I have been using VLC since almost a decade.
There is a feature in VLC which allows users to paste youtube video links, and VLC magically plays it.
BUT, it has been hell of a difficult task for VLC developers to maintain this feature.
Refer : https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=89164
The youtube website is changed very often and it is difficult for VLC team to keep up with the changes.
So let us say, you have a random link, from a random website.
How do you watch it while it is still being downloaded ?
What I mean is, you do NOT want to
Step1) download the entire file
step2) and then watch it on VLC
instead you want to
1) stream it on VLC (watch while it is being downloaded)
2) save at the same time (the streamed buffer is saved to harddisk and not deleted when user forwards the video.)
To do that you can now use a new free and open source software called Neembuu Now ( http://neembuu.com/now )
What it does is, it converts links to kernel level virtual files.
Like the test link http://neembuu.com/test_videos/BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4 is converted into a virtual file
such as : C:\Users\Shashank Tulsyan\.neembuu-now\release1\NeembuuVirtualFolder\BigBuckBunny_320x180.mp4
This file can be played on VLC as if any local file on harddisk.
The fun fact is that the file is downloaded only when the user open the virtual file in VLC,
and only that portion of the file is downloaded which user is watching on VLC.
If user forwards the file in VLC, the download point shifts like in youtube.
But the previous buffer is not deleted unlike in youtube.
Here is a picture, I hope this explains stuff.
This software has been tested on windows, linux and mac, but for now available only for windows.
The linux version is available on special request.
http://neembuu.com/now/download
If you like this idea, please comment.
Any tip, suggestion, remark, criticism, feedback would be most appreciated.
Thanks for reading
