And jeez what happened to it anyways? It actually used to be pretty decent back in the 98/XP/7 days :(
aplay: “Hey kid… wanna listen to the sound the Linux kernel makes when you push it through the sound card?”
Because you can listen to the sound the Linux kernel makes when you push it through the sound card?
aplay doesn’t bitch about encodings or signatures or checksums or something not looking like a media file. If you do something stupid (like pipe an executable file into it), it won’t tell you to go back to the child-safe play pen, it will pass the data to ALSA and do its best to render it as sound.
The Windows mind can’t comprehend the importance of the freedom to fuck around. But, looking at your comment history, you’re more of a professional contrarian and won’t even try to do that.
“Oh no, I can’t play this modern video file using a codec that’s literally been around for more than 10 years unless you pay me $0.99 for a codec pack…”
Every single time I forget to change it and I want to play an h265 file from my phone.
Enshitification is what is happening, the original windows video player was way more capable than this modern garbage.
It’s also partly the patent holders for H.265.
H.264 had a license fee, but it wasn’t ridiculous. It was jacked up for 265, to the point that a lot of software houses no longer bundle the 265 decoder license.
It annoys me too: Security cameras often use turnkey H.265 encoding packages rather than more open codecs, which makes dealing with the files using FOSS more of a pita.
I think this part actually isn’t enshittification. I think this is being legally cautious, as you probably should be when you’re Microsoft.
The C in VLC stands for Chad
VLC represents what the internet could have been and what it should have been.
Wish we could start again with a new internet.
It’s because Jean-Baptiste Kempf is a GOAT and said “non” to fuck-you amounts of money to sell out VLC.
I don’t know if I’ve had the strength to say no to that much money and obviously, that kind of cash has corrupted all but a few bastions of what makes the Internet an awesome place.
Shoutout to Raymond Hill of uBlock Origin fame and all those supporting the lists it depends on. Some many adblockers sold out (including the original uBlock) but he champions on making the Internet a remarkably better place when used. Dude even refuses donations (says list maintainers deserve it more).
So serious question, why not take the money, become ultra rich, then immediately start a nonprofit to recreate VLC Origin
He gets to be rightfully rich, and he funds and protects a free project.
In those times there had been more than one popular free app that suddenly started installing crap on user’s machines.
I guess he just didn’t want to become attached to junkware being installed on people’s machines.
I don’t have the details but may they wanted to buy the source code from him and close it?
I hadn’t thought of it in these terms. Sometimes, someone says something profoundly true and you just have to stop and reckon with it. Fuck RealPlayer and all the other crap (RealPlayer may have been the first (popular) app to deliberately trick people into enabling stuff (hidden checkboxes)). What if capitalism hadn’t happened to the internet.
If something doesn’t open in VLC, you can usually safely assume the file is corrupt lol
If something doesn’t open in VLC…then you should probably try it in Media Player Classic, and if that doesn’t work then the file is totally fucked.
