VLC media player 3.0.0 'WeatherWax' Release Candidate 3 | Hacker News Reader

VLC media player 3.0.0 'WeatherWax' Release Candidate 3

git.videolan.org

94 pointsdoener48 comments

I may try this out - I had to move away from VLC because getting it to properly do hardware decoding/deinterlacing on Linux has been like pulling teeth.

If you've got a modern video card, it's hard to go back to software deinterlacing after seeing how good it looks when done by the GPU, and I could never reliably get it to work. Eventually moved to SMPLayer which works great, but it would be nice to see it working right in VLC.

+1 for smplayer

I may try out VLC 3 again.

I had moved to MPC-BE (Media player classic home cinema black edition) due its superior UI and 4K hardware support and dual-device audio-output (PC 5.1 speaker plus over HDMI to TV). And MPC-BE allows one to quickly skip through a movie by dragging the mouse. And MPC-BE can play partly corrupt files too, one can even skip around such files. VLC 2x sucks at all these things, yet it's still better than traditional Windows Media Player or iTunes. VLC 1x was quite good back then, but 2x was a let down and MPC-HC and MPC-BE are simply better for several things. But let me try VLC 3 again, maybe things improved.

> SMPLayer

It's a light GUI over ffmpeg library, so the video playback is great, but the UI looked like a fisherprice toy and it was a rough experience two years ago. On Win64 MPC-BE is a lot better.

I just tried today's daily Windows x64 installer, and Windows Defender is blocking it, reporting that it's infected with "Trojan:Win32/Fuerboos.D!cl"

Might be a false positive, but I'm not moving forward until I know.

Tried submitting it to virustotal?

Edit: I might be close to paranoid but I've seen to many cases of nice freeware or open source software getting compromised or even selling out to adware.

Relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/73dafr/vlc_creator_...

s/creator/maintainer/

Downloaded from: https://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win64/

Scan results (2 / 59): https://www.virustotal.com/ro/file/6087b1227819ed921f5cd68d6...

I'm surprised they don't provide a checksum, or a PGP signature, or both. Did people forget about Handbrake already?

VirusTotal doesn't show anything. Can you provide url & sha256 of the installer?

Seems like a false positive, Windows Defender stopped reporting it as infected after definitions update. sha256 of the file in question is f7540af3ad4aa7e6f02c850bfe428d65e481f8b4c00c2927f72b62450f4ec42b .

I couldn't find an official rc3 download link but here's the link to the nightlies:

https://nightlies.videolan.org/build/

I've always found VLC's UX very awkward. Very happy with mpv.io. On Windows, MPC-HC until it's been abandoned recently; Replaced it with MPC-QT, which is a mpc-hc-like UX but implemented using libmpv.

I agree about the UX, but it's just so damn reliable.

Yeah, but it can't skip 5 seconds ahead. I mean, ostentatiously, it can, but with horrible lags and jerking. I can't watch a video where I don't have fast skip. MPlayer, a much worse player than VLC, had instant skip for all file formats. Youtube has instant skip. But VLC doesn't even use the forward/backward keys for skipping, it uses Alt-Cmd-Arrow or some arcane combo. Clearly they dropped the ball on skipping.

Playback -> Jump to Specific Time

What about that?

Pretty sure there's an option to change the skip method, and shortcut keys are definitely configurable.

Its a video player (well thats what it primarily gets used for). The vast majority of use cases are simple enough that the UI doesn't get in the way. (Though I do agree it hasn't got the best UI).

>The vast majority of use cases are simple enough that the UI doesn't get in the way.

I disagree. VLC gets on the way all the time. It is irritating to use. Even the most basic controls do not make sense.

Did they re-use the codename for VLC 2.2.8? The about screen for 2.2.8 shows "Version 2.2.8 Weatherwax (Intel 64bit)"

Can't wait for this. I've been using nightlies to get the new subtitle renderer and have been very happy (aside from unrelated minor playback regressions).

If you're on MacOS, try IINA instead.

It has much nicer interface, thumbnail previews on hover, multiple subtitles support.

Moreover it solved all of the issues that I've had with VLC.

I'll wait for the .1 release but the current version of VLC on android and Ubuntu have been pretty flakey. In android have lost all my playists and least twice and in Ubuntu playing full screen video cause the computer to lock up to a hard reset.

I hope this is just a rough patch for VLC which has been a great application for a long time.

Still can't play 8K videos on my MacBook Pro. I downloaded and tested this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1La4QzGeaaQ

I’d like to have mac version of it. Eager to test if 4k videos play smoothly.

There's a build from 12/25 that might be sufficient for that:

https://nightlies.videolan.org/build/macosx-intel/vlc-3.0.0-...

Works much better with 4k videos than previous stable release!

Anyone know if this finally integrates Chromecast support?

I haven't tried it, but it's there some thumbnail preview just like most web video players?

I find weird that most desktop players don't have this feature.

I have a tough time playing network streams in VLC, if it cuts out there's no easy way to restart where it left off.

chromecast!

Yeah, I'd been using the Chromecast support in the earlier 3.0 betas. Seemed to be working just fine, although it wasn't getting the "friendly" name that I'd set for the device. So instead of "Living Room TV", I'd see a big hash-code.

It can also play audio over Google Home speakers.

Haven't gotten a chance to try this yet but is this the same functionality as videostream but free?

Chromecaaast! I might ditch my HTPC currently running OpenELEC on a Acer Revo, and just waz out movies from my phone. There's always some damn problem with OpenELEC - the whole library/file management is confusing as all hell for one thing.

Now how long until Google breaks the API again? They did that the last time people started implementing Chromecast renderers in open source projects.

Do you have a source for that? I thought Google only broke the APIs when people tried to clone Cchromecast functionality in another device form factor, or create an emulator for a Chromecast, not just implementing the normal "Cast to" functionality.

I understood the parent comment as VLC supporting rendering as if it was a Chromecast – not casting to one.

And yes, I want that functionality. "Cast to VLC".

If you are on Windows use MPC-HC. Else use mpv.

Why?

mpv is really fast and scriptable with lua

Much better subtitle rendering for starters. Another reason is madvr.

Agreed, pretty much for hardware decoding/deinterlacing alone. I use MPC-HC on Windows, and SMPlayer (with MPV backend) on Linux.

This release seems to close the gap between MPC-HC and VLC on the subtitles and hardware decoding fronts.

Personally, I don’t like to mess around configuring and installing plugins for my media player. I only have that kind of time for Vim. With VLC, all I have to do is install it. With MPC-HC or mpv, I gotta write config files, troll forums for guides to install things like MadVR, run unsigned software, mess around in cmd.exe... It feels so not worth it, especially compared to the Netflix.com experience.

1. You really don't need MadVR. The default install of MPC HC or BE should be fine.

2. VLC has this resizing behavior that I do not understand how people tolerate. It just feels clumsy compared to MPC which feels more native. VLC is a good backup if or when MPC fails.

What I am saying is MPC is better for watching porn than VLC.

> don’t need MadVR.

I don’t need MPC-* either. MadVR and LAV filters are the two reasons typically cited for switching from VLC to MCP.

> With [...] mpv, I gotta write config files, troll forums for guides

Huh? You mean on Windows or what? I never had to write a config file to use mpv (on Linux).

Last time I tried mpv on Linux (years ago), I had to write a config file or my video would screen tear.

Mpc hc development has stopped

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