It seems really weirdly written. It's written with a lot of authority, like saying "Don't use VLC" and "Don't use Y" yet provides no reasoning for those things. Just putting "Trust me, just don't" doesn't suddenly mean I trust the author more, it probably has the opposite effect. Some sections seem to differ based on if the reader knows/doesn't know something, but I thought the article was supposed to be for the latter.
Would have been nice if these "MUST KNOW BEFORE" advises were structured in a way so one could easily come back and use it as a reference, like just a list, but instead it's like a over-dinner conversation with your "expert and correct but socially-annoying" work colleague, who refuses to elaborate on the how's and why's, but still have very strong opinions.
Exactly, very hard to take the rest of it seriously after the VLC bit. VLC has literally never left me hanging, across I don't know how many decades. It's gonna take more than a trust me bro to challenge that.
How do you know it is technically correct without explanation. It's not much different from someone getting blown off for being annoying because they constantly question simple answers when seeking better understanding. I was fortunate to work with a group of engineers when I was very young that accepted my constant use of "why?" not as disrespectful questioning but realized I was actually learning so they naturally just provided more details leading to less "why?" being asked. This eventually got to the point where I would ask a question, and the answer would be to read a specific book on the shelf. This was way before the internet. I received a better education on the job than I ever was going to get in school.
So no, I'm not just going to take an opinion without more information. I don't change my mind just on say so.
It works if you know the person and have a baseline for how much confidence you give their opinions. If it's just a random person on the internet, they need to support their argument.
I'm always amazed when I see how many people are unfamiliar with VLC hate. It was notorious (to the point of it being a popular meme topic) for video artifacts, slow/buggy seeking, bloated/clumsy UI/menus, having very little format support out of the box, and buggy subtitles. I assume nowadays it's much better, since it seems popular, but its reputation will stick with me forever.
For a long time it was the only graphical user-friendly option for non-technical Windows users that had decent support for a wide range of formats. I don’t know about its early years, but friends, family and I have been using it for a good 15+ years without encountering the issues folks are describing in these comments.
It seems there’s a lot of open-source lovers that haven’t also accepted that bugs can get fixed, projects can improve, etc. They’d rather treat a project as though it was stuck at version 0 from 20 something years ago. Deeply ironic.
I've never had problems with VLC, and I've used it off and on for 20 years.
I don't doubt that there's some obscure, elite videophile hate towards it, but I'm hardly going to stop using it because a few random internet strangers hate on it.
>It was notorious (to the point of it being a popular meme topic) for [...] having very little format support out of the box
???
I thought the meme was that it played basically everything? At least compared to windows media player or whatever.
The other items I can't say I've noticed, but then again I only play the most common of files (eg. h.264/h.265 with english subtitles in a mkv) so maybe it's something that only happens with unusual formats/encodes.
Interesting read, it’s a shame the ranty format makes it 3x longer than necessary.
Not sure why it takes a dump on VLC - it’s been the most stable and friendly video player for Windows for a long time (it matters that ordinary users, like school teachers, can use it without special training. I don’t care how ideological you are about Linux or video players or whatever lol).
I don't believe it's the case anymore, but it was very common for VLC to cause video corruption (see [1] for example of what it looked like) in the past, the hate just stuck around and I don't think it's ever going away.
> where I expect the exact same look and feel regardless of the underlying OS
Slightly ironic, as I think a new UI is underway (and coming soon?). Not sure what version it's planned for, but I think some beta has it enabled by default already, was surprised when I saw it. So the consistent UI is here today, and will be in the future, but there will be a slice of time where different users will run different versions where some switched to the new UI, and some haven't. But it'll hopefully be a brief period, and of course it's still cross-platform :)
In the anime fan subbing community (which this document is likely from), it's very common to hate on VLC for a variety of imagined (and occasionally real but marginal) issues.
If you search the page you'll find a reference to having “numerous foot guns”.
I can't say I've experienced either of the ones mentioned, but I have had trouble in the past with output resolution selection (ending up with a larger file than expected with the encoding resolution much larger than the intended display resolution). User error, of course, but that tab is a bit non-obvious so it might be fair to call it a footgun.
It really isn't. You have to scroll 75% of the way through the document before you it tells you what to actually type in. Everything before (9000+ words) is just ranty exposition that might be relevant, but is hardly "quick".
my biggest pet peeve was that VLC was always considered a streamer and treated files as streams as well. for the longest time, stepping within the video was not possible. reverse play was also a bane as well, even with i-frame only content. i have long found players that are better for me, but still find myself using VLC frequently because it still has features these other players do not.
this complication causing people to nope out has made my career. for everyone that decides it is too complicated and is only the realm of experts, my career has been made that much more secure. sadly, i've worked with plenty of video that has clearly been made by someone that should have "noped out"
Would have been nice if these "MUST KNOW BEFORE" advises were structured in a way so one could easily come back and use it as a reference, like just a list, but instead it's like a over-dinner conversation with your "expert and correct but socially-annoying" work colleague, who refuses to elaborate on the how's and why's, but still have very strong opinions.
Source?
So no, I'm not just going to take an opinion without more information. I don't change my mind just on say so.
It seems there’s a lot of open-source lovers that haven’t also accepted that bugs can get fixed, projects can improve, etc. They’d rather treat a project as though it was stuck at version 0 from 20 something years ago. Deeply ironic.
I don't doubt that there's some obscure, elite videophile hate towards it, but I'm hardly going to stop using it because a few random internet strangers hate on it.
???
I thought the meme was that it played basically everything? At least compared to windows media player or whatever.
The other items I can't say I've noticed, but then again I only play the most common of files (eg. h.264/h.265 with english subtitles in a mkv) so maybe it's something that only happens with unusual formats/encodes.
edit: based on other comments (eg. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465349), it looks like it might indeed be caused by uncommon files that I haven't encountered.
So at least from those times
Not sure why it takes a dump on VLC - it’s been the most stable and friendly video player for Windows for a long time (it matters that ordinary users, like school teachers, can use it without special training. I don’t care how ideological you are about Linux or video players or whatever lol).
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/glitch_art/comments/144vjl/vlc_star...
Haters gonna hate I guess.
mpv is okay but its complete reliance on command line flags and manually written config files makes it a bore.
Slightly ironic, as I think a new UI is underway (and coming soon?). Not sure what version it's planned for, but I think some beta has it enabled by default already, was surprised when I saw it. So the consistent UI is here today, and will be in the future, but there will be a slice of time where different users will run different versions where some switched to the new UI, and some haven't. But it'll hopefully be a brief period, and of course it's still cross-platform :)
I can't say I've experienced either of the ones mentioned, but I have had trouble in the past with output resolution selection (ending up with a larger file than expected with the encoding resolution much larger than the intended display resolution). User error, of course, but that tab is a bit non-obvious so it might be fair to call it a footgun.
It really isn't. You have to scroll 75% of the way through the document before you it tells you what to actually type in. Everything before (9000+ words) is just ranty exposition that might be relevant, but is hardly "quick".
I think it might be one of those classic “everyone should just get good like me” style opinions you find polluting some subject matter communities.
ffmpeg seems ridiculously complicated, but infact its amazing the amount of work that happens under the hood when you do
and tbh theyve made the interface about as smooth as can be given the scope of the problem.