VLC Hits the Device Market

JoeBorn writes "VideoLAN has long been known as a mature open source project for video playback and transcoding on the PC. Now, Neuros and Texas Instruments have sponsored a port of VLC to their next generation open set-top box. The idea is to allow developers to easily create interesting plug-ins for recording and transcoding applications for the set-top box which will automate functions previously requiring a PC, like formating recordings for a portable player or streaming to another device on the LAN or the Internet, etc."

CueCat 2.0

[Collective 0-0009]

Can we now have ads that can "link" to perform actions?

A good example is... When I see an ad for a new show starting next Thursday, I want to press a button (or soft button) and say "record that show". Same goes for PPV. There is tons of money in this for advertising. Linking televisions ads to websites, programs, or anything else related to a PC is the future, but I am too lazy to try it. Will this be the ticket?

Re:subtitles

[zakezuke]

Have they made it accurately display subtitles in different positions yet?

Valid point!

I use VLC often simply because it works. I recommend it to people who get a movie file because more often than not it works without having to troubleshoot codec hell. I am not a fan of it's user interface.

I am a big fan of the WinAmp user interface, esp it's use of the scroll wheel where it does volume or seek if you hold down mouse three.

Mplayer is pretty spiffy as well. The window front ends are far from stellar but the playback interface is decent.

Now everyone is going to say you can do custom keys (not that you can define mouse3 + wheel in mplayer AFAIK). Actually what we NEED is for a group to get together and propose a standard layout and propose a purpose for each action.

Re:CueCat 2.0

[Sparks23]

TiVo actually supports this when a provider marks ads accordingly; you will on occasion see a little '(Thumbs Up Icon) To Record' banner atop an ad for a new television show or a TV movie. (Some ads, like those for a new SUV or whatever, also occasionally have 'Thumbs Up For More Information' banners, where you can get an informational video about the product.)

However, most ads do not have the appropriate flags.

Good for devs?

[dedazo]

I didn't RTFA (trying to keep with tradition) but is there any mention of how the developers (you know, the people who actually write the code) benefited from this? Money? Girls? Coverage?

Girls?

Seriously, I think it's cool that they're building gadgets with VLC but the news here is that an open source project like it - hosted in SourceForge and no doubt started to scratch an itch - has actually paid off in a financial sense for the people who put the effort into creating it. If that's the case then it should be publicized. It proves that it doesn't take a corporation the size of RedHat or MySQL AB to make a living out of volume or "support contracts".

Re:subtitles

[ruinevil]

VLC subtitle support doesn't follow the SSA/ASS specifications at all. It essentially converts it into an srt file, and tries to play it. AAC audio with high-profile h.264 video in a Makrosta wrapper with ASS subtitles is the current standard in the anime fansubbing world. VLC not only renders the subtitles stripped of all styling, but since it is optimized for video streaming, it drops frames like crazy. The combination of these two issues leads "n00b leechers" to complain to the fansubbers, which annoys them greatly. This, and other encoding issues lead to the formation of CCCP, which attempted to standardize what people use to watch fansubs, and also provides a single location for fansubbers to send leechers for encoding support. I believe that CCCP only uses Free software, making it somewhat unusual in DirectShow filter packs.

Anyways, last year, an anime fansubber found that VLC would not render lines with more than 256 characters. Therefore he created a script that would put hundreds of characters into bracketed comments after each line. VSfilter, the DirectShow subtitle renderer on Windows, and libass, the renderer that is part of mplayer, would ignore bracketed comments. VLC, however, tried to render the contents of the brackets, and the bug was triggered, and no subtitles were displayed.

After the script was tested in a GIANT ROBOT ANIME, much hilarity ensued. Eventually driven by complaints, a VLC developer came by and claimed they lack the developing manpower to implement a subtitle renderer. However, the "excess length" bug was patched within a week. Maybe TI money will provide them with the developer resources to actually implement a ASS/SSA renderer.

Hmmmm.

[WindBourne]

Might these be Cable set-top boxes that are no longer going to be needed? They should have done this long ago to make the set-top box indespensible. Yet, they are like so many companies that do it when they are on the way down. Sad.

uh ?

[glazou]

My ISP here in France already offers that. I have a port of VLC able to view the TV-over-DSL channels streams on any computer of the house, record, transcode on the fly and so on.

VLC is "mature"?

[dangitman]

If VLC is considered "mature" for an Open Source project, then that's a pretty damn low standard of maturity. Is Open Source held to a completely different level of user expectations than proprietary software or something?

Re:Freebox

[Anonymous Coward]

The French ADSL operator Free has been doing this for years. The set-top box is called a Freebox, VLC is used to receive several channels and I heard that the latest version can use it as a VCR. Of course they made their own GUI and didn't release the sources (as I am aware of)

I believe they did release the source, and indeed the Freebox itself runs Linux or BSD (don't remember).

It works as a VCR, has support for external USB storage, built in WiFi, 100mbps ethernet... it is a router / firewall / NAT box with connection for a telephone (free landline calls to the US, UK, and a number of Euro countries), fax and voicemail are free & automatic, and they also handle SIP phones and your landline can be rerouted to the SIP device of your choice.

They also have a phone handset that works as a landline IP phone at your house (free calls as above) and a GSM (mobile) handset once you're out of range.

The TV service over ADSL includes HD, and they consistently have 3mbps+ of available download + about 512kbps up (pretty reasonable) depending on your distance to the local exchange. VoD from Canal+, TF1, M6 and a couple of other players also available.

You can plug a supported webcam in the USB slot and broadcast your personal live TV onto a private or public channel, and mods available as software are encourages. One mod allows you to get YouTube, DailyMotion et. al. via your remote control from your armchair. Some websites are supported since the box supports basic HTML straight to your TV.

The Freebox rocks.