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Old 15th May 2011, 19:47   #1  |  Link
Ziddy76
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Why is VLC discouraged?

I'm just curious and trying to find out why some encoders still discourage the use of VLC. What advantage does mplayer2 or MPC-HC/FFDShow Tryouts/Haali have over VLC?
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Old 15th May 2011, 19:50   #2  |  Link
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What encoder does discourage the use of VLC

A video encoder should produce a bitstream that conforms to a video compression standard. And every player/decoder that supports this standard should be able to play the video.

(There are some proprietary video formats that force the user to use a specific playback software, but for most video formats you can choose your favorite player)
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Old 15th May 2011, 20:12   #3  |  Link
Ziddy76
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Maybe not discourage, but on IRC told, use CCCP instead of VLC. Just trying to find out what advantage CCCP/mplayer has over VLC. And some users hate VLC, but I've never found out why.
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Old 15th May 2011, 21:50   #4  |  Link
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First, this is just my guess.

I think it is more about subtitle styling or, sometimes, mkv ordered chapter than the video itself that made those encoders (which my guess are fansubbers) discourage VLC. I do not use VLC so I don't know how good it is about these features. I think they (and their QCers) always test the releases against MPC-HC/ffdshow/Haali or CCCP (for Windows) and mplayer (for Mac/Linux) so that's why they recommended it. They probably don't want to answer questions about why it doesn't work in different softwares so VLC is discouraged. The most common question is sub styling goes wrong, I think.

So, if it works for you, I guess then go ahead and use VLC. However, if it doesn't work or something goes wrong, then don't expect them to answer why.
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Old 16th May 2011, 07:55   #5  |  Link
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Originally Posted by Ziddy76 View Post
Maybe not discourage, but on IRC told, use CCCP instead of VLC. Just trying to find out what advantage CCCP/mplayer has over VLC. And some users hate VLC, but I've never found out why.
I think there are more threads and advices not to use CCCP than against VLC.

Besides, one doesn't need CCCP in order to see the movies s/he produces her/himself.

VLC has some problems, mostly related to "phoning home" rather than with stability, lack of codecs and the like.

CCCP on the other hand has lots of issues with stability of the system and related.

You may google for yourself.
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Old 16th May 2011, 08:28   #6  |  Link
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CCCP on the other hand has lots of issues with stability of the system and related.

You must be confusing CCCP with some other codec pack. Unless you are saying that decoding with FFDShow in software whilst using DirectVobSub for subtitles in MPC-HC "has lots of issues with stability of the system and related."

We don't even encourage the use of DXVA for the sake of compatibility/stability.

Last edited by namaiki; 16th May 2011 at 08:32.
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Old 16th May 2011, 09:01   #7  |  Link
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I'm not confusing CCCP with another codec pack. However I'm talking using 2nd hand info since I don't have it on my PC, because I did research at that time and I decided that the stability of the system was more important than to have a codec pack. VLC I use myself, on the other hand. VLC and SMplayer is all that I need to have a short idea of the media files I have ....
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Old 16th May 2011, 09:51   #8  |  Link
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I've seen VLC have issues playing back generic mkv files, like corrupting the video on seek. Also VLC doesn't support ordered chapters, advanced subtitles, or MadVR There's no system stability to be lost from properly using codec packs. What research you did probably pulled up accounts of people who didn't follow instructions and installed codec packs on top of codec packs.
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Old 16th May 2011, 09:57   #9  |  Link
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You're probably right. I think this is arguably THE CAUSE for many stability issues. I also think that CCCP evolved meanwhile. But for my needs, one maximal 2 players with integrated codecs are more than enough, especially on systems where one has no admin rights (to install and setup things).
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Old 16th May 2011, 10:24   #10  |  Link
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VLC has bad stability, bad subtitle support, no DXVA, bad renderer. Anything worse for a media player?
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Old 16th May 2011, 10:49   #11  |  Link
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Many moons ago, I gave a try to VLC, and I disliked it, only because it could not keep its window maximized all the time.
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Old 16th May 2011, 10:56   #12  |  Link
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Originally Posted by roozhou View Post
VLC has bad stability, bad subtitle support, no DXVA, bad renderer. Anything worse for a media player?
I'm not defending VLC, but no crash in two-three maybe four years. I've never changed the version, it's still something 0.86 (not on this computer). Meanwhile MPlayer has about one a day (MPlayer SVN r28311) and Mplayer is supposed to be well supported.

I don't use the computer to play mediafiles (I still consider the PC not being suitable for DVD, CD or BD playback), just to play some files to check some issues or even their real name (like track 01.wav or VTS_03_2.VOB).
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Old 16th May 2011, 11:02   #13  |  Link
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I'm not defending VLC, but no crash in two-three maybe four years. I've never changed the version, it's still something 0.86 (not on this computer). Meanwhile MPlayer has about one a day (MPlayer SVN r28311) and Mplayer is supposed to be well supported.
MPlayer is better than VLC. 28311 is too old.
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I don't use the computer to play mediafiles (I still consider the PC not being suitable for DVD, CD or BD playback), just to play some files to check some issues or even their real name (like track 01.wav or VTS_03_2.VOB).
Because you are using VLC. PC is superior at post-processing than SAPs.
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Old 16th May 2011, 15:09   #14  |  Link
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VLC has bad stability, bad subtitle support, no DXVA, bad renderer. Anything worse for a media player?
Those were the reasons I left Portable VLC behind despite its portability. Yes, it plays everything, but I won't go back to it due to those reasons. There're a lot of better free alternative players nowadays. No offense intended.
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Old 16th May 2011, 15:37   #15  |  Link
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Anything worse for a media player?
Windows Media Player? The original ...

Since I'm not using the PC to watch movies nor to listen hifi music, just to control the files for their content, I don't care about most quality issues other people care. Also I use the portable (no install versions) for the reasons exposed above. And if they work I don't upgrade them, I hate to learn each time how to circumvent the new bugs and/or limitations every build brings with.

Except for HD sound I have no problems playing blu-ray files with these old versions I have. I've heard that some versions of VLC (above 1, which are supposed to indicate a stable/mature product) are much worse than antique ones.
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Old 17th May 2011, 01:21   #16  |  Link
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Originally Posted by Hypernova View Post
First, this is just my guess.

I think it is more about subtitle styling or, sometimes, mkv ordered chapter than the video itself that made those encoders (which my guess are fansubbers) discourage VLC. I do not use VLC so I don't know how good it is about these features. I think they (and their QCers) always test the releases against MPC-HC/ffdshow/Haali or CCCP (for Windows) and mplayer (for Mac/Linux) so that's why they recommended it. They probably don't want to answer questions about why it doesn't work in different softwares so VLC is discouraged. The most common question is sub styling goes wrong, I think.

So, if it works for you, I guess then go ahead and use VLC. However, if it doesn't work or something goes wrong, then don't expect them to answer why.
This. I have seen most fansubs discourage VLC nowadays, probably because VLC can't handle animated karaoke, multiposition subs and styles correctly. Meanwhile Haali seems to be the only Matroska splitter which can handle Ordered Chapters which separate the OP and ED from the main video. Correct me if I am wrong on this.
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Old 17th May 2011, 03:16   #17  |  Link
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Fansubbers don't have a standard and probably will never agree on a single standard. They create subtitle effects based on VSFilter's features as well as bugs. They don't care how it looks on other subtitle engine or even other versions of VSFilter. The only thing that developers of other subtitle renderer have to do is to mimic VSFilter's features and bugs instead of following the specs.
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Old 17th May 2011, 04:06   #18  |  Link
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I wouldn't have thought CCCP is really a codec pack as such, despite it's name. It's really just MPC-HC, ffdshow and Haali media splitter, pre-configured according to the CCCP "standard".

I used CCCP for years.... many different versions... without any stability issues. The only problem I ever had was with the audio sync with some of those MP4s we're not allowed to discuss here, but remuxing them would fix it. If CCCP does have any problems (such as an audio sync issue) running the installer again and allowing it to disable any other splitters/codecs etc it doesn't like, should fix it.

VLC works for me (I don't use subtitles a lot) but it won't use system codecs despite having a setting to tell it to do so (or I've never been able to get it to work) and it doesn't "feel" as good as MPC-HC.

These days I simply use MPC-HC on it's own for playback. Like VLC it has internal filters to play all the common file formats so there's no real need to install ffdshow or the haali splitter etc and you can bypass any CCCP stability issues that way.. I still install the other programs, but I use them for encoding. Rather than install the CCCP I install MPC-HC, ffdshow, haaali splitter and VobSub individually. As it comes "out of the box" MPC-HC will play pretty much all the usual formats without the need for anything else, so for most people installing MPC-HC on it's own for playback will probably be all they'll ever need (once again I don't use subtitles a lot but MPC-HC seems to render all the subtitles I've used on it's own without any problem).
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Old 17th May 2011, 10:15   #19  |  Link
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Fansubbers don't have a standard and probably will never agree on a single standard.
CCCP was a specialized playback pack designed by, tested by, and supported by anime fansubbers for guaranteed hassle-free playback and display of anime fansubs. CCCP is the fansubber standard, and it has served its purpose well for everybody involved. In this niche, VLC was the cause of 90% of playback problems for years, and thus earned a poor reputation because of it.
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Old 17th May 2011, 10:32   #20  |  Link
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This. I have seen most fansubs discourage VLC nowadays, probably because VLC can't handle animated karaoke, multiposition subs and styles correctly.
The newer VLC versions have an updated subtitle renderer (libass, I think) which supports animated karaoke at least.

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Meanwhile Haali seems to be the only Matroska splitter which can handle Ordered Chapters which separate the OP and ED from the main video. Correct me if I am wrong on this.
There's Haali and awesomely some MPlayer2 builds as well.

On a side note, do any of you know how to set VLC Player to expand TV to PC levels for all video?
edit: OpenGL video output

Last edited by namaiki; 17th May 2011 at 11:00.
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