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Is VLC for Mac development almost dead?

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Dec 2009 1:35 User comments (31)

Is VLC for Mac development almost dead? VideoLAN, the group behind the extremely popular free media player VLC has said that development for the Mac version of the software may come to an end soon, as volunteers have almost completely disappeared.
All VLC versions are developed on a volunteer basis but it seems that the Mac version has had its volunteer corps drop to zero for most of the time.

A 64-bit Mac VLC has already been put on indefinite hold and VideoLAN says that VLC 1.1.0 may be the last Mac version, ever, unless more developers are found.

Active volunteers have deep knowledge of C, Cocoa and Xcode.

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31 user comments

119.12.2009 15:43
DXR88
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Can you blame them.

219.12.2009 19:11
KSib
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Why do you think they stopped volunteering? When you said "can you blame them?" I'm not entirely sure what has been happening. Can I be enlightened? :)

319.12.2009 19:44
EvilDeeds
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It's a shame - one of the best players on the mac. :(

419.12.2009 21:31
cyprusrom
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Originally posted by KSib:
 Why do you think they stopped volunteering? When you said "can you blame them?" I'm not entirely sure what has been happening. Can I be enlightened? :)
...probably the coders are using "real" hardware;none of them is using a MAC hardware for serious programming, so they quit...~)))

519.12.2009 21:57
KSib
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Tell that to my comp sci professors :P

619.12.2009 23:47
tatsh
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Uh, it is now based on Qt and Qt requires very little changes for each platform to build on. The only thing to be concerned with is the huge amount of other libraries that VLC uses that are platform-dependent or require many changes to stay working with Mac OS X. I am surprised they maintained an Cocoa version so long, when Qt looks almost 100% identical on Mac.

720.12.2009 14:44
david94
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at least Macs dont use sh*tty media players like Windows media player.

820.12.2009 14:53
cyprusrom
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Originally posted by david94:
 at least Macs dont use sh*tty media players like Windows media player.

If a Mac's default player is the greatest invention since sliced bread, why people use something like VLC on a Mac(don't get me wrong, I am not defending WMP, I never use it), but I wouldn't ever touch Quick Time either...

920.12.2009 14:56
DXR88
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Originally posted by david94:
 at least Macs dont use sh*tty media players like Windows media player.


yeah they have there own sh*tty media Player called QuickTime.

why else would having an alternative on mac be greatly wanted.

1020.12.2009 15:07
cyprusrom
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Recently, I have had some issues with VLC. I had a couple of MKV/H.264 that were stuttering in VLC. I tried KMPlayer a couple of weeks ago(free version).KMPlayer handles those MKVs beautifully. I am also able to play incomplete video downloads much better in KMPlayer, to preview them. Now I am just going back and forth between the two of them.

1120.12.2009 17:06
KSib
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*shrug* never really had any problems with windows media player. I certainly wouldn't use it if I had a bunch of music though.

1221.12.2009 01:10
bomber991
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There only two things I liked about vlc over other player. First was the ability to adjust the volume. Most other players only let you turn it up to the system max, which might still be way to low for some video files. VLC let you jack up the volume as loud as you wanted. It was real good when something else beeps on your computer behind the video because it doesn't sound like a loud crack of thunder since you didn't turn up the physical speakers loud.

The other thing, when part 1 of a video file ends, part 2 auto opens and plays.

Otherwise, vlc sucks balls. When your first start the video it's all blocky and grainy for the first few seconds, and if anything in the background uses any cpu then vlcs video gets grainy and blocky again and sometimes freezes for up to 10 seconds. Seriously wtf, never ever had that problem with any other player ever.

1321.12.2009 03:03
DXR88
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Originally posted by bomber991:
 There only two things I liked about vlc over other player. First was the ability to adjust the volume. Most other players only let you turn it up to the system max, which might still be way to low for some video files. VLC let you jack up the volume as loud as you wanted. It was real good when something else beeps on your computer behind the video because it doesn't sound like a loud crack of thunder since you didn't turn up the physical speakers loud.

The other thing, when part 1 of a video file ends, part 2 auto opens and plays.

Otherwise, vlc sucks balls. When your first start the video it's all blocky and grainy for the first few seconds, and if anything in the background uses any cpu then vlcs video gets grainy and blocky again and sometimes freezes for up to 10 seconds. Seriously wtf, never ever had that problem with any other player ever.
Never had any issues with VLC, and besides VLC is a lightweight client it doesn't have any padding option. so what you put in is what you get out.

1421.12.2009 03:18
KSib
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"padding option?"

1521.12.2009 03:45
DXR88
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Originally posted by KSib:
 "padding option?"
Full featured Media players attempt to compensate for bad or corrupt bits of information in the Video/Audio stream or source. some do it so well its like there is nothing wrong.

VLC reads streams and sources Bit by Bit so if there is a bad bit it must still read it, and because it lacks the ability to Pad(compensate) the bad bit it looks/sounds garbled. or worse if there are to many bad bits it may go out of sync.

1621.12.2009 03:55
KSib
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So I don't follow your argument then, wouldn't the average user _want_ padding?

1721.12.2009 04:08
DXR88
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Originally posted by KSib:
 So I don't follow your argument then, wouldn't the average user _want_ padding?
yes must would, but VLC can Play broken video/audio files, i also like to see how much quality goes into my compression software. i can do this with VLC knowing that it wont Lie(Pad)my content. its also lightweight and has no dependency's with the registry meaning its highly portable even with locked out machines.

So it has its uses.

1821.12.2009 04:20
KSib
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Oh yeah, I'm sure. I keep a portable version of it on my USB. I need a Blu-Ray player though honestly...it's annoying that I have to download yet ANOTHER (shareware) player just to play Blu-Ray movies. After I installed Windows 7, I lost my HP blu-ray player software somewhere in there. I need to find it again I suppose..

1922.12.2009 03:37
KillerBug
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Originally posted by KSib:
 Tell that to my comp sci professors :P
If they knew what they were doing, they would not be teachers.

I don't like windows media player for a lot of reasons, the most important being the fact that you cannot skip the commercials on dvds. The only two players that seem to work even worse are Quicktime and Gom...oh, and nero's media player makes them all look good.

VLC isn't perfect, and they need to add bluray support...but it is still the best player I have found for individual files.

2022.12.2009 04:28
KSib
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You can't? I remember being able to on a few by right clicking and hitting Menu, maybe they changed something since then. I've also used AnyDVD in the past to get rid of all those ads and go straight to the menu. What a good app :)

That teachers comment made me smile and then doubt my education :P

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 22 Dec 2009 @ 4:30

2122.12.2009 14:04
lxfactor
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VLC aint all that.. all u need is the proper codecs and you can play any type of media with pretty much any player..

2222.12.2009 14:32
cyprusrom
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Originally posted by lxfactor:
 VLC aint all that.. all u need is the proper codecs and you can play any type of media with pretty much any player..

...and then wait until you install all the stupid codec packs and splitters and they start conflicting...VLC IS all that just for the fact that it requires no codec installation.Hell, you can even have it on a thumb drive, with no installation...

2322.12.2009 17:27
KSib
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It's weird cuz I've always heard about these conflicting codec problems, but I've never had them any time I used K-Lite Codec pack on any machine. Weird. I just don't like needing to have 2 players when I can just have one and a codec pack. Don't get me wrong, for any other person I'd tell them to DL VLC in the off chance the codec pack does screw up their codecs cuz I can't be there to fix it for them, but for me... I just want the codecs.

2422.12.2009 17:45
creaky
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Originally posted by KSib:
 It's weird cuz I've always heard about these conflicting codec problems, but I've never had them any time I used K-Lite Codec pack on any machine.
Same here. As to players, i only use VLC and Media Player Classic (as supplied by K-Lite). I don't own a Mac though.

2522.12.2009 20:55
borhan9
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Anyone looking for a job although it does not pay its a good thing to add to your CV :)

2622.12.2009 23:19
KillerBug
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I just realized the fundamenta problem that most of the programmers probably figured out long ago...

Apple users love apple products; even when they are complete trash, such as iTunes and Quicktime. It does not matter if you make something that is better in every way; they will not use it because it is not made by apple.

2723.12.2009 01:56
xnonsuchx
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Originally posted by KillerBug:
 I just realized the fundamenta problem that most of the programmers probably figured out long ago...

Apple users love apple products; even when they are complete trash, such as iTunes and Quicktime. It does not matter if you make something that is better in every way; they will not use it because it is not made by apple.
It's the Windows versions that are arguably trash...they work much better on Mac OS.

2823.12.2009 03:33
DXR88
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Quote:
Originally posted by KillerBug:
 I just realized the fundamenta problem that most of the programmers probably figured out long ago...

Apple users love apple products; even when they are complete trash, such as iTunes and Quicktime. It does not matter if you make something that is better in every way; they will not use it because it is not made by apple.
It's the Windows versions that are arguably trash...they work much better on Mac OS.
Indeed.

2923.12.2009 03:51
KillerBug
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Quote:
Originally posted by KillerBug:
 I just realized the fundamenta problem that most of the programmers probably figured out long ago...

Apple users love apple products; even when they are complete trash, such as iTunes and Quicktime. It does not matter if you make something that is better in every way; they will not use it because it is not made by apple.
It's the Windows versions that are arguably trash...they work much better on Mac OS.
They could not work any worse...more than one person has sugested the conspiracy theory that apple intentionaly broke these programs in a short-sighted attempt to make windows look bad. The file format support in windows quicktime is virtual non-existant, and iTunes is super-slow, plus it automaticaly re-encodes MP3s into an even-more-lossy apple file with DRM. I hate Windows Media Player...but at least it does not destroy my archive.

3023.12.2009 04:02
xnonsuchx
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Quote:
Quote:
Originally posted by KillerBug:
 I just realized the fundamenta problem that most of the programmers probably figured out long ago...

Apple users love apple products; even when they are complete trash, such as iTunes and Quicktime. It does not matter if you make something that is better in every way; they will not use it because it is not made by apple.
It's the Windows versions that are arguably trash...they work much better on Mac OS.
They could not work any worse...more than one person has sugested the conspiracy theory that apple intentionaly broke these programs in a short-sighted attempt to make windows look bad. The file format support in windows quicktime is virtual non-existant, and iTunes is super-slow, plus it automaticaly re-encodes MP3s into an even-more-lossy apple file with DRM. I hate Windows Media Player...but at least it does not destroy my archive.
Odd...I haven't have ANY of those problems w/ iTunes on my Windows computers, so I have no idea what you're doing with it. The only issues I ever had (other than being slower on Windows than Mac OS and having more limited format support in Windows, though it handles any formats I really use much) are some video/sound driver issues (which turned out to be the drivers, not the software).

3125.12.2009 01:49
KillerBug
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Originally posted by xnonsuchx:
Quote:
Quote:
Originally posted by KillerBug:
 I just realized the fundamenta problem that most of the programmers probably figured out long ago...

Apple users love apple products; even when they are complete trash, such as iTunes and Quicktime. It does not matter if you make something that is better in every way; they will not use it because it is not made by apple.
It's the Windows versions that are arguably trash...they work much better on Mac OS.
They could not work any worse...more than one person has sugested the conspiracy theory that apple intentionaly broke these programs in a short-sighted attempt to make windows look bad. The file format support in windows quicktime is virtual non-existant, and iTunes is super-slow, plus it automaticaly re-encodes MP3s into an even-more-lossy apple file with DRM. I hate Windows Media Player...but at least it does not destroy my archive.
Odd...I haven't have ANY of those problems w/ iTunes on my Windows computers, so I have no idea what you're doing with it. The only issues I ever had (other than being slower on Windows than Mac OS and having more limited format support in Windows, though it handles any formats I really use much) are some video/sound driver issues (which turned out to be the drivers, not the software).
I think that they removed the auto-reencode "feature" after massive users complaints. As for the windows slowing, it is quite noticable even with the current version...it is worse than enabling the indexing service; even when iTunes is not running. I know several people with iPhones who have to install iTunes to do updates...once the updates are done, they have to uninstall iTunes to get their performance back.

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