The VideoLAN Forums

Hi,

I've been using the excellent VLC software for many years as a substitute for a television. Granted, the version I've been using is a very old one, but I made my playlist of TV channels, and could happily start it, sprawl myself on the couch and zap channels with my remote control.

The newer versions have this notion of "unsafe" options, so it's no longer possible to use VLC as a TV viewer using a playlist to define the different channels. I can understand the concept of unsafe options in a plugin context, but for a standalone application it's just ridiculous, if you'll pardon my language.

I find myself in an unpleasant spot here. The newer VLC is much more stable when capturing TV (the old one kept crashing randomly when capturing TV), but it reduces usability to zero. As a programmer it was not much trouble for me to find the offending code, but setting up for building VLC is an arduous task which will cost me several hours (I know, I did it a few years ago). Unfortunately, this is what I'm going to have do to be able to use VLC (an otherwise truly excellent piece of software)

Why does it have to be like this? I urge the VLC developers to find a way around this unfeature.

Sincerely
Per Wahlstrom
VLC fan

Playlist files may come from anywhere. In fact, many web radios are presented as downloadable playlists. There is also the risk that a playlist file be saved manually from an untrusted source and opened later. Generally, users expect that opening a file in VLC cannot damage their computer (except perhaps to crash VLC or consume too much resources).

Hence VLC does not allow untrusted options in playlists just like it does not support opening executable files or even VLC LUA scripts directly.
I would note that Microsoft has been trying and mostly failing to solve the trust zone problem for many years. It's easier written than done. And Microsoft has the advantage that they can control what their web browser does. The VideoLAN project does not and cannot control how the web browsers save files.

As for TV channels, most useful parameters can be passed in the media location field anyway, without using any unsafe option.

I understand the concern for security, I was just frustrated that my most used feature on my computer could no longer be used now that I made the switch to Linux in earnest - the old VLC version I used was for Windows, and the Linux version of that kept crashing.

So are you saying that I can still use a playlist for TV channels? What I need to set is pvr:// and /dev/video1 and frequency, basically - no digital tv here, just plain old cable.

If not, I'll have to dig in and make the necessary code changes myself and compile the darn thing

maybe just list the ones you need to be declared as safe and mail them to vlc-devel mailing list.

I think with a .m3u playlist you could start with --m3u-extvlcopt if you're sure.