frequent /g/?
    - jbk 14y ago
      No. I am quite too busy for that...
    - general_failure 14y ago
      Sorry, what is /g/ ?
  - Hupo 14y ago
    That's nice and all, except that I quite specifically wrote that equally simple yet better solutions exist. Anyway, giving VLC 2.0.4 on Windows a spin, the audio glitch on pause is certainly still there. I guess I'll take your word on it being fixed in "development versions", but I don't think MPC-HC has had an issue like this, like, ever. H.264 seeking and ordered chapters certainly seem to work without any notable issues these days, though. Subtitle rendering still has some issues with complex typesetting, though libass is at fault there. So there isn't that much of a difference anymore between say, a vanilla installation of CCCP and VLC. I'd still recommend the former for Windows users, though. Why? Because the former is a DirectShow playback solution, you can actually extend and swap its components at ease. Want to install madVR for high quality rendering? Sure, just download and install it and you can instantly use it in MPC-HC (which ships with CCCP) right afterwards. Being stand-alone has its benefits, but it certainly also has its disadvantages. Not to mention that with VSFilter you don't have to ever see that "Building font cache" (which will certainly not take "less than a minute" if you have lots of fonts) window!
  - 14y ago
bjustin 14y ago
MPC-HC is a good player on Windows, but VLC 2.0.x has been better in my experience. MPC-HC cannot handle some files that VLC plays fine, and I have not noticed any video quality difference between the two. I have stuck with CCCP for MPC-HC, which requires putting a bit more time into MPC-HC than just downloading VLC. There are some files that MPC-HC does play that VLC does not, but these are fewer in my experience than the reverse case.
- jbk 14y ago
  If you could send us the files, that would be very welcome :)

by Hupo 14y ago

Nursie 14y ago

VLC has been able to handle pretty much anything you throw at it for many years and always been available across diverse platforms. It's an awesome product. Why so negative?

Hupo 14y ago
Because better and equally free and open source alternatives have existed for about as long yet remain more unknown. VLC sure plays a lot of things, but it's a a real jack of all trades and master of none. I certainly understand it's appeal, but there's certainly better yet equally simple solutions out there as well (eg. CCCP for Windows, various MPlayer2 bundles for OS X like MPlayer.app). Of course, the "downside" of DirectShow-based playback solutions on Windows is that if a user has managed to fuck up their DirectShow beyond recognition, it's going to need a lot of unfucking before you can do anything about it, whereas VLC in its stand-alone nature can play stuff even in a situation like this. Though you could also always get a SMPlayer2 & mplayer2 bundle in such a situation too...
- irahul 14y ago
  What does other players do better than vlc?
  - Hupo 14y ago
    Subtitle rendering (with xy-vsfilter/vsfilter in general and newer versions of libass). High-quality video rendering (madVR). I'm not at home right now so I can't reliably confirm if certain long-time issues still remain in the latest version (2.0.4), but VLC has also for the longest time had issues with pause not being completely instant (despite claiming so), the audio glitching slightly when pausing/unpausing, and seeking in H.264 video producing a garbled mess (this at least has gotten better with over time). Matroska ordered chapters support has also been shoddy for a very long time. Subtitle rendering was also absolutely hideous before they started using libass in version 1.0 (IIRC), at which point softsubs had already been in use for quite a long while. As I mentioned, VLC's development in terms of high quality playback has mostly been about playing catch-up with the better players, at worst being years behind them.
    - jbk 14y ago
      Subtitles rendering of VLC 2.0.x is quite high quality, since the video output changes of 2.0. Audio pausing is fixed since a long time on all platforms and on development version for Windows. Seeking on H.264 and MKV ordered chapters issues have been solved since quite some time too. Subtitles quality has nothing to do with libass, but the video output rendering, and this was fixed in 2.0. madVR is very CPU heavy, and is EVR only, so not usable for cross-platform.
      - Hupo 14y ago
        >Subtitles quality has nothing to do with libass It most certainly does when we're talking about complex ASS subtitles. >madVR is very CPU heavy Actually, it's more GPU-heavy. And while it's only available for Windows, it doesn't change the fact that it's basically the best video renderer out there. Anyway, I'm certainly going to give VLC 2.0.4 a spin with some of my files when I get home in a couple hours. If some of these issues have finally been fixed, then good for VLC, but again, it sure took them a while to do so in comparison to other players.
  - kmfrk 14y ago
    Video quality for one. If you run Windows, using Media Player Classic - Home Cinema with madVR[1] will give you much, much better quality. VLC handles some large video files - or file types - very poorly in my experience, too. VLC is great, because it has an excellent standard of video quality, and it's easy as heck to use and set up for others, but for people who really care about optimal playback, it isn't really the best choice. --- I think the main allure of VLC used to be that the tortuous labour of finding and installing codecs was suddenly moot. Using MPC-HC requires a lot of painstaking effort, especially once a codec stops working all of a sudden for some reason. VLC is very Apple-esque in how it does everything for me and gives me an ease of mind, but with no guarantee that I will get the highest quality. And MPC-HC is very Windows-esque in how it requires a bunch of tweaking and pulling out hairs, which will eventually result in superior quality, but all in all perhaps an inferior experience and enjoyment, because it takes jumping through so many hoops to just get there. Moving on from VLC to MPC-HC is very much like moving on from using primes in typography to curly quotes; it might be more aesthetically pleasing, but most of all, you kinda wish you could just unsee the difference and quit pursuing the folly of proper typography. These days, I can hardly stand reading books with justification, which unfortunately is quite a large majority of them. It's a blessing and a curse, and I'd properly just recommend most people to find a video player similar to VLC in how easy it is to use, all while providing superior video quality and performance. If you're watching a movie or TV show, I recommend that you watch it on Netflix or Blu-ray, if the option is available to you. That's what I do. :) [1]: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228 http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228
- ucee054 14y ago
  "jack of all trades" = superior product "master of one" = inferior product see also: Worse Is Better, Innovator's Dilemma
  - Hupo 14y ago
    The difference here is that the better players also play a similarly wide range of formats (since it generally all comes down to libavcodec at some point), but due to various factors they overall do it better. I keep VLC installed for testing purposes and as a backup were my main playback setup with MPC-HC ever fail to play something, but I've never actually had to resort to VLC for this reason.
    - ontheotherhand 14y ago
      "the better players also play a similarly wide range of formats" I guess the keyword is "similarly" here? VLC is the only player that plays all video clips from crappy digital cameras I owned over the years; out of the box, or with a million codec packs, neither VirtualDub nor Premiere nor other video players can parse them. I don't really care about those clips, and they sure are shoddy quality; but it always impressed me, VLC is quite the omnivore. It plays stuff even GSpot can't make heads or tail of. This might not matter for videophiles, who by definition would want their movies to be in a good and modern format, but still, yay VLC :)
kimmel 14y ago
VLC has always lagged behind in proper x264 decoding. For most of the 1.x and the first few versions of the 2.x series I had dozens of video files with visual artifacts whilst the newest versions of mplayer at the time did not. I maintain this kind of test suite since I do video production using open source software and I have to make sure it works in all the major video players. VLC is useful and important but it is no where near perfect.
- jbk 14y ago
  No software is perfect. However, for H.264 (x264? sigh) decoding VLC 2.x with multi-threaded decoding should eat all the files without issues (no reports so far).
jbk 14y ago
The main reason, is that VLC is too mainstream... For people who want to spend hours to configure their system, MPC-HC with madVR can give better upscaling and foobar gives better audio fidelity. Most of the rest is usual rants from issues that VLC had in the past, but that 1337 video people like to bring up to explain how their setup is soooo much better.
- andyzweb 14y ago
  I have to ask. Do you frequent /g/?
  - jbk 14y ago
    No. I am quite too busy for that...
  - general_failure 14y ago
    Sorry, what is /g/ ?
- Hupo 14y ago
  That's nice and all, except that I quite specifically wrote that equally simple yet better solutions exist. Anyway, giving VLC 2.0.4 on Windows a spin, the audio glitch on pause is certainly still there. I guess I'll take your word on it being fixed in "development versions", but I don't think MPC-HC has had an issue like this, like, ever. H.264 seeking and ordered chapters certainly seem to work without any notable issues these days, though. Subtitle rendering still has some issues with complex typesetting, though libass is at fault there. So there isn't that much of a difference anymore between say, a vanilla installation of CCCP and VLC. I'd still recommend the former for Windows users, though. Why? Because the former is a DirectShow playback solution, you can actually extend and swap its components at ease. Want to install madVR for high quality rendering? Sure, just download and install it and you can instantly use it in MPC-HC (which ships with CCCP) right afterwards. Being stand-alone has its benefits, but it certainly also has its disadvantages. Not to mention that with VSFilter you don't have to ever see that "Building font cache" (which will certainly not take "less than a minute" if you have lots of fonts) window!
- 14y ago

bjustin 14y ago

MPC-HC is a good player on Windows, but VLC 2.0.x has been better in my experience. MPC-HC cannot handle some files that VLC plays fine, and I have not noticed any video quality difference between the two. I have stuck with CCCP for MPC-HC, which requires putting a bit more time into MPC-HC than just downloading VLC. There are some files that MPC-HC does play that VLC does not, but these are fewer in my experience than the reverse case.

jbk 14y ago
If you could send us the files, that would be very welcome :)