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VLC for iOS returns on July 19, rewritten and fully open-sourced
- antr 13y agoI'm a big fan of VLC, it's been my default video app since I can remember. Can't wait to see it again on iOS. The "big" feature I would like to see is some kind of "super-easy" drag and drop feature where I could easily send video files to my iPad/iPhone without doing the whole Browser->IP:Port->Choose file, etc. A "video file right click -> VLC -> Send file to iPad (upload in background)" would put a smile on my face.
- roskilli 13y agoThe Dropbox integration may very well make it that easy, simply drop into your Dropbox folder and hey presto. Although waiting for it to sync to AWS might be painful, I wonder if the iOS and Android clients do local syncing like the desktop clients do when on the same network?
- steevdave 13y agoAndroid, at least here, does not sync the files to the device at all until you attempt to look at them
- icebraining 13y agoLAN syncing doesn't avoid having to upload it first to AWS, though; it just speeds up the subsequent download to the other devices.
- jbk 13y agoI wish we could do that, but it is really annoying to do, since it almost needs a special desktop app to do so. And the iDevice must be in the listening mode... Drag'n drop in the browser is the best we have so far. Maybe a later version with Bonjour will come... Patches welcome :)
- alco 13y agoBonjour is easy to implement. But why a special desktop app? Isn't there VLC for desktop already? I haven't used the original VLC for iOS. Do you run an HTTP server on the device for file uploading? You could go one step further and add WebDAV on top of HTTP. That would allow mounting the app as an external disk. It can also be integrated with desktop VLC for automatic discovery and file sharing. Can't wait to start contributing!
- jbk 13y ago> Bonjour is easy to implement. Indeed, but the first thing I did was crashing, and was not the biggest priority. I hope that we can bring it later on. > But why a special desktop app? Isn't there VLC for desktop already? We could do that, although I'm not a fan of such coupling, but maybe it's easier than I expected. > I haven't used the original VLC for iOS. Do you run an HTTP server on the device for file uploading? We do for this version :) > Can't wait to start contributing! Seriously? Can't wait for patches :)
- mehrzad 13y ago>it's been my default video app since I can remember. Curious as to what you think about MPlayer, MPC-HC, or mpv, which have mostly taken the crown in nerd circles as being the de facto video players.
- JohnTHaller 13y agoMPlayer works in the Linux world, but the app itself has no stable releases outside of that so it doesn't have traction beyond Linux. Unless you count things like SMPlayer (Windows-specific front-end and MPlayer backend) and the like. MPC-HC is pretty popular in the Windows world. But neither of them come close to approaching VLC's userbase. We make SMPlayer, MPC-HC and VLC all available in portable form at PortableApps.com alongside each other and VLC's downloads blow the other two away.
- Osmium 13y agoThere are some MPlayer-powered releases for OS X too, e.g. http://mplayerx.org http://mplayerx.org There are others too, though I'm not sure what the differences are.
- JohnTHaller 13y agoThere are a bunch of them on Windows, too. It's hard to keep track of them all.
- simcop2387 13y agosmplayer isn't windows only. It does work on linux fairly well too. That being said, I have grown to like VLC more lately.
- JohnTHaller 13y agoQuite right, my mistake. The point still stands, though, as Windows (the dominant OS by a huge margin) has no stable releases of the base MPlayer app, so there's no one version people can grab. Whereas VLC runs quite well on Windows, Mac and Linux.
- daed 13y agoAssuming it's like the last version on iOS (which I was lucky enough to download before it got yanked) you can just plug in your device and throw whatever videos you want into VLC's documents folder. Transfers really quickly over USB.
- Florin_Andrei 13y agoI kept the old version on my iPhone ever since it got pulled from the store. Made sure to not delete it. :) > native Dropbox integration > background audio playback This is awesome.
- daxelrod 13y agoThe old VLC for iOS used iTunes's transfer capabilities rather than presenting an HTTP server. Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/cRwg8Rr.jpg http://i.imgur.com/cRwg8Rr.jpg Not quite as slick as the context menu you're suggesting though.
- jbk 13y agoThe new one has the HTTP server... I've added it...
- ferdo 13y agoThis isn't a VLC solution per se but it did solve my issue of getting files onto an iPad as I don't use spyTunes: http://www.digidna.net/diskaid http://www.digidna.net/diskaid
- jamesaguilar 13y agoPlex is almost this, if you're looking for something that has this feature now.
- ronnier 13y agoPlex is great. I'm on vacation with access to my full movie collection. Streams perfectly.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoYep. I paid for the membership, so Plex will also re-encode my stuff and sync it to the iPhone (or any other device). This prevents having to mess around with Handbrake for hours trying to get the iPhone to eat the video.
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 13y agoI love VLC. A mobile version sounds awesome, if streaming from a host is easy. That's really all I want to do. And to that effect I use Airplayit for streaming+copying from pc/mac to ios. It's fairly simple and reliable.
- darkstalker 13y agoIf you jailbreak you can use SFTP
- cube13 13y agoSo how exactly has the licensing issue been resolved? Has the core VLC library been re-licensed or dual licensed under the Mozilla license?
- jbk 13y agoSee my blogposts on LGPL relicensing of VLC engine http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/I-did-it http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/I-did-it Note that the relicensing was not done for the iOS port. And the app above the VLC engine is dual licensed GPLv2/MPLv2
- cube13 13y agoThanks. I wasn't aware that the core engine and modules have been re-licensed as LGPL.
- jbk 13y agoThis is because VLC 2.1.0 is now only in Beta :)
- sparkie 13y agoI don't see get how the LGPL solves the problem the GPL had with Apple's policy. Particularly, 6.a of the LGPL cannot be met simultaneously with Apple's code signing mechanism; so that the user can modify the Library and then relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library.
- captiva12 13y agoInstead of downloading media to your iPhone you can use Tonido iOS (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tonido-file-access-music-video/id388726418?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tonido-file-access-music-vid...) app to play/stream pretty much all the video formats directly from your PC, Mac or Linux (or) you can use the app to download the media and play with VLC.
- untog 13y agoPretty different use case, IMO. Streaming is far less useful on the go than playing locally stored files. (and I can only assume you are involved with Tonido, given that half your HN posts are promoting using it)
- captiva12 13y agoActually many users do want immediate gratification. Don't want to wait for the media get transferred to the device and play. Also there is an issue of storing large file in your mobile device and delete it afterwards. I am a Tonido user. I am not affiliated with them anyway
- publicfig 13y agoNot only that, but one of their submissions is for a "Top Apps" post, that includes Tonido in it.
- Diamons 13y agoI much prefer OPlayer. Great features, plays nearly any file I throw at it, and supports WiFi transfers.
- lechevalierd3on 13y agoThis new version support file transfer over wifi/3G. You can both download from an external HTTP server and use the build in it HTTP Server to upload file to your iOS device. There is a nice drag and drop browser support to send files.
- johnpowell 13y agoOPlayer has smoother playback for me. I just tried VLC and the first video I tried it said the hardware was to slow to play it. I'm using a 4G iPod Touch. So I converted some some videos with Handbreak using the iPod Touch preset. I tried about ten converted videos and none of them played smoothly. OPlayer handles all of them.
- reiichiroh 13y agoDoes OPlayer have AC3 support?
- autodidakto 13y agoLike all the other iOS apps, it had to remove ac3 support. Oplayer has been my favorite, since it's slowly implementing all the esoteric features I use vlc for, including subtitle font size adjustment, etc (though it's not all the way there.).
- kzahel 13y agoI was trying to install VLC on my android nexus 4 the other day and apparently it's not in the Play store? I ended up installing "Joe VLC" instead. I wonder if there will be an official android release?
- jbk 13y agoWe are not happy yet on the quality of VLC for Android, so it is not out of beta. However, you can try yourself here: http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/armv7-android/VLC-debug-20130714-0125.apk http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/armv7-android/VLC-debug-...
- fpgeek 13y agoAre there any plans to make the Play Store beta available to North American users? From what I recall, the issue was not having NA devices to test against. It seems like the gaps in chipsets and devices have narrowed (e.g. Qualcomm chipsets used more widely as LTE spreads, US Note 2 using Exynos 4 like the international versions, etc.) so I was wondering if anything had changed on that front.
- Aissen 13y agoHaha, I didn't know VLC alpha wasn't available outside of Europe(France?) on Play Store ! I'm happy to know it can work both ways =) Seriously though, I understand the constraints, especially since VLC is trying to use hardware acceleration when available, then not testing on real devices can really affect quality (crashing alpha? 1-star on play store!)
- kansas 13y agoVLC app used to drain my battery. I moved to Plex and Tonido after the removal. Hopefully this release doesn't drain the battery.
- 0x0 13y agoAs I understand, VLC is unable to leverage the hardware codecs of the iPhone, because it doesn't use the official media frameworks, so it has to run stuff less efficiently in software.
- jbk 13y agoNo, it's just that the official frameworks are either all or none. VideoToolbox framework exist but is private so far.
- mtgx 13y agoHave they made the Android app excellent yet? Last I checked it was still nowhere as good as MX Player performance wise. I'm just saying they might want to fix that before venturing into other platforms, especially platforms that have been very hostile towards them in the past.
- jbk 13y agoThose things are orthogonal. This is a false dichotomy. Some people focusing on one platform does not block other to focus on another one...
- joejohnson 13y agoI couldn't tell from the article: is there a way to stream files over afp?
- lechevalierd3on 13y agoNo support of AFP. SMB could show up in a later version.
- emehrkay 13y agoIs network streaming when you can browse windows (smb) shares via vlc? If so, that would be amazing
- jbk 13y agoWe are working on that for a later version :)
- emehrkay 13y agoLet me pay for this app to help you guys out. I love VLC
- feepk 13y agoVLC is free (both as in beer and in speech) and will always be :) However, you can donate to our non-profit organization, which e.g. paid the iPad I used for development, as well as a whole lot of other things around VLC and further VideoLAN projects.
- sz4kerto 13y agoThat's all good and fine, but I've backed the Kickstarter project for porting VLC to Windows RT, and... where is it?
- jasonlotito 13y agoYou probably missed it then: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1061646928/vlc-for-the-new-windows-8-user-experience-metro/posts/505512 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1061646928/vlc-for-the-n... Unless you were being facetious.
- SEJeff 13y agoI'd really love to see this integrate with the newish BitTorrent sync: http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html
- GuiA 13y ago"VideoLAN revealed some very exciting news today: VLC for iOS will be back in Apple’s App Store by tomorrow (July 19). The company tells TNW the app will be available for free worldwide" The original iOS port was made by Applidium; is this still Applidium, or a separate VideoLan initiative?
- feepk 13y ago75% are written by me with major contributions by https://twitter.com/gpinigin https://twitter.com/gpinigin and some improvements by Applidium :) So, it's a VideoLAN initiative.
- phatle 13y agoI checkout the source code, build base on guide but fail:(
- lechevalierd3on 13y agoFollow this guide to build http://wiki.videolan.org/IOSCompile/ http://wiki.videolan.org/IOSCompile/ Make sure you brew install is fine (brew doctor). It works quite simply.
- mrmondo 13y agoAs far as I can see it's not in the Australian App Store.