A Media Player Without Peers – The Unreasonable Effectiveness of VLC | Hacker News Reader

A Media Player Without Peers – The Unreasonable Effectiveness of VLC

kylebenzle.com

39 pointskylebenzle25 comments

The article says that it was written May 18, 2023 but it's listed under the 2024 section of "blog posts by year" and the author is now submitting it here for the fourth time:

1st time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37367895

2nd time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39688021

3rd time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40919190

is this some weird SEO game?

The article itself is also very shallow, and contains a significant amount of strange and/or repetitive wording and structure. It is a bit uncharacteristic of writing done with care about a historical topic of interest. And contains very little by way of meaningful citation or documentary practice.

I see in comments below some hypothesizing that it was written by LLM. If you are right, that likelihood is significantly higher...

Author here, not written by AI but I do use google to help research ideas I get interested in, thanks for the feedback though :)

LOL, author here. Isn't the entire internet an "SEO game"?

But to answer you question, no. I am just a blogger and I have updated this article half a dozens times, sometimes I miss updating a date and sometimes I re-submit after I update.

OT, but am i the only one who feels part of this article is wrriten using a GPT?

This para especially strikes out as very odd: "2. Advanced AI-driven features: With the advancement in artificial intelligence and machine learning, VLC may develop new features to enhance user experience. This could include AI-driven media organization and curation, smart recommendations based on viewing patterns, or even intelligent quality enhancements for low-quality media files."

This is a lot of words to say very little. There are two main reasons why VLC is good. The first is that it's open source. The second is that it gets to ignore software patents (on the codecs) since France doesn't recognize them. I'm surprised the article didn't mention the second. Personally, I prefer mpv though.

Let's admit who the real hero of media playback software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category%3ASoftware_that_uses_...

Fabrice Bellard in particular (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard)

VLC is ridiculously useful.

I actually use VLC for a lot of things other than playing video:

1. Ripping video files off websites

2. As a DVR where I can schedule a stream rip via scheduled task

3. Media format conversion

4. A way to check file content while it is still being downloaded (VLC is resilient to missing chunks of files)

5. DLNA alternative - since the Xbox build of it can play off NFS/SMB shares

After all these years, I still feel like I've barely touched most of its capabilities.

So much love and respect for VLC as robust pioneering open source software, but also in 2024, it feels like extremely antiquated and sluggish on a Mac.

Highly recommend folks check out IINA which is .

I prefer IINA on macOS, but it might be because the UI of VLC looks antiquated. Functionality-wise, VLC is superior.

This article reads as if it were written by an LLM.

Specifically the "Looking Forward" section feels straight out of ChatGPT. Apologies to the author if it isn't.

If it's not, then they've successfully nailed not only the voice but the output format, too.

> A. Explanation of “Open Source”

> 1. Before we delve into the specifics, let’s take a moment to explain what “open source” means. In the world of software, “open source” refers to a type of computer software in which the source code is released under a license where the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

how embarrassing. And there's "delve"!

> And then there’s the cone. You can’t ignore the cone. The VLC icon — a traffic cone — is a tribute to the traffic cones collected by École Centrale’s Networking Students’ Association. Sounds weird, right? It’s like the developers decided to inject a little dose of the absurd, to remind us that this tool wasn’t created by suits in a boardroom, but by students with a penchant for traffic cones.

Reads like ChatGPT to you?

yeah kinda

Kinda, yes. As LLM proponents are fond of pointing out, you can sorta break up the common style by asking for a different tone.

(Apologies for the following LLM sludge) For the heck of it, I prompted 4o mini like this:

"Write a paragraph explaining the background and reason for the VLC traffic cone, in an upbeat conversational tone"

It replied:

> The VLC traffic cone is an iconic symbol of the VLC media player, and its origins are as quirky as the software itself! Developed by the VideoLAN project in the late 1990s, VLC started as a student project in France aimed at creating a robust media player that could handle various formats. As the project grew, the team needed a logo that was both eye-catching and memorable, and they landed on the traffic cone! This choice reflects the project’s commitment to open-source principles and the idea of guiding users through the sometimes chaotic world of multimedia. Plus, who doesn’t love a bit of playful design? Now, every time you see that bright orange cone, it’s a reminder of VLC’s user-friendly mission and its journey from a student project to a beloved global media player!

I said, "Make it chirpier" and got:

> Absolutely! The VLC traffic cone is not just a logo; it’s a cheerful symbol of the VLC media player’s journey! Born out of the VideoLAN project in the late '90s, this colorful cone sprang to life when a group of enthusiastic students in France decided they wanted to create a versatile media player that could handle any format under the sun. To make it memorable, they chose the traffic cone, and how fun is that? It perfectly captures the spirit of guiding users through the multimedia landscape with a dash of personality! Now, every time you see that bright orange cone pop up, it’s a little wink from VLC, reminding you that navigating your media should be as fun as it is easy. Go VLC!

Which really does feel pretty in-line with the original quote you gave.

It really annoys me how these tools use so many exclamation marks. Also how they use those "Go...!" at end of paragraphs or end the results with a "personal question" like "What are you favourite [things I asked about]?" as if I had time to chat to something that can't reason.

The challenge, then, isn't can you get an LLM to write something like that, but can you, as a presumed human, write something like that, that isn't like that. Now that we're scrutinizing that bit of text, I don't think there's a way to write it without it looking like it's LLM generated.

I think this is an important issue to know about articles like this that claim to be providing factual, historical information. Without direct links to primary sources, how is anyone supposed to trust that this information is accurate and not just an LLM hallucination?

The weirdest design choice about VLC is that clicking on a playing video does nothing. Nearly every other video player I can think of toggles pause/play when clicking the video. Seems silly not to make use of what is the largest click area.

I prefer MPC-HC.

I use MPV but always keep VLC installed just in case. The main form of media I consume is audiobooks, and speeding up audio playback in VLC sounds off, while setting 2x playback on MPV still sounds fine.

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