VLC = Still Buggy, After All These Years!

[Video Sage]

Just tried VLC again, as I am prone to do, sporadically.

This is still a buggy bitch, as usual, although it now includes many other
additional buggy functions. Nice! ;-]

Maybe just fixing the bugs first, before adding other functions, is not
such a bad idea? Players that *play* are usually appreciated.

You know what the bugs are, don't pretend to be ignorant.

Anyone who needs a good Win32 video player, use this one with the
proper codecs for your file.

http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?lang=1

Why suffer the VLC aggravation?

Look, VLC looks great, it just doesn't work for *nux, or Win32! [g]

[dionoea]

Well you must be one of the most unluckiest person i've ever found. Most videos i have tried to play with VLC work flawlessly.

If you have one particular bug which you're able to reproduce, please tell us about it and we'll be glad to fix it.

[FORCE]

Damn, vlc is only best because it is cross platform and wont use system codecs that messes your files and slows down computer.
Open source and cross platform support is future.

[jakware]

It may be the best, but if the documentation isn't clear for newbies, what the use. I entered a post and got one little, not extremely helpful, reply. I have since then added to the post with more detail of what I have been trying.

So far, I'm not impressed with this forum, it seems if you don't know what your doing and have a "little" problem or bug nobody is willing to help.

[The DJ]

no, it's that there are way too many ppl asking questions, and just a few ppl answering them.

[jakware]

I agree. I haven't been out here long and I now see lots and lots of posts. I'd be nice if some of the old timers could help out all of us newbies, especially with setup questions.

Thanks (I'd like to say great product but I can't get it working so I'm not sure),
Doug

[DJ]

It may be the best, but if the documentation isn't clear for newbies, what the use. I entered a post and got one little, not extremely helpful, reply. I have since then added to the post with more detail of what I have been trying.

So far, I'm not impressed with this forum, it seems if you don't know what your doing and have a "little" problem or bug nobody is willing to help.

I read your original post and it was way to confusing for me to jump in and offer an answer. VLC offers a wide variety of streaming solutions for both an Infernet and Internet with a wide variety of transcoding options.

I find most people want to jump to the end without starting at the beginning. You know, like does the file play? before you think about transcoding or streaming?

Have you learned to transcode into compatible formats and proved it before jumping into streaming? Have you discovered which containers are more applicable for streaming? Have you tried to stream locally before trying to jump onto the Internet?

Streaming is the end result of the learning process and certainly not a good place to start for beginners. VLC is a tool and it can be a good tool in the hands of someone that knows how to use it or it can be very frustrating for someone who doesn't. But this seems to be true about everything in life!

Most of the people that are here have some kind of hardware or operating system problem that is keeping VLC from working properly. Unfortunately, the descriptions they offer are less than informative and more often than not exclude the machine type (CPU & GPU), the version of VLC, even the version of the operating system. When you add to this formula, peer to peer networks as a source with the possibility of corrupted files, miss labeled files and the RIAA that has assigned some 30 - 35 machines dedicated to take down the networks, the source is becoming more and more the problem. Add to this the possibility of bad or improper encoding and you have a recipe for trouble.

When the end user wants to disregard all of this and just use there system without learning to do so is like trying to get on the Internet today with out any kind of protection and saying all I want to do is read my email but I don't understand why my computer keeps dying.

[jakware]

Well I guess that streaming might not be for me then. All I'm trying to do is stream video on my home network so my wife can watch programs. All my files are in mpeg2 format (converted from dvr-ms with DVRMStoMPEG.exe). Yes I can play the files, as a matter of fact I can do a quick open and watch the programs. I just can't figure out how to open the stream for output, that points to the directory I have all the mpg files in, and then connect from a client to see all the files that are available, pick one and play it. I'm assuming video on demand allows me to do this. I've tried the http sample command line but again, when I enter the command on a client I can't see anything or play anything.

Server:
vlc -vvv input_stream --sout '#standard{access=http,mux=ts,url=games:8080}'

Client
vlc http://games:8080

As I mentioned in my original post titled New Needs Setup Help, I have read through the VLC Play Howto and the VLC Streaming Howto, but I'm not getting it.

[DJ]

I understand and if there were some magic solution for everyone I would like to be clued in. However it does appear that you are making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself. There is an options menu that will allow you to do what you want. It's called "Stream output" and is available from every Open menu dialog except Quick open. Given all your files are in MPEG form you should not need to transcode per-say so just leave the audio and video boxes unchecked and MPEG-TS is the default container. So all you need do is fill in the correct options for streaming. But I would check a transcode first so that you know that portion is working and the only thing left is the streaming part IE your inputting the correct udp://<address>:<port> assuming you want a local stream as you have indicated udp://: should also work.

Once you see everything work make a shortcut or perhaps better a playlist.

[jakware]

Yahoooo!

I was able to get a udp unicast to work. Haven't had much luck with any other interface yet, but now that I know the files are okay and the process is working on my machines, I'll keep working at it.

I'm trying to get Video-on-Demand to work but when I used http:/host:port/vlm is said that VLM was broken (0.8.4a) and to use telnet. When I try telnet I cannot create a "new" element. It says new is not a valid command. I just downloaded 0.8.5-test2 and I'll work on it some more.

Just wanted to let you know that it is working and that I appreciate your help. I've read other posts and you seem a little stressed. I understand, it doesn't look like anyone but the developers are helping newbies like myself. That puts a lot more burden on your shoulders. I have worked in a Support environment for many years and I know that you guys (developers) need the experienced users out there to take up some of the slack. It seems all the post are about problems and nobody but the developers are answering (or offering help).

Thanks for your time,
Doug

[jakware]

Silly me I was starting the telnet service and trying to use the console. Boy, you'd think that using telnet everyday would have rung some bells earlier.

I do have a problem though. When I connect to the server, I cannot see anything that I am typing. I was using the example out of the documentation which had the --color option. I removed this and still have the same problem. I am using WinXP's telnet (e.g. telnet games 5554). Is there a list of options somewhere? I ran the --longhelp --advance and there is no "color" option listed. I was using 0.8.4a.

When I tried to use 0.8.5-test2 I couldn't get telnet to run at all, using the same commands. When I tried http I would get an error that vlc had a problem and needed to close. If I used the --http-src option it would start but I would then get a message that my machine didn't support java script. I have JRE 1.4.2_02 installed and enabled.

[clbgld]

FWIW, and with *all* due respect - I think your post here is a bit gratuitous and somewhat shortsighted. I can only use myself as an example, but I do know several other people working with Internet2 in academic institutions here in the USA that would certainly not agree with you, and who, although fairly knowledgeable, have also had major issues trying to get VLC to work as it can.

Several of us have, and continue to try to use VLC for streaming in different situations, but - even in multicast environments with no need to worry about server software - it can be very hard to achieve a successful setup using the GUI or wizard - without knowing how to "program" VLC - which, frankly, none of us have the time to learn to do. Most of the people working on providing multicast events are *not* in the world of computing or networking or programming - but in the world of performing arts, business, medicine, etc... There are very few VLC "real-world" examples in the documentation that I have found so far - a step-by-step FAQ would be really helpful for different realistic scenarios, including which codecs to use where, etc...

The Wiki, for instance, does mention the serious limitations for "real-world" internet Multicast - but the documentation, as far as I could see, doesn't. Something as "small" as this can (and has) led many people to waste a LOT of time trying to make VLC stream over the internet before learning (or finally just giving up) that it cannot be done unless you are on MBone enabled networks, with MCast enabled routers everywhere en route. Let alone knowing which routers (in the case of home systems) would allow them to setup even an internal MCast setup.

Personally, I have been trying to use VLC for quite a while, and although it is obviously a very powerful program, it is a *very* difficult program to master, specially if one is not acustomed to programs as "low level" as this. Having recently spent many hours over many days researching open-source streaming solutions, and having poured over the posts here in the forum on the issues of streaming, I have to say that so far, although I saw some questions answered, a lot of them were not - or were answered in ways that a newbie wouldn't be able to understand, or which created more questions than answers.

This is coming from someone who, although not a computer professional, has had over 30 years of experience in the field, worked with the university's IT department to help implement multicast and outside-firewall I2 connections, has worked with Adobe Premiere and the like for many years, is a recording producer/engineer, has produced many CDs and DVDs, runs two networks at home (wired/wireless), has deployed several VPNs and designed several websites. And yes, I do get confused sometimes with streaming issues, and have to say that VLC is one of the most complicated and user-unfriendly programs I use on a regular basis.

The experimentation required with VLC to figure out if a given setup will work given a certain processor/computer/horsepower configuration has been quite frustrating, without having some firm yardstick or clear guidlines as to how it is supposed to perform, and what can it *really* do in real-life scenarios. Maybe it might be wise to open up a section on the forum where people might post what they are *successfully* doing with VLC, and what equipment/setup/configuration options they have used to achieve that, as well as performance limitations/considerations. That way, I think you would have fewer questions here and/or could easily point to real-world examples, which would make anyone better understand what this extremelly complex, wonderful little program can do. If someone wants to "stream over the net", they could go there to quickly find out about issues such as unicast, multicast, streaming over webservers and streaming media servers - which are all things that successful users have been using VLC for - and basically also find out how they did it.

CG

I find most people want to jump to the end without starting at the beginning. You know, like does the file play? before you think about transcoding or streaming?

Have you learned to transcode into compatible formats and proved it before jumping into streaming? Have you discovered which containers are more applicable for streaming? Have you tried to stream locally before trying to jump onto the Internet?

Streaming is the end result of the learning process and certainly not a good place to start for beginners. VLC is a tool and it can be a good tool in the hands of someone that knows how to use it or it can be very frustrating for someone who doesn't. But this seems to be true about everything in life!

Most of the people that are here have some kind of hardware or operating system problem that is keeping VLC from working properly. Unfortunately, the descriptions they offer are less than informative and more often than not exclude the machine type (CPU & GPU), the version of VLC, even the version of the operating system. When you add to this formula, peer to peer networks as a source with the possibility of corrupted files, miss labeled files and the RIAA that has assigned some 30 - 35 machines dedicated to take down the networks, the source is becoming more and more the problem. Add to this the possibility of bad or improper encoding and you have a recipe for trouble.

When the end user wants to disregard all of this and just use there system without learning to do so is like trying to get on the Internet today with out any kind of protection and saying all I want to do is read my email but I don't understand why my computer keeps dying.

[tonsofpcs]

The experimentation required with VLC to figure out if a given setup will work given a certain processor/computer/horsepower configuration has been quite frustrating, without having some firm yardstick or clear guidlines as to how it is supposed to perform, and what can it *really* do in real-life scenarios. Maybe it might be wise to open up a section on the forum where people might post what they are *successfully* doing with VLC, and what equipment/setup/configuration options they have used to achieve that, as well as performance limitations/considerations. That way, I think you would have fewer questions here and/or could easily point to real-world examples, which would make anyone better understand what this extremelly complex, wonderful little program can do. If someone wants to "stream over the net", they could go there to quickly find out about issues such as unicast, multicast, streaming over webservers and streaming media servers - which are all things that successful users have been using VLC for - and basically also find out how they did it.

CG

This is an open source project with a wiki available for anyone to add to, you just need to sign up. We have a 'section' of the wiki just for How to, and you are welcome to sign up and add a new article explaining how to do something and links to it where you see it is appropriate. The main problem we have with a sharing of information in an open source project such as this is that many consumers unfamiliar with open projects do not understand the concepts of a Wiki or the underlying concepts of a forum, we get five copies of the same question from the same poster on a different subforum each day, with others repeating the same exact quetion, people miss the "Search" feature, or are too busy to be bothered and expect the few people who are dedicated to answer questions to be able to anser them immediately. These same people also make posts with completely missing information, or they make a general post and then a few days later narrow it down, and maybe a month later ask why we don't have X Y and Z working on A B and C when they asked about it, and all they asked about was X on C which worked perfectly then and still does now. You seem to understand all of this, and we would welcome any input you give, however if there were to be a forum section for how tos and successes, I think the moderation of such a forum would be a nightmare, and it would need to have all posts thereto moderated.

[DJ]

Personally, I have been trying to use VLC for quite a while, and although it is obviously a very powerful program, it is a *very* difficult program to master, specially if one is not acustomed to programs as "low level" as this. Having recently spent many hours over many days researching open-source streaming solutions, and having poured over the posts here in the forum on the issues of streaming, I have to say that so far, although I saw some questions answered, a lot of them were not - or were answered in ways that a newbie wouldn't be able to understand, or which created more questions than answers.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response. Actually I agree with everything you say and or suggest. While I have not done much consulting within an academic environment, I have been a consultant within a commercial environment having helped build production a post production facilities around the world and consulted for many major manufactures over new product for more that 35 years. There is no one in this environment that would cope with VLC for any period of time. It is however a unique program with out peer. The unfortunate sided of this story is that there is to little time and or resources to do the testing necessary before each official release therefore what was working yesterday may be broke today. Many of the coded updates are not tested. Plus the fact that many of the modules were written by people no longer associated with VLC. While per-say this is not the developers fault, it is an organizational problem that greatly effects the program. The developers are doing the best they can with what they have, without taking the program commercial. Most of the developers will agree that the present documentation has become antiquated.

What I originally suggested was phrased the way it was because of the nature of the beast. Most people here do not realize which formats belong to which containers or over all how to create compatible files that other programs can play. Plus the fact that some of this has never been finished within VLC like the Wizard which was a good idea that never came to fruition. If all source material, all formats and containers were truly compatible with one another and all containers were capable of streaming the problems would greatly diminish. But at present VLC can make and play more files that are incompatible with other players than it can make that are compatible in this regard. So the process becomes an academic one forcing the user to study the issues. But the issues in most cases were created through the short sighted people that created the formats and containers. The only reasonably thought out system is MPEG, but it to has limitations that are becoming more obvious as time passes.

With out knowing these facts and being willing and or able to cope with them. How it is possible to create a transcode that will stream? Then there is the issue of the stream method. Have you found a good one yet? Aren't they all somewhat bastardized? Have you found any to be well documented? Now perhaps I have been looking in the wrong place so please inform me here. At least there are specifications for formats and containers.

Then there is the amazing ability to put all of these things under one roof so that anyone can use it. Outside of VLC, I haven't seen anything that tries. Let alone kinda sorta works. I would say let the buyer beware! But you didn't pay for it and this is also part of the problem. So all I can say at this point is let the user beware!

PS: There is a ton of information available regarding formats, containers, streaming and how to at: http://wiki.videolan.org/index.php/Main_Page

[clbgld]

I do believe I understand the issues at hand fairly well. I use many other open source/freeware programs, and do try to help out when I am able to on the forums of the programs I am familiar with. Most of my knowledge about programs generally come from forums where other users discuss what they do, ask questions and help each other out. The most powerful feature of any forum, after all, is the "search" feature. Maybe there just aren't that many VLC users willing and/or able to spend the time here helping out, as compared with the number of inquiries?

Again, I meant no disrespect by my comments. I have of course also seen many posts here from people who obviously didn't take the time to do some research, or who are way out of their depth in what they are trying to accomplish. That is not unusual, specially considering how powerful this program is. So far, I cannot consider myself in any way an "expert" on VLC, as there are still too many questions and things that happen where I don't know if it is due to a "bug" or a "feature". When I have my resources and learning curve figured out, and am able to spend a good deal of time with VLC, hopefully I will be able to contribute to this forum and the wiki more positively.

As far as a "This is how I use VLC" part of the forum is concerned, I wonder why it is that you think it would need to be so heavily moderated? On some of the forums I frequent they have a "How do you do that?" section in the forum, with no moderation from the software writers, only the users. I would imagine that discussing what IS being done successfully would be much less of a nightmare than having a lot of questions (sometimes unreasonable ones) about what is NOT working or how to do this-and-that. If someone cannot replicate what someone else has supposedly successfully done, than they would post a reply and things would hopefully be clarified naturally - and these posts would generally be written by people who know how to use and are experienced with the software, and who have already worked out some of the quirks, techniques and workarounds for it.

Many thanks for your comments, and thanks also to all of you who continue to develop and support this remarkable one-of-a-kind software solution.

CG

This is an open source project with a wiki available for anyone to add to, you just need to sign up. We have a 'section' of the wiki just for How to, and you are welcome to sign up and add a new article explaining how to do something and links to it where you see it is appropriate. The main problem we have with a sharing of information in an open source project such as this is that many consumers unfamiliar with open projects do not understand the concepts of a Wiki or the underlying concepts of a forum, we get five copies of the same question from the same poster on a different subforum each day, with others repeating the same exact quetion, people miss the "Search" feature, or are too busy to be bothered and expect the few people who are dedicated to answer questions to be able to anser them immediately. These same people also make posts with completely missing information, or they make a general post and then a few days later narrow it down, and maybe a month later ask why we don't have X Y and Z working on A B and C when they asked about it, and all they asked about was X on C which worked perfectly then and still does now. You seem to understand all of this, and we would welcome any input you give, however if there were to be a forum section for how tos and successes, I think the moderation of such a forum would be a nightmare, and it would need to have all posts thereto moderated.

[clbgld]

I do agree that VLC is a remarkable, unique program - and also agree with most of your comments. It is the nature of the beast, as it were, that VLC is a remarkably complex program as well. I have no doubt that many, many people have developed successful deployments of VLC in many environments and for many purposes. I personally know of only one at this time, who is a systems analyst and a major geek-bordering-on-nerdidom by his own admission - and who is way too busy to be able to help out. There are several other programs out there (one only has to look at SourceForge after all) that require a lot of knowledge to operate - but VLC works "out of the box" quite well for most mundane tasks and, as you say, is capable of doing things no other program is able to do.

I think those are advantages, not disadvantages. Maybe a greater/bigger effort by us, the users, should be made to give something back to the VLC community, in the form of help in the forum and Wiki, and forum traffic. As I said above, at the moment I do not consider myself anywhere near qualified for this task - but hopefully will be able to contribute more constructively one day - if VLC doesn't drive me to insanity beforehand...

Many thanks for your reply and comments.

Cleiber

PS.: I had already gone through most of the Wiki, and plan to continue to spend time here reading previous post and going over the other available docs and knowledge base. What I have seen on the Wiki about streaming appears to be quite limited at the moment.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response. Actually I agree with everything you say and or suggest. While I have not done much consulting within an academic environment, I have been a consultant within a commercial environment having helped build production a post production facilities around the world and consulted for many major manufactures over new product for more that 35 years. There is no one in this environment that would cope with VLC for any period of time. It is however a unique program with out peer. The unfortunate sided of this story is that there is to little time and or resources to do the testing necessary before each official release therefore what was working yesterday may be broke today. Many of the coded updates are not tested. Plus the fact that many of the modules were written by people no longer associated with VLC. While per-say this is not the developers fault, it is an organizational problem that greatly effects the program. The developers are doing the best they can with what they have, without taking the program commercial. Most of the developers will agree that the present documentation has become antiquated.

Then there is the amazing ability to put all of these things under one roof so that anyone can use it. Outside of VLC, I haven't seen anything that tries. Let alone kinda sorta works. I would say let the buyer beware! But you didn't pay for it and this is also part of the problem. So all I can say at this point is let the user beware!

PS: There is a ton of information available regarding formats, containers, streaming and how to at: http://wiki.videolan.org/index.php/Main_Page

[derffred]

I totally agree.

I searched for posts re problems with nVidia WDM capture driver and displaying composite video in. That post was from 2004 and now with vlc-0.8.5-test2-win32.exe I still can't even get it to display composite video in on my monitor as I can with Moviemaker and VirtualDub.

[The DJ]

I think people's expectations are just a tad to high...
VLC supports a lot, but it doesn't support everything. Also, what it supports is usually very limited tested, especially when it comes to things as external A/V input and A/V output.

The program is complex, but what people fail to see is that the environments in which it is able to live are much more complex, disorganized and complicated than the program by itself.

If you would rewrite VLC to be Windows or Mac specific then it would all be VERY simple and probably working for a long time. But VLC specifically avoids this. Not trying to be the perfect application on 1 single platform, instead, trying to be a negotiating and bridging application between many environments.

[jbellies]

The OP was complaining about general usage, not streaming specifically.

I downloaded the free URU software he mentioned. On my 366MHz laptop, it performed slightly less well than Media Player Classic; both immediately caused unacceptable gaps in the video and desync of audio from the video. OTOH, vlc played this xvid video OK. It wasn't perfect, there was still a bit of jumpiness, but it was good enough. So, there is one vital niche filled by vlc.

I've certainly had issues with the software. Sometimes it refuses to play videos until I reboot the computer.

If it is necessary to reset certain values when installing a new version, why not make that an option in the installer, or just do it?

I have not been able to make idx and sub subtitles work consistently. With one click, you should be able to turn them on for a movie....

There's more (a culture gap between the program's authors and the users), but others have already expressed it.

[clbgld]

Maybe there is one thing you could help me out with here. I just read a new post on the BigVideo Internet2 forum regarding MPEG and VLC - i.e., in order to stream it, one needs a license from the mpegla people. Searched here on the forum, found virtually nothing about it.

We would like to experiment with VLC streaming starting tomorrow on I2 - obviously, I would like to use a protocol that is free and legal to use in the US, and hopefully compatible with other media players (specifically WMP and QTime). Can you recommend a "generic" plain vanilla setup for streaming/encapsulation of video AND audio that would not require licensing?

Many thanks,

CG

[dionoea]

We would like to experiment with VLC streaming starting tomorrow on I2 - obviously, I would like to use a protocol that is free and legal to use in the US, and hopefully compatible with other media players (specifically WMP and QTime). Can you recommend a "generic" plain vanilla setup for streaming/encapsulation of video AND audio that would not require licensing?

AFAIK that doesn't exist. (by "that" i mean something that works and is free to use in the USA.)

You can still experiment with VLC without paying the licence though.

[clbgld]

From what I heard back from BigVideo, MPEG1 is possible to use without a license (but obviously is not the best solution). I would assume on the audio front that Ogg Vorbis should be OK? From what I can tell, even MP3 can be a problem???

AFAIK that doesn't exist. (by "that" i mean something that works and is free to use in the USA.)

You can still experiment with VLC without paying the licence though.

[clbgld]

And a follow up - tested VLC for over 6 hours with the GUI, without using the command line. Tried several configurations for streaming - most of them, VLC could receive and WMP could not. No big news here. There was however one setup which WMP could receive, but VLC could not. Interesting!

Also looked at the listserver archives. It appears that will be one of the most invaluable resources for VLC. Lots of "step by step" examples.

No doubt VLC is not for the uninitiated - hopefully we will be able to figure out here some setup which will allow for the best compatibility between media players. A lot of trial-and-error for sure, but looks like the results might be worth it!

CG

[The DJ]

In short, there is no way you can do audio/video streaming in the USA without being 100% sure someone won't pull you ass into court over a patent issue. Should you care is point 2. Especially in an educational environment, with MPEG1, MPEG2 and MP3, with an experimental character: DON'T CARE.
There is almost 0 risk, and everybody is doing it.

Note that Theora and Ogg Vorbis are NOT patent free, unlike what its profets advocate. There just currently are no CLAIMED patents. So as soon as someone says: He that little piece of code with that small for loop in theora is part of my patent, you will need to start paying up for theora as well.

[clbgld]

OK - but if that is the case, then would you mind commenting on the following at the "mighty" Microsoft website - specially items 2.1 and 2.2. I know this is supposed to apply to WMP encoding with the WMEncoder, but nevertheless...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... g4faq.aspx

Sooo, if I get sued, then I will sue Uncle Bill Gates. Now, THAT would be the day!!

In short, there is no way you can do audio/video streaming in the USA without being 100% sure someone won't pull you --please stay polite-- into court over a patent issue. Should you care is point 2. Especially in an educational environment, with MPEG1, MPEG2 and MP3, with an experimental character: DON'T CARE.
There is almost 0 risk, and everybody is doing it.

Note that Theora and Ogg Vorbis are NOT patent free, unlike what its profets advocate. There just currently are no CLAIMED patents. So as soon as someone says: He that little piece of code with that small for loop in theora is part of my patent, you will need to start paying up for theora as well.