VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/stats/downloads.html

by m_for_monkey • 14 years ago

321 105 14 years ago

fierarul• 14 years ago

I cherish the VLC.app for iPad that was pulled from the AppStore! It's just great to copy a movie in the app folder and know it will play in VLC without any conversion, etc.

It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go.

Edit: But the new VLC on OSX is horrible. Had to revert to the older version, mostly due to the way on-screen-display changed.

taligent• 14 years ago

You mean that giant pill shaped toolbar ?

If so I hate it too. Raised a bug report for it being too large and one of the developers told me to buy a Retina Mac and that my 17inch MacBook Pro has too small a resolution.

AmericanOP• 14 years ago

In the public forums the devs have been very defensive about the UI redesign. I don't criticize easily, but it really does seem to stem from arrogance.

feepk2• 14 years ago

This will be fixed in VLC 2.0.2 :)

reitzensteinm• 14 years ago

The new VLC really has regressed. It crashes for me now (I don't remember the last time it did before the latest update). Also, the audio delay for volume changes is multiple seconds instead of instant, and for some reason, the "repeat this video" is always on whenever I start it up. Plus, the interface is ugly.

Even with all that though, VLC has regressed from being an amazingly solid piece of software to being merely above average.

Zirro• 14 years ago

Unless you have a different bug, "the audio delay for volume changes is multiple seconds instead of instant" was fixed in version 2.0.1 along with several other issues.

withad• 14 years ago

I've lost count of the number of times I've gone to click play on the new OSX version of VLC and accidentally clicked forward or backward, completely losing my place in the video I was watching as it skips to another. Horrible UI.

Terretta2• 14 years ago

Not to mention VLC 2.0 it breaking the helper libs needed for DVD backup. The fix should have been automatic:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1165549/fix_handbrake_dvd_ri...

feepk2• 14 years ago

Sorry, but we aren't responsible for 3rd apps who try to use VLC's functionality in a completely unsupported way. Stuff within an application bundle is considered private and can change anytime.

Anyway, we informed the Handbrake devs about a month prior to VLC's 2.0 release, which is why they came up with a fix in their latest version shortly after.

itg• 14 years ago

Try MPlayerX for OSX, I prefer it over the new VLC.

cellularmitosis2• 14 years ago

I tried MPlayer OSX once, and found that it turned my mac's volume up to max everytime I played a video. Sorry guys, endangering my audio equipment is terminally bad QA in my book. No thanks.

xyzzyb5• 14 years ago

Try hosting your video files on a Plex media server paired with the Plex iOS app.

No need to copy files to the iPad, Plex streaming works great even over 3G. You can register your server with myPlex then sign on Plex clients to make getting to your video collection super easy.

Custom video categories are fantastic for keeping track of programming screencasts. I just setup my Plex with Peepcode, Destroy All Software, and Railscasts categories and am very pleased with the setup. If I start watching a video on the Roku box on my TV, I can pick up where I left off on the iPad or my iPhone whether I'm at home or not.

derefr• 14 years ago

That doesn't really solve for the parent's use-case of

> It's actually the reason we stopped taking the laptop while away for the weekend. I just put a movie on the iPad for VLC and we are good to go.

though. You'd need to bring something to run Plex on.

danssig• 14 years ago

Or you can use AirVideo. It converts while it streams or you can have it just do the conversion and dump it in iTunes so it will sync to the ipad automatically for offline usage.

blhack• 14 years ago

This isn't going to work at all on most airplanes.

untog• 14 years ago

It's a nice idea, but it's not really going to work when you're on the move with spotty phone coverage (let alone on a plane). A solution involving local storage is a hundred times better.

efnx2• 14 years ago

VLC is open source right? It would be nice if they put up the source for the iPad app so at least developers could make a build for themselves.

zachanker• 14 years ago

Seems that they do http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ios.html unless it's a different iOS version of VLC than the one on the app store that was removed.

SiVal2• 14 years ago

How would this help? (And I'm actually asking, not disputing.)

I don't have an iPad. Does Apple allow you to load your own app (as in an app you write or at least compile for yourself) onto your own iPad, or do you have to load everything through the store, which requires getting Apple's approval?

If you can't directly load your own app (which is my, perhaps mistaken, impression), how would having the source help? If you can, then that sounds like a potential solution.

ralfd• 14 years ago

There are only two programs I reversed a version update:

- Skype back to 2.8

- VLC back to 1.1.12

vasco• 14 years ago

No Linux stats. That's too bad! I would really love to see how they would compare to mac and windows download counts.

andyking• 14 years ago

I guess most people get it from their distribution's repository, so there are no centralised stats kept for downloads.

kinleyd• 14 years ago

VLC has been my go to media player on Linux for years now and I still love it.

liotier• 14 years ago

About 25% of Debian users who submit to the Debian Popularity Contest have VLC installed on their computer : http://qa.debian.org/popcon-graph.php?packages=vlc&show_... - that includes servers, so the actual proportion of Debian desktop users with VLC is much higher.

gaving• 14 years ago

I used to love VLC, pity they ruined the OSX version.

MPlayerX all the way now and I don't look back.

gulbrandr• 14 years ago

Why is MPlayerX better than VLC on OSX? (Sell it to me)

orta• 14 years ago

Personally I've found the keyboard commands to be easier to remember in MPlayerX ( I watch a lot of streams so its dealing with networks ) than for VLC.

CrLf• 14 years ago

I wish they had left the OSX interface alone... The old one was mostly a player, now it's supposed to be a media center... The new UI really is horrible.

Well, now it's on the same league as the Windows version, whose UI has always been pretty bad.

Tyr42• 14 years ago

Am I the only one who liked the new OSX version?

praptak2• 14 years ago

If you value all the the time you saved by skipping "unskippable" DVD crap in VLC, please consider donating to this amazing project.

lmm• 14 years ago

Doesn't it just use mplayer's libraries for playing DVDs? Seems like they would be a better target for donation (particularly since most efforts to support new formats e.g. bluray seem to happen there)

keeperofdakeys2• 14 years ago

No, it uses FFMPEG (among other libraries), which mplayer also use. The thing is, the libraries don't fit together like jigsaw puzzles, you have to do a lot of work to glue them together. VLC also tries to make a stable library for others to use, in the form of libvlc.

option_greek• 14 years ago

Both mplayer and vlc along with many other open source media players use codecs from ffmpeg project.

obtino• 14 years ago

Both VLC and MPlayer use ffmpeg as one of the many decoding modules. The ffmpeg module (libavcodec) decodes many of the codecs out there.

praptak2• 14 years ago

To be honest I had not analyzed this like the other posters did. I just trusted the people I donated to will contribute upstream (downstream?), if not in money then at least in code. In general, yes, I agree that care should be taken with choosing the best target for donations.

ealloc• 14 years ago

I think the parent is referring to libdvdcss, which is the library that cracks the DRM encryption on the dvd. Without it you wouldn't be able to skip unskippable parts, nor even play the dvd using non-authorized dvd players like vlc.

libdvdcss is developed by the videolan project, which is the umbrella project for vlc.

diminish• 14 years ago

I am using VLC on linux from time to time, together with others. it is good to know it plays almost everything with a simple UI.

Congratulations to the team. for 1 billion downloads. you rock.

rachelbythebay• 14 years ago

At least one of the Santa Clara county DAs uses it to play back 911 calls in court. That orange cone on his laptop was unmistakable.

Conclusion: VLC is everywhere.

program• 14 years ago

I know that it's a fallacious statistic but here is the VLC all time OS market share (rounded):

Windows: 89.38%

OS X: 10.27%

Other: 0.35%

hackermom3• 14 years ago

I wonder how many percentiles of the Windows number comes from Windows' re-re-re-re-install-ish nature. "Dang, my FPS is low, I gotta "format Windows" again."

freehunter• 14 years ago

I've always held install/download statistics to be just a rough, rough estimate. Personally, I know I can spin up a Windows VM within the span of a lunch break and run a script to automatically install all my default applications (even if I don't plan on using them). When I'm finished with whatever task I'm doing, I delete the VM.

With VLC and Firefox et al, I know reinstalls contribute to a lot of "downloads" numbers. I take the number at face value: it's popular enough to have been downloaded 1 billion times, regardless of how many people are using it right now.

RobAtticus• 14 years ago

I haven't had to reinstall Windows since upgrading to 7, and didn't really reinstall that often with XP either. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think this has been a big issue in quite a while.

drzaiusapelord2• 14 years ago

Pretty sure that died out in the XP days and even then it was due to malware.

caw• 14 years ago

I wasn't thinking that, but I was wondering what percentage were incremental upgrades. In other words, I install 1.0, then 1.0.1, then 1.0.2,...

Incremental updates like that could artificially inflate the download numbers. Take that and multiply it by the number of computers you have.

Big numbers are still impressive though.

Edootjuh2• 14 years ago

I assume that also doesn't count package manager or App Store installs. Still, OSX seems to be quite a big market there.

SeanDav• 14 years ago

VLC used to be a nice simple program that just did what it said on the tin. Now much more bloated with really slow start up. I use GOM player mainly (Windows)

pmr_• 14 years ago

You mean the media-player player that is violating the GPL? http://roundup.libav.org/issue112

hackermom3• 14 years ago

If you want something smaller, faster and tons more efficient for OS X, I highly recommend MPlayerX instead. It's everything VLC is, and more, with none of VLC's bloat.

st3fan• 14 years ago

Or just install Perian. Which installs most popular codecs system wide.

That means things will work fine in any app that uses the OS X APIs to render video.

Including QuickView .. really nice to be able to just hit space bar in the Finder to see a quick preview of a movie.

hackermom3• 14 years ago

I used to be a Perian user, but its complications and shortcomings made me ditch it in favor of MPlayer OS X Extended, which eventually led me to the better MPlayerX. I am in favor of Perian's solution of being a nifty QT plugin, though.

grecy• 14 years ago

The developers just announced the next version of Perian will be the final version. http://perian.org/?eol

danso• 14 years ago

This is an incredible number...I didn't believe it at first but it makes sense given the cumulative version downloads.

But except for other techies (fellow students in comsci/comp. eng), I ran into very few people who ever used VLC. They just put up with WMP/VLC/iTunes.

Now with Netflix/Amazon/iTunes, I've found myself rarely ever needing another video player. Not that these commercial entities are "better" than what VLC offers, they're just easy enough and provide enough content that I no longer feel the "need" to go to VLC...but that's also because I'm older and have less time to watch things overall.

keeperofdakeys2• 14 years ago

The trouble with these statistics is there are some rather variable gaps of time between the releases, which makes it hard to gauge growth without doing more research.

afterburner• 14 years ago

I've always been impressed at what VLC accomplished under the hood, but the usability and configurability of Media Player Classic always pulls me back.

cema• 14 years ago

VLC is a great product. Has consistently been among the top media players for the big platforms for quite a while. (Despite occasional slips like the recent changes on OS X, still one of the best.)

I have, as others mentioned too, noticed a certain reluctance among the non-techies to download and install VLC. Even so (or maybe especially so), I promote it whenever I can.

NathanKP2• 14 years ago

Every time I see the VLC website I have to laugh, because I coded it a few years ago back when I was still doing general consulting. It has changed a little bit but it is still nice to be able to look into the code and still see some of my old stuff in there. And yes.... I know some of the markup is terrible. :P

mparlane3• 14 years ago

Were you paid? Or part of a "help a free project" endeavor ?

NathanKP2• 14 years ago

Yes I was paid. It wasn't much, but it was a good learning experience.

ElliotH• 14 years ago

There's a lesson in how to make a product in VLC's success. It has a horribly unfriendly interface, and is certainly not pretty, but it doesn't matter - Whatever media file you point it at, you can feel confident that VLC will play it, without hassle.

why-el• 14 years ago

The interface might not be the prettiest, but I don't think it's "horribly unfriendly". Can you contrast it with another player? I have been using vlc for a long time now and although I just switched to Mac OS, I can't say that I find other players on the platform particularly appealing. But again I think it depends on what you do it. In my case its usually either in minimized mode or playing a movie on full screen mode, making my contact with its UI very limited.

krupan• 14 years ago

mplayer, for example, is just as capably at playing just about any media format, but is definitely far more user-unfriendly than vlc

SatvikBeri• 14 years ago

I agree. It's ugly, but the interface loads quickly, makes it easy to skip ads/chapters/include subtitles (even if those subtitles are .srt's), easy to change playback speed, etc.

Just like with website design-it's the UX that matters, not how pretty the app is.

gocard• 14 years ago

I couldn't find an easy way to disable subtitles completely for all videos I watched. After searching through the forums, the way to do that is to set the default subtitle track in the advanced Input/Codecs settings to a really high number, or you have to go to the advanced Video section and disable "sub pictures". WTF. It's those kind of things that drive me crazy. They do a lot of great things to make their system flexible, and then stop just short of making it usable. Instead of calling it "sub pictures", just call it "sub titles", and it'd be obvious to me how to disable sub titles. Or in the codecs section, have a checkbox to disable subtitles (which would set the default track to some high number for me). I would consider that "unfriendly".

hkmurakami2• 14 years ago

"It just works."

Strangely reminiscent of the success of Apple products.

SiVal2• 14 years ago

Except, arguably, for QuickTime which, for half the media I care about, just doesn't work.

Anderkent2• 14 years ago

Except when it doesn't. I don't know if they fixed .mkv support yet, but last time I tried (a year ago?) the artifacts were terrible.

Still my fallback if mpc-hc doesn't play something though. But that's rare.

laconian• 14 years ago

VLC's success is truly a testament to how awful the first-party media player solutions are. People know that sparkly, zoomy UIs on DRM-ridden underpinnings are just lipstick on a pig. VLC isn't pretty but it works.

Erunno• 14 years ago

I'll just add another data point. After the release of VLC 2.0 I was slightly dissatisfied with the new interface on OS X and used the opportunity to try out a couple of alternative players. In the end I stuck with MPlayerX because of short startup time and the minimalistic interface. But it was only a short love affair. The keyboard controls are pretty much non-existent, it can't open DVD menus, it only shows half the available duration of some of my music DVD rips (dual-layer?!?) and I have some occasional weird timing issues with regard to subtitles (image and subtitles suddenly not in sync). In the end I returned to VLC and all of my issues disappeared.

So kudos to the VLC team for producing such a great product (despite some questionable interface decisions). I'll take a player which "just works" over the pretty and shiny competitors every day.

Gravityloss• 14 years ago

You don't need to hunt any plugins or codecs. You install a monolithic package and everything just works. If something doesn't you probably only need to upgrade.

Saves a lot of time.

Knoopi• 14 years ago

These guys killed the MediaPlayer market for the bad.

It is one of the apps making knock my head on the table. It is so terribly poor in UX.

While the appearance is IMHO seems to be heavily "inspired" from existing players (e.g. Quicktimes controls overlay) without any charming twist, it is implemented ridiculously poor.

Boys, a cursor that hides when you try to click the playhead!? Ridiculous. The playhead is so idiotically tiny that this crap product turns into a Aim & Click game.

Yea, it's free but this is for no good as it kills any efforts to make something better. This is such a pity.

tuxguy• 14 years ago

VLC is awesome, but SMPlayer is awesome *2 :)

corkercsuite• 14 years ago

I've downloaded it at least 10 times over the years ...

VLC has been downloaded over a billion times

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