VLC Media Player Plans to Add Online Media Streaming

Damn Lemmy users are no different from Reddit. Don't read anything. Take anything you did read out of context. Be sure to rage post your own ignorance so we can all read about it.

Slightly wondering whether this is a roundabout way of creating Ad-Free YouTube playback capabilities. “Hey community, we are adding support for ad enabled streams. Would be a shame if you hated that so much you wrote some ad blocking plugins.”

This is bad news. FAST streaming is an ad-riddled nightmare. VLC already supports streaming video just fine. Native support for FAST services just means native support for ads.

VLC already includes support for IPTV streams and M3Us. If you want to load FAST channels, you can do that now using a playlist from here: https://github.com/iptv-org/iptv

You'll even get an ad-free / ad-reduced experience this way. FAST providers like Pluto and Tubi rebroadcast some TV channels and inject their own targeted ads. If you pipe the video stream into VLC, you'll just see "commercial break in progress" filler video instead of commercials. Try it out with a local news station, they are all almost completely add free this way.

Enjoy this while you can, I guess...

Yay VLC!
From the tail end of the short, and easy to read article: If you want an early look at the upcoming changes with VLC 4.0, you can download (https://nightlies.videolan.org/?ref=news.itsfoss.com) the latest nightly release from the official website or the latest “Edge” build from the Snap store (https://snapcraft.io/vlc?ref=news.itsfoss.com). VLC 4.0 (Early Build) (Snap Store) (https://snapcraft.io/vlc?ref=news.itsfoss.com)

Some of the new stuff looks cool, and for all of these knee-jerk reactionaries... optional.

Didn't it already have that for years? Sounds like they're 'just' adding support for signing in/ads

I'd rather be able to stream a file from my PC via VLC to other people with VLC.

If that's already a thing, then I guess I just gotta figure it out...

mpv is our saviour.

Changes are looking good, great to see it is still very active!

I swore this was already a feature. I remember years ago (15+) I was able to play YouTube videos on it.

Fork incoming.

Oh god, no...

That smells like proprietary software and drm

Remember those Winamp channels? Hope this leads into that. IPTV is supported by Winamp but not the easiest way to use it, maybe this would make that better too.

Edit - sorry I meant IPTV is supported by VLC*

plans to support ad-supported online media streams

Why are they saying it like it's something good and exciting?

rewriting the whole core of VLC for the 4.0 release which will see a new interface

Where have we see it before? It's basically the classic scenario where popular software/service makes a complete chnage of design nobody asked for and it fails miserably. I recommend everyone to make a backup of the installer of the last version before this release...

Ain't nobody want this

However, he also clarified that plans for this were not finalized yet, and if it were to happen, it would be optional for VLC users.

Happy to see some sanity prevails.

Having read the article, it sounds like the logical evolution of VLC. FAST Channels are here to stay and they actually are a vital thing in a world where Google have a monopoly on online video. While they're not what I would go for, I'm glad they're available as even my cable provider offers FAST channels.

Will be interesting to see VLC compete with JWPlayer and the various forks of it.

Also I don't think anyone disagrees that the core needs rewriting and the UI needs a refresh. Wonder when Android will start seeing these builds on the beta channel.

Will picture in picture support on IOS eventually be added?

So is this like adding mediastream adaptive like what other players have to load google's widevine module?

I just saw the screenshot of the early design of the new UI, looks like crap.

I even disliked the change from wXwidgets to Qt way back in the day, I have come around and like the Qt interface now, I don't expect that to happen with the new UI

Not a fan of that tbh

Fork it is.

Surprisingly, the popularity of this media player doesn't seem to be going down in this age of online streaming, as the project reported a whopping 5 billion downloads of VLC across various platforms since 2005.

How the fuck is number of downloads since TWO THOUSAND AND FIVE in any way indicative of popularity not declining?

it would be optional for VLC users.

"Optional" like all the "optional" features crammed down your throat on Plex?

I'm very interested in the financials involved in this new change, and if someone is going to be filling their pockets in this transition.

Permanently Deleted

I've used MPC-HC on windows and MPV on Linux for ages, just saying for no reason in particular

(In all seriousness this sounds like VLC has gone super corporate for no reason, abandon ship)

I used vlc once.

Stick a fork in it, it's done.