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Comment by jpfr | Hacker News Reader

From the last slides, they are turning VLC into another iTunes.

Too bad. I liked having a player that emphasized playing "files" instead of loading everything into some opaque "media library" first.

Let's see how long it takes before the monetization of the new "iTunes VLC" kicks in.

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The first and last time I installed iTunes was probably 15 years ago. It started importing my files. "Fine", I thought, "it's creating some internal database of my files. Oh neat it's downloading meta-data." Then I realized, to my horror, it was also renaming/retagging files and directories in it's own format. All of my music was in a consistently named and categorized file structure of my own devising, having been mostly ripped from CDs I owned and then tagged and filed by hand. Down the details of track filenames and ID3 titles having consistent casing. All of that was trashed by iTunes. The hate I feel, to this day, for that software has no equal in decades of computer experience.

1. One great thing about open source is that nobody is forcing you to upgrade. You can stick with VLC 3.x forever, and as mentioned in the video, it will be a long-term support release.

2. Jean-Baptiste Kempf was offered tens of millions of euros to put ads in VLC, but turned down the offer (link in French)[1]

[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/france/comments/736ghk/ama_je_suis_...

Except that codecs and hardware won't stop evolving.

And let's not forget that codecs have a long and terrible history of security issues. There's a reason that they're a poster child for fuzzing.

Nothing about open source allows you to use an old and unsupported piece of software

It literally does. As the source is available, you can always compile whatever version you happen to have the sources for. Nobody is forcing anyone to upgrade, there's just no guarantees either.

I think a lot of folks have been traumatized by their experiences with iTunes, and its default settings.

I don't know if this is still the case, but at one time installing iTunes on Windows meant that some or all of the user's default app associations for media files were hijacked. Then, because of the default iTunes settings, launching a media file for playback would always initiate a process of importing that file into the iTunes library. Whether or not the user cared about creating or maintaining such a library.

Whenever installing iTunes, for myself or others, I am careful to fine-tune the system's file associations, and even more importantly, I make sure the iTunes prefs are in line with what the user would expect/prefer. Especially the settings for 'copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library,' and 'Keep iTunes Media folder organized.'

With those two settings unchecked, the contents of the iTunes library are not duplicated or socked away in an obscure location; they're exactly where the user wants them to be. And the files don't get renamed. That's the way the media library feature behaves in the current version of VLC—and there's no reason to assume that VLC will change this behaviour, to be more like the iTunes default, just because it may change its GUI front-end.

This "socking away or duplication" of the contents of the iTunes library (same for iPhoto or its successors) was the dealbreaker for me on OS X. It indicated that they were brazenly ignoring the wishes of power users who knew what they were doing, and thus signalled the direction of how the OS would develop.

Good for you for attempting to stop other users getting confused by it -- I have spent several afternoons restoring people's setups for people who are completely unable to organise their files, and explaining this behaviour to them was the dullest part of it.

VLC has already been a media catalog app for quite some time - on mobile, but also on the Windows app available on the Microsoft Store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/vlc/9nblggh4vvnh . This version looks quite a lot like those slides.

Yes, my first thought when watching the video was "oh, they're porting the Android UI to desktop" (and not in a bad way).

It doesn't look like they will enforce it. They say they plan to support the direct explorer to playback. I hope because if they start adding the files I play to some sort of library, whether by duplicating the binaries or not, this is the end of me using VLC.

What I like a lot less is controls overlaid on the video. It's a matter of taste but for me I absolutely hate that. Don't mess with the image. If I want the controls to disappear I am happy to go full screen. Skype is doing the same and it is annoying as fuck.

I recommend having a look at mpv. It plays files, supports all the container formats and codecs you are likely to come across both for audio and video.

I sometimes reach for VLC still, but mpv is and has been my go to player for most casual video playback for years now.

The UI pretty much consists of video playback plus an auto-hiding timeline overlay. On the timeline overlay you can also select which subtitle to show as well as turn subtitles on/off.

You can install it on macOS with

  brew cask install mpv

assuming you have Homebrew installed

Have you considered mpv? It's a highly extensible no-nonsense media player. I still recommend VLC to my family because they prefer VLC's GUI focus, but for me, mpv is the best.

Isn't that player just your file manager? e.g. on Windows I just (at worst) group them by type and there's my tunes - I then click them as I have vlc as my default media player

Clementine has a full-featured media library... that I never used though I use Clementine daily. I put files in playlists and play them as is.

Maybe the same thing will be possible with VLC?

We use this https://code.videolan.org/videolan/medialibrary/ as medialibrary. This doesn't touch your files at all.

> Let's see how long it takes before the monetization of the new "iTunes VLC" kicks in.

Boy does that sound entitled. What's wrong with monetizing a software that devs put so much effort in and that has been supported by donations and purposefully has no ads?

Apparently Naver has been providing funding and office space for VLC development. (I was told so by a friend working for Navers Europe division a couple of years back)

I wonder if there has been any pressure or influence from them to steer the project in that direction.

Told by a friend which heard this from his cousin which heard this from another friend which heard this in a grocery ?

Naver manages part of a floor in Paris start-ups incubator "Station F" where they do share some space for a project founded by one of the companies doing VLC support.

They worked (maybe still? didn't keep in touch) for Naver with managing the startups and projects at Station F actually. Maybe you know them even, it seemed like Naver themselves only had a handful of people there at the time at least.

I only visited their offices a couple of times, but it appeared like they were having close interactions with the projects they took under their wings.

Naver does not manage, "pressure or influence" any of those projects with the except of their own. Again, they manage startups co-working spaces.

You seem to have good insights. Are you involved with VLC and/or Naver in Paris or do you have any idea how this decision came to be?

(My OC was really meant as just a question and not an implication)

I'm one of the main devs

What's opaque or bad about a media library? They only exist because the filesystem is inadequate for cataloging and interfacing with the complex metadata associated with media files.

It's opaque because it isn't clear where the files are located on the fs; and you get confusion or strange behavior: if I delete the media library file, will the fs version also be deleted? What about the other way around? And how does that work for renaming or moving? Etc. etc.

I think a tool should embrace the filesystem as much as possible. If metadata doesn't fit in the fs view, then perhaps store them in hidden files next to the actual files. Needless to say, if these files are not there, the system should deal with that gracefully.

>If metadata doesn't fit in the fs view, then perhaps store them in hidden files next to the actual files

Sure, or in tags within the files like almost every music player, but that doesn't preclude there being a media library which is more like an interface to/cache of that metadata.

There's nothing wrong with a media library if your goal is to catalog a library of media.

If your goal is simply to play a video file, it's sheer overhead.

I don't want every text file I download to be categorized and moved into a semi-permanent collection. Nor do I want the same as a default for image files, music, video, or anything else. Some things are ephemeral.

Okay but there is no reason that adding this library would mean anything has to happen to VLC's ability to play a file without doing anything to it or organising it first. Many music players offer both a library and will play individual files thrown at them without any importing ceremony. eg, Winamp.

> I don't want every text file I download to be categorized and moved into a semi-permanent collection.

It already is and it is called desktop search.

I still have my files from 20 years ago.

I don't have my "media libraries" from 20 years ago.

As soon as a tool tries to move my files into an internal representatation I cannot control, I delete the tool.

I have my media library from 20 years ago: it is embedded in my music files using standardised tagging formats. Any in-software 'media-library' I have used in that time has simply been a cache of and search interface for this metadata. Similarly some video files support tags and there are some standards for external metadata storage that can live next to the files I believe.

I highly doubt the music file metadata shown in the video only exists in an opaque internal representation within VLC.

I've been using iTunes since 1.0, which was 19 years ago, so practically I actually do still have my media library from 20 years ago.

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