Thursday, February 7, 2013

Why The Monopoly Of Software Never Worked Part 1: It Is Closed Source And Lacks Innovations - The Best Free Media Player Is Videolan

plays everything for free, mpeg-2, dvix, h.264, mkv, webm, mp3, support non profit organizations


Official Downloads of VLC media player

Windows

Get VLC for Windows

Mac OS X

Get VLC for Mac OS X
Get VLC for iOS

Sources

You can also directly get the source code.

GNU/Linux

Get VLC for Debian GNU/Linux
Get VLC for Ubuntu
Get VLC for Mint
Get VLC for openSUSE
Get VLC for Gentoo Linux
Get VLC for Fedora
Get VLC for Arch Linux
Get VLC for Slackware Linux
Get VLC for Mandriva Linux
Get VLC for ALT Linux
Get VLC for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Other OS

Get VLC for FreeBSD
Get VLC for NetBSD
Get VLC for OpenBSD
Get VLC for Solaris
Get VLC for Android
Get VLC for QNX
Get VLC for Syllable
Get VLC for OS/2

VLC media player (also known as VLC) is a highly portable free and open-source cross-platform media player and streaming media server written by the VideoLAN project.

VLC media player supports many audio and video compression methods and file formats, including DVD-video, video CD and streaming protocols. It is able to stream over computer network and to transcode multimedia files.[8]

The default distribution of VLC includes a large number of free decoding and encoding libraries, avoiding the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins. Many of VLC's codecs are provided by the libavcodec library from the FFmpeg project, but it uses mainly its own muxer and demuxers and its own protocols. It also gained distinction as the first player to support playback of encrypted DVDs on Linux and OS X by using the libdvdcss DVD decryption library.

Contents

History

The VideoLan project was originally started as an academic project in 1996. VLC used to stand for VideoLAN Client, but since VLC is no longer simply a client, that initialism no longer applies.[9][10] It was intended to consist of a client and server to stream videos across a campus network. VLC was the client for the VideoLAN project, with VLC standing for VideoLan Client. Originally developed by students at the École Centrale Paris, it is now developed by contributors worldwide and is coordinated by the VideoLAN non-profit organization.
Rewritten from scratch in 1998, it was released under the GPL on 1 February 2001, with authorization from the headmaster of the École Centrale Paris. The functionality of the server program, VideoLan Server (VLS), has mostly been subsumed into VLC and has been deprecated.[11] The project name has been changed to VLC media player because there is no longer a client/server infrastructure.
The cone icon used in VLC is a reference to the traffic cones collected by Ecole Centrale's Networking Students' Association.[12] The cone icon design was changed from a hand drawn low resolution icon[13] to a higher resolution CGI-rendered version in 2006, illustrated by Richard Øiestad.[14]
After 13 years of development, version 1.0.0 of VLC media player was released on July 7, 2009.[15] The version 2.0.0 of VLC media player was released on February 18, 2012.[7][16]
VLC is first in the sourceforge.net overall download count[17] and has been downloaded more than 1 billion times.[18]
VLC was available for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch from the Apple AppStore, but was pulled due to a licensing conflict between the GPL and the iTunes Store agreement.[19]
In 2011 and 2012, large parts of VLC were relicensed to the GNU LGPL.[20][21]

Design principles

Modular design

VLC, like most multimedia frameworks, has a very modular design which makes it easier to include modules/plugins for new file formats, codecs, or streaming methods. VLC 1.0.0 has more than 380 modules.[22]
The VLC core creates dynamically its own graph of modules depending on the situation: input protocol, input file format, input codec, video card capabilities and other parameters. In VLC, almost everything is a module, like interfaces, video and audio outputs, controls, scalers, codecs, and audio/video filters.

Interfaces

In VLC, interfaces are modules, which means that VLC's core can launch one, many, or no interfaces.
The default GUI is based on Qt 4 for Windows and Linux, Cocoa for Mac OS X, and Be API on BeOS; but all give a similar standard interface. The old default GUI was based on wx on Windows and Linux.[23]
The interface contains an easter egg which changes the VLC traffic cone logo so that it's wearing a Santa hat. The logo changes on December 18, one week before Christmas, and reverts to its normal appearance on January 1.
VLC supports highly customizable skins through the skins2 interface, also supporting Winamp 2 and XMMS skins. The customizable skins feature can malfunction depending on which version is being used.
For console users, VLC has a remote control interface and an ncurses interface. As VLC can act as a streaming server, rather than a media player, it can be useful to control it from a remote location and there are interfaces allowing this. The Remote Control Interface is a text-based interface for doing this. There are also interfaces using telnet and HTTP (Ajax).

Control

In addition to these interfaces, it is possible to control VLC in different ways:

Features

Because VLC is a packet-based media player, it can play the video content of some damaged, incomplete, or unfinished videos (for example, files still downloading via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks). It also plays m2t MPEG transport streams (.TS) files while they are still being digitized from an HDV camera via a FireWire cable, making it possible to monitor the video as it is being played. The player can also use libcdio to access .iso files so that users can play files on a disk image, even if the user's operating system cannot work directly with .iso images.
VLC supports all audio and video formats supported by libavcodec and libavformat. This means that VLC can play back H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 2 video as well as support FLV or MXF file formats "out of the box" using FFmpeg's libraries. Alternatively, VLC has modules for codecs that are not based on FFmpeg's libraries. VLC is one of the free software DVD players that ignores DVD region coding on RPC-1 firmware drives, making it a region-free player. However, it does not do the same on RPC-2 firmware drives. VLC media player has some filters that can distort, rotate, split, deinterlace, and mirror videos as well as create display walls or add a logo overlay. It can also output video as ASCII art.
VLC media player can play high definition recordings of D-VHS tapes duplicated to a computer using CapDVHS.exe. This offers another way to archive all D-VHS tapes with the DRM copy freely tag. Using a FireWire connection from cable boxes to computers, VLC can stream live, unencrypted content to a monitor or HDTV. VLC media player can display the playing video as the desktop wallpaper, like Windows DreamScene, by using DirectX, only available on Windows operating systems. VLC media player can create screencasts and record the desktop. On Microsoft Windows, VLC also supports the Direct Media Object (DMO) framework and can thus make use of some third-party DLLs. On most platforms, VLC can tune in to and view DVB-C, DVB-T, and DVB-S channels. On Mac OS X the separate EyeTV plugin is required, on Windows it requires the card's BDA Drivers.
VLC can be installed or run directly from a USB flash drive or other external drive. VLC can be extended through scripting. It uses the Lua scripting language.[24][25] VLC can play videos in the AVCHD format, a highly compressed format used in recent HD camcorders. VLC can generate a number of music visualization displays. The program is able to convert media files into various supported formats.[26]

Operating system compatibility

VLC media player is a cross-platform media player, with versions for Microsoft Windows, OS X, GNU/Linux, Android, BSD, Solaris, iOS, Syllable, BeOS, MorphOS, QNX and eComStation.[8] However, forward and backward compatibility between versions of VLC media player and different versions of OS are not maintained over more than a couple or so generations.[27] Version compatibility with different OS can be verified on the VideoLAN wiki.[28]

Windows 8 design

VLC Media Player
VLC-Media-Player-Metro-icon.png
A component of Microsoft Windows
VLC MEDIA PLAYER METRO APP.jpg
Metro application of VLC Media Player.
Details
Type Media player
The project has been developed on Kickstarter. VLC for Windows 8 is designed to work on Microsoft’s new Metro/Modern GUI, while the subsequent release will be aimed at Windows RT tablets, the developers explained.
It could bring support for DVDs, VCDs and unencrypted Blu-ray discs which are not supported in Windows 8. All the existing features including video filters, subtitle support and an equalizer will be present in Windows 8.

Android support

As of May 2012, the VLC team states that a version of VLC for Android "is in development".[29] On 29 December 2011, Softpedia reported "Also important is the fact that almost every video filter can now be transcoded and it can be ported to mobile operating systems (Android and iOS) as well as 64-bit Windows."[30]
The official beta version v0.0.1 is available as of July 2012.[31]

Use of VLC with other programs

API

libVLC
Developer(s) VideoLAN Project
Initial release 1 February 2001
Written in C
Operating system Cross-platform
Platform Native, .NET, Java, Python, Go, Qt, Cocoa[32]
Available in Multilingual
Type Multimedia Library
License GNU Lesser General Public License
Website wiki.videolan.org/LibVLC (English)
Several APIs can connect to VLC and use its functionality:
  • libVLC API – the VLC Core, for C, C++, and C#
  • VLCKit – an Objective-C framework for Mac OS X
  • JavaScript API – the evolution of ActiveX API and Firefox integration
  • D-Bus controls
  • Go binding[33]
  • C# interface
  • Python controls[34]
  • Java API[35]
  • DirectShow filters[36]
  • Delphi/Pascal API: PasLibVlc by: "Robert Jędrzejczyk"[37]
  • Free Pascal bindings and an OOP wrapper component, via the libvlc.pp and vlc.pp units. This comes standard with the Free Pascal Compiler as of 2012-11-06.[38]
  • The Phonon multimedia API for Qt and KDE applications can optionally use VLC as a backend.

Browser plugins

On Windows, Linux, Mac, and some other Unix-like platforms, VLC provides an NPAPI plugin,[39] which enables users to view QuickTime, Windows Media, MP3, and Ogg files embedded in websites without using additional products. It supports many web browsers including Firefox, Mozilla Application Suite, and other Netscape plug-in based browsers; Safari, Chrome, and other WebKit based browsers; and Opera. Google used this plugin to build the Google Video Player web browser plugin before switching to use Adobe Flash.[40]
Starting with version 0.8.2, VLC also provides an ActiveX plugin, which lets people view QuickTime (MOV), Windows Media, MP3, and Ogg files embedded in websites when using Internet Explorer.

Applications that use the VLC plugin

VLC can handle some incomplete files and in some cases can be used to preview files being downloaded. Several programs make use of this, including eMule and KCeasy. The free/open-source Internet television application Miro also uses VLC code. HandBrake, an open-source video encoder, loads libdvdcss from VLC Media Player.

Format support

Readable formats

VLC can read several formats, depending on the operating system VLC is running on.[41]
Input 
UDP/RTP unicast or multicast, HTTP, FTP, MMS, RTSP, RTMP, DVDs, VCD, SVCD, CD Audio, DVB, Video acquisition (via V4l and DirectShow), RSS/Atom Feeds, and from files stored on the user's computer.
Container formats
3GP,[42] ASF, AVI, DVR-MS, FLV, Matroska, Musical Instrument Digital Interface (.mid/.midi),[43] QuickTime, MP4, Ogg, OGM, WAV, MPEG-2 (ES, PS, TS, PVA, MP3), AIFF, Raw audio, Raw DV, MXF, VOB, RM.
Video formats
Cinepak, Dirac, DV, H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (both 8-bit and 10-bit H.264), HuffYUV, Indeo 3,[44] MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, RealVideo 3&4,[45] Sorenson (thus enabling direct playback of the modified Sorenson H.263 encoded videos downloaded from YouTube), Theora, VC-1,[46] VP5,[46] VP6,[46] VP8, DNxHD, Prores and some WMV.
Subtitles
DVD, SVCD, DVB, OGM, SubStation Alpha, SubRip, Advanced SubStation Alpha, MPEG-4 Timed Text, Text file, VobSub, MPL2,[47] Teletext.[47]
Audio formats
AAC, AC3, ALAC, AMR,[42] DTS, DV Audio, XM, FLAC, MACE, Mod, Monkey's Audio, MP3, Opus,[48] PLS, QCP, QDM2/QDMC, RealAudio,[49] Speex, Screamtracker 3/S3M, TTA, Vorbis, WavPack,[50] WMA (WMA 1/2, WMA 3 partially).[51]

Output formats for streaming/encoding

VLC can transcode into several formats depending on the operating system.
Container formats
ASF, AVI, FLV,[47] Fraps,[47] MP4, Ogg, WAV, MPEG-2 (ES, PS, TS, PVA, MP3), MPJPEG, FLAC, QuickTime, Matroska
Video formats
H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, VP5,[46] VP6, VP8,[46] Theora, DV
Audio formats
AAC, AC3, DV Audio, FLAC, MP3,[52] Speex, Vorbis
Streaming protocols
UDP, HTTP, RTP, RTSP, MMS, file

Legality

The VLC media player software installers for the Mac OS X platform and the Windows platform include the libdvdcss DVD decryption library, even though this library may be legally restricted in certain jurisdictions.[53][54]

USA

At least one recent release of the VLC media player software is able to read video and audio data from DVDs that incorporate Content Scramble System (CSS) encryption, even though the VLC media player software lacks a CSS decryption license.[55] The unauthorized decryption of CSS-encrypted DVD content or unauthorized distribution of CSS decryption tools may violate the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act,[55] although the decryption of CSS-encrypted DVD content has been temporarily authorized for certain purposes (such as documentary filmmaking that uses short portions of DVD content for criticism or commentary) under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act anticircumvention exemptions that were issued by the US Copyright Office in 2010.[56] (These exemptions do not change the DMCA's ban on the distribution of CSS decryption tools.)[57]

See also

Portal icon Free software portal

Notes and references

  1. ^ "VLC 2.0.5". feepk. 2012-12-15. Retrieved 2013-01-13.
  2. ^ Kempf, Jean-Baptiste (2012-12-11). "VLC media player 2.0.5 - Twoflower". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2012-12-16.
  3. ^ "VLC media player "configure.ac" file". VideoLAN non-profit organization. Retrieved 21 August 2012. See line 5 to 10.
  4. ^ "Official Downloads of VLC media player". Videolan.org. Retrieved 2012-01-02.
  5. ^ "VLC media player localization". Videolan.org. Retrieved 2012-01-06.
  6. ^ "Press Release on LGPL". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2012-02-22.
  7. ^ a b "VLC 2.0 Twoflower". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2012-02-22.
  8. ^ a b "VLC playback Features". VideoLAN. Retrieved 012-01-02.
  9. ^ Jean-Baptiste Kempf (November 23, 2006). "VLC Name". Yet another blog for JBKempf. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  10. ^ VideoLAN Team. "Intellectual Properties". VideoLAN Wiki. Retrieved 2007-07-30.
  11. ^ "The streaming solution". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2009-03-08.
  12. ^ Jon Lech Johansen (2005-06-23). "VLC cone". So sue me: Jon Lech Johansen’s blog. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  13. ^ "vlc48x48.png" (PNG). VideoLAN Project. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
  14. ^ "vlc48x48.png" (PNG). VideoLAN Project. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
  15. ^ Ryan Paul (2009-07-08). "VLC 1.0 officially released after more than 10 years of work". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  16. ^ "Une nouvelle version du lecteur multimédia VLC, dix ans après sa création [New version of VLC media player 10 years after its first creation]" (in French). Le Monde. 2012-02-20. Retrieved 2012-02-22.
  17. ^ "Top Project Listings". SourceForge. Retrieved 2012-01-02.
  18. ^ "Top Project Listings". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  19. ^ "Apple pulls VLC media player from the App Store". MacNN. 2011-01-07. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  20. ^ "Press Release on libVLC relicensing to LGPL". VideoLAN. 2011-12-21. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  21. ^ "Press Release on modules relicensing to LGPL". VideoLAN. 2011-12-21. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  22. ^ "VLC media player List of modules". VLC media player trac system. VideoLAN.
  23. ^ Jean-Baptiste Kempf (2007-02-10). "Qt4 Interface". Yet another blog for JBKempf. Retrieved 2013-01-13.
  24. ^ "Addons for VLC". www.vlc-addons.org. VideoLAN. 2013-01-10. Retrieved 2013-01-13.
  25. ^ "Scripting VLC in lua". the videolan forums. VideoLAN. Retrieved 2013-01-13.
  26. ^ Brad Chacos (2012-10-10). "How to master VLC, the ultimate Windows media player for power users". Video players review & comments. PC World. Retrieved 2013-01-13.
  27. ^ "VLC 2.0 and Windows 2000". VideoLAN Forums. VideoLAN. 2012-02-28. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  28. ^ "VSG:Usage:Version". VideoLAN Wiki. VideoLAN. 2013-01-09. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  29. ^ "VLC media player for Android". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
  30. ^ "VLC 1.2.0 pre-release is out, with partial support for Blu-rays". News. Softpedia. 2011-12-29. Retrieved 2012-01-02.
  31. ^ "VLC for Android Beta". Google Play (formerly known as the Android Market). 2012-07-02. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  32. ^ "libVLC - VideoLAN Wiki". Wiki.videolan.org. 2010-09-09. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  33. ^ "Go binding Project". Github.com. 2010-08-25. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  34. ^ "Python bindings - VideoLAN Wiki". Wiki.videolan.org. 2010-09-30. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  35. ^ "Java binding Project". Wiki.videolan.org. 2010-01-25. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  36. ^ Anderson, Dean; Lamberson, Jim (2007). "Using VideoLan VLC in DirectShow". An open source bridge from VLC to DirectShow. Retrieved 2008-02-15.
  37. ^ Prog.olsztyn.pl libvlc for Delphi and FreePascal. Retrieved on 2011-05-22.
  38. ^ SubVersion commit r22943 in the Free Pascal repository.
  39. ^ "Chapter 4. Advanced use of VLC". Videolan.org. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  40. ^ "Open Source Patches and Mirrored Packages - Google Code". Code.google.com. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  41. ^ "VLC features list". VideoLAN Project. Retrieved 2007-02-24.
  42. ^ a b Until VLC 1.1.0, to use AMR as audio codec, VLC and FFmpeg had be compiled with AMR support. This is because the AMR license is not compatible with the VLC license.
  43. ^ This feature needs sound fonts and might not work on every OS
  44. ^ Indeo 4 and 5 codecs are not supported
  45. ^ from 0.9.9 and over
  46. ^ a b c d e This is from the 0.8.6 version.
  47. ^ a b c d This is present in 0.9.0 and newer version.
  48. ^ "VLC 2.0.4 Twoflower". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2012-10-19.
  49. ^ RealAudio playback is provided through the FFmpeg library which only supports the Cook (RealAudio G2 / RealAudio 8) decoder at the moment.
  50. ^ As of 2010, only supported in mono and stereo, so no multichannel support.
  51. ^ VideoLAN team. "VLC playback Features". Retrieved 2010-01-03.
  52. ^ VLC must be compiled with mp3lame support
  53. ^ "VideoLAN - Frequently Asked Questions". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
  54. ^ "VideoLAN - Legal". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
  55. ^ a b Horton, Steve (2009-07-17). "VLC Video Player's New DVD-Copying Feature Could Run Afoul of the MPAA". PCWorld. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
  56. ^ "Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works". US Copyright Office. 2010-07-28. Retrieved 2010-11-14.
  57. ^ von Lohmann, Fred (2005). "DMCA Triennial Rulemaking: Failing Consumers Completely". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2010-11-14.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player

 
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