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: 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.
No, I don’t want any pro-profit ad-supported services integrated directly into a critical FOSS project like VideoLAN. This is a form of enshittification. VLC should NEVER implement native support for targeted advertising. Pluto and Tubi are already cramming ads into my smart TV, they need to stay the fuck away from VLC’s core code.
Freedom of choice is writing a channel service extension for VLC that I can install if I want to, not integrating non-free anti-consumer bullshit into the application itself.
I really don’t see how this is enshittification or anti-consumer. Nothing about your use of or experience of VLC changes if you simply don’t use FAST streams. To me this seems similar to whether or not to ship patent encumbered codecs.
What if Disney wanted to integrate their own DRM support into the Linux Kernel so you could watch Disney Blu-Ray movies? Would you accept the “you don’t have to watch Disney movies” justification?
I’d be fine with VLC having a way to watch proprietary Blu-Rays. I think it has that feature and it does seem useful for those who want to watch Disney Blu-Rays. VLC is supposed to be pretty much a swiss army knife of media players, after all.
If you wanted to compare to the kernel then best comparison would be to something like proprietary drivers or something.
We had to fight corporations for the right to decode DVDs and Blu-rays with FOSS software. This has been a major part of the software freedom movement. I don’t want to see a deviation away from principles.
There’s room for both the principled take and the practicality. We have both FOSS distros and those that ship patent encumbered stuff and proprietary driver.
Dude, they are not starting their own ad supported streaming service. They are merely adding dupport for one more streaming protocol that happens to be used for that. If these services were using RTSP for their streams, they’d already be supported. This is absolutely in line with VLC’s swiss army knife-approach.
Otherwise, new GUI sounds good to me. The old one is proven but a bit clunky.
I think there should be local-only players. VLC was one forever. There are tons of streaming service clients out there and I personally don’t want VLC to add this feature. But it is just my personal opinion. I never said it’s bad
Idk about that. I don’t even care much cuz I don’t use VLC at all. Lol I just wanted to send a regular short controversial unpopular opinion comment. I hope it’s not considered wrong here
It also supports some funky stuff like raw H.264 over UDP if you use ffmpeg to prepend special packets to the start of the video stream (Ideal for a DIY low latency video streaming solution ). If you decrypt digital OTA tv signals (DVB format), VLC will play the live underlying raw mpeg stream just fine.
Truly a swiss army knife of video playback, especially the underutilized network url file open option
VLC stands for VideoLAN Client, and was originally designed as a player for network streams provided by the VideoLAN server. It also supports local media playback, which has become its most common use. It adding additional streaming functionality is just reinforcing its original purpose.
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.
There are a bunch of free channels on the internet that some TVs can just stream without a dedicated app. These channels are supported by ads like cable/whatever channels, but not locked behind a subscription. VLC is supporting whatever formats they use to allow (or make it easier; IDK) people to watch them if they want.
The other part is that they're working on web assembly to allow sites to use VLC as their embedded video player.
I’m so conflicted about web assembly. I’m a web developer and I think it’s going to be amazing eventually but 20% of me thinks it’s going to be a security nightmare and require a decade of fuck ups to reach its potential.
I’m mostly worried about how much less open this will make the web for simple local hacking. I often add small features to webapps I use by injecting code and hooking into their systems (when it’s not an app with open source, where I send a PR instead - and if I can work around issues I do contact the owners with a working fix).
This will be much harder with WebAssembly. Sure, there’ll be decompilers in time - but in the time it takes me to change a small piece of behaviour in such cases, I can add multiple features in the current JS environment, even if the code is obfuscated.
I’m more concerned that the web will get even slower and bloated. We are already seeing the first frameworks that ship a webassembly .NET runtime, Python runtime, JVM, … . I kinda fear that in 10 years when you visit a site you need to download runtime xyz in version abc for the 1000th time. All because some people or companies just can not be bothered to learn any new technology.
Yeah sure it’s user fault and not the click bait headline, I’m sure they can describe the whole article in one headline without any confusion, oh and probably half of lemmy user are used to be redditers
The computer I tried it on had it’s water cooling loop coincidentally blow both block gaskets and it’s been just sitting on the ground here since. I just haven’t watched anything since either and both my old laptop and the steam deck have whatever is default to bazzite but unused
VLC also support reading from network wiki.videolan.org/…/Opening_modes/#Opening_a_Netw…
You are also able to generate a stream through multiple interfaces though I couldn’t find how. Still, it is officially reported as being possible. www.videolan.org/streaming-features.html
Yeah, I know about RTPM, but what I meant was more akin to streaming the file itself.
Take for example, me and my friends want to watch a movie. One of us has the movie. We all have VLC. The one with the movie loads the file, the others… Somehow… Connect to the VLC with the loaded file and have it directly stream to their own VLC.
I dig a little and there is an option on the GUI to easily stream. On the media menu, there is a stream option (CTRL+S) which allows you to stream a file using the interface you want. It will create a server and it’s up to you to make that server available to your friends (port forwarding). They will the open your video from a network interface link.
Though, while I did manage to stream between two instances of VLC on the same machine. It was after many attempts and I did not have any sound.
Not incredible, I will admit, but I’m quite confident it can work well once you understand what parameters to use.
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.
I loved the Winamp channels. That’s where I learned about the existence of anime. I had no concept that things like Cardcaptors, Dragonball, Pokemon, etc were actually anime because I just saw them in English. But I found dubs through Winamp streaming and it sent me down the rabbit hole to buying DVDs and manga and learning to torrent fansubs. The good old days of my blazing fast 3mbps cable connection. It blew my mind coming from dial up.
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.”
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…
I really don’t see the what the fuss is in this thread. The source does make it seem a bit nefarious, but even so, it appears the changes in VLC amount to adding support for a streaming format and adding a channel listing of some sort.
FAST is simply a streaming format. Whether to run ads is an individual decision of each channel.
If I can have a streaming client that can play certain streams versus one that can’t, I’ll obviously pick the former. (Unless they employ a DRM scheme which does weird things to my devices but it doesn’t appear that’s part of the discussion here.)
When he was talking about that, he also shared that they plan to add support for FAST channels and other kinds of ad-supported online media streams that would allow users to watch ad-supported movies, TV shows, and more.
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.
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It does when you consider that there are over 1,500 FAST channels in the US alone, plus countless others around the globe, with the number still growing.
They already support other forms of streams, why not this. It would be weirder if they chose to not support it
I mean, the guy who made vlc hasn’t charged for like 15 years now.
For most people the only time they open VLC is to view a file locally. I’m surprised they’re not also trying to become more like plex/jellyfin then pivot to ad supported streaming
I’m surprised they’re not also trying to become more like plex/jellyfin then pivot to ad supported streaming
Well, not people are driven by money, but I do agree that several costs need to be addressed, and sadly ads are one of the means to achieve this (and more depending on your greed).
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