# Is VLC Video Player good or bad?



## Nujui (May 8, 2012)

I usually watch a lot of videos, usually in different formats ranging from .avi to .mp4. People usually suggest VLC player for such a thing, though I've also seen people say it's pretty crappy. I've had mixed results with it. I was wondering if there was anything any better then VLC player, or is it really that good?


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## Quietlyawesome94 (May 8, 2012)

I personally recommend Plex Media Player just because of all the eye candy. You tell it where your media is and it downloads all the meta data by it's self. Including covers, descriptions, IMDB ratings and more. It plays videos well too.

As for VLC Player, that's what I previously used. It gets the job done.


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## Tom Bombadildo (May 8, 2012)

I've only ever seen one person say it's crappy and he's wrong. VLC works great on almost every PC I've tested it on and I've never had a single problem with it.


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## The Catboy (May 8, 2012)

I never heard anyone complain about VLC before and I have been using VLC for years now on several operating systems.
Thus far it has played every format I have thrown at it and played them perfectly as well I have had very little problems with it, the most problems I have had weren't VLC related, they were computer related.


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## SifJar (May 8, 2012)

Most people will advise installing a decent codec pack. I believe the two best are K-Lite and CCC. But only install one or other, not both. Both would cause conflicts.

Once you install a decent codec pack, most media players should be able to play most files. K-Lite comes with Media Player Classic I think, which is an attempt to recreate an older version of Windows Media Player, before it became so bloated etc. After K-Lite is installed, MPC should play virtually every file you throw at it.

VLC is less hassle, as you don't need to mess with codecs - it has them all built right in. I haven't come across a media file it couldn't play (except those with DRM). Some people say it has poor versions of codecs though, and can struggle with certain content. I have personally never had issues.

The other player I use sometimes is Zoom Player. I have the Pro version, but the free one is almost the same, minus DRM support. It has a tool with it for downloading and updating missing/outdated codecs, to ensure you can play pretty much anything. Slightly nicer UI than VLC.

Haven't tried Plex, but I might have to look into that one. XBMC is pretty nice in terms of eye candy media players.


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## Nujui (May 8, 2012)

SifJar said:


> Most people will advise installing a decent codec pack. I believe the two best are K-Lite and CCC. But only install one or other, not both. Both would cause conflicts.
> 
> Once you install a decent codec pack, most media players should be able to play most files. K-Lite comes with Media Player Classic I think, which is an attempt to recreate an older version of Windows Media Player, before it became so bloated etc. After K-Lite is installed, MPC should play virtually every file you throw at it.
> 
> ...



Well, mostly my issues come from the video picture screwing up if I skip to a different part, or sometimes the picture just messes up all on itself.


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## Wombo Combo (May 8, 2012)

I dont like it that much its doesn't want to play certain video codecs correctly

I would go with this http://www.filehippo...ite_codec_pack/
Comes with codecs and Media Player Classic.


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## SifJar (May 8, 2012)

Nujui said:


> Well, mostly my issues come from the video picture screwing up if I skip to a different part, or sometimes the picture just messes up all on itself.


So you have problems with it, but posted a topic to ask if it's good? That seems illogical to me. Anyhow, I'd recommend trying some of the suggestions in this thread, such as install K-Lite.


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## prowler (May 8, 2012)

PRO SOFTWARE
A+++++++++++

VLC is for the ignorant.


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## Nujui (May 8, 2012)

SifJar said:


> Nujui said:
> 
> 
> > Well, mostly my issues come from the video picture screwing up if I skip to a different part, or sometimes the picture just messes up all on itself.
> ...



Well, it doesn't happen all the time, only a couple of times so it doesn't really bother me all that much, it could probably be the video that's the problem , I just wanted to know if it really as good as people say it is and wondered if there was any good alts incase any other problems come up or current problems keep appearing.


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## ShadowSoldier (May 8, 2012)

VLC has never given me a problem. I've been using it for years. Before that I was using Media Player Classic with the K-Lite codec, and then I found MPC to start become too heavy to use. I tried VLC and found that it uses less resources and it played everything I threw at it.

Honestly, the only people who have trouble with VLC are the ones who don't know what they're doing. The program has never caused me trouble at all.


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## prowler (May 8, 2012)

ShadowSoldier said:


> Honestly, the only people who have trouble with VLC are the ones who don't know what they're doing.


I laughed so hard.


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## Celice (May 8, 2012)

I use it because it's a simple answer to most codec needs (really, on an old system I had such a bland time putting together codecs manually--not fun).

Kinda feels outdated though...


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## SifJar (May 9, 2012)

prowler said:


> *snip*
> 
> PRO SOFTWARE
> A+++++++++++
> ...


Yep, that definitely looks like a video I am likely to highly enjoy if it played normally. Oh wait. No, it doesn't. I have never come across a video that I *wanted* to watch that hasn't worked flawlessly in VLC.

But having just installed XBMC again (never got round to installing it again after getting a new laptop), I can strongly recommend it's use as a media player/centre.


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## Foxi4 (May 9, 2012)

From my experience, VLC plays every format imaginable and more, I rarely have problems with it.


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## Depravo (May 9, 2012)

I don't recall having any issues with it but I'm more likely to use the media player built into my TV these days.


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## prowler (May 9, 2012)

SifJar said:


> Yep, that definitely looks like a video I am likely to highly enjoy if it played normally. Oh wait. No, it doesn't.


Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
It's an example, I'm not telling you to watch it on a daily basis.

None of these VLC FuckUps(TM) would show up in other good players, which is why it's better to get something else then to keep using VLC and get these problems somewhere down the road.


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## Gahars (May 9, 2012)

I can't speak for the other programs people have mentioned, but I've found VLC to be worthy enough. It was such a nice step up from Windows Media Player.


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

Actually, yes it is crappy.  But only on really old versions (


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

Hey Prowler, mind taking a chunk of a video file VLC doesn't play and uploading it here for us to analyze?  The only time I see VLC fail is when video files are corrupt or malformed.  Many people uploading pirated materials don't know a codec from a container format and tend to make video files that don't fall within standards.

"Well other video players still play the files so it's okay."  *Yes, and IE still displays web pages that don't conform to standards, which is what has allowed people to keep coding shit sites.*


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## Deleted User (May 9, 2012)

If you want the best quality video player, I highly recommend having Kmplayer, It handles everything, it even makes some older videos looks better.


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## VMM (May 9, 2012)

VLC is very good indeed, I just had problems with malformed videos.
Even FLV works good.
Keep the version up to date and be sure that the video file is not malformed or uncomplete.
If you follow this you won't have any problems.

Windows, Linux or Mac; VLC is a great option


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

Yeah, see?  There's no reason not to install them both.  If you don't know how to use "open with" and "use as default", well...  I can't really help you with not being able to figure out right-clicking/context menus.

BTW:  VLC is *not* just a player.  You can use it as a streaming server.  Originally, there was VideoLan Client and VideoLan Server.  VLS is totally obsolete since VLC does streaming and a whole lot more.

My multi-GHz server plays MP4's just fine in VLC.  I only really messed with FFD Show on my laptop because it's an old one that barely plays them (Dell Latitude C400 w/1.2GHz PIII).  Hehe, it still plays DVDs with no frame skipping, though.


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## the_randomizer (May 9, 2012)

prowler said:


> PRO SOFTWARE
> A+++++++++++
> 
> Windows Media Player is for the ignorant.




Fixed that for you


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## nando (May 9, 2012)

my only issue with vlc is when i have subtitles sometimes there is a line of static snow above and below the subtitles. i think it only happens with .sub + .idx
beats quicktimes  gigantic mega font subtitles tho. there is no convenient way to change them.


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## freaksloan (May 9, 2012)

I say GOOD!


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## prowler (May 9, 2012)

Rydian said:


> Hey Prowler, mind taking a chunk of a video file VLC doesn't play and uploading it here for us to analyze?  The only time I see VLC fail is when video files are corrupt or malformed.  Many people uploading pirated materials don't know a codec from a container format and tend to make video files that don't fall within standards.


No, that's too much work. I didn't just download it from some random site, the video is fine and played well in mpc-hc

Edit: Also *using bold to get your point across and look **patronizing* starts to get annoying.


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

prowler said:


> Rydian said:
> 
> 
> > Hey Prowler, mind taking a chunk of a video file VLC doesn't play and uploading it here for us to analyze?  The only time I see VLC fail is when video files are corrupt or malformed.  Many people uploading pirated materials don't know a codec from a container format and tend to make video files that don't fall within standards.
> ...


Open VLC and go to Tools - Codec Information for us?


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## prowler (May 9, 2012)

http://i.imgur.com/LzTbW.png


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## Lacius (May 9, 2012)

VLC is one of the first things I install on a new computer. It's definitely the recommended video-player.


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

prowler said:


> http://i.imgur.com/LzTbW.png


Given that it's 1080P AVC I wouldn't be surprised if it's just the additional decoding load causing it to not render the frames properly (as many frames are B-frames nowadays and they require the previous frame to have decoded in time for them to decode).

I will agree that VLC could definitely be lighter on the specs.


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## ThatDudeWithTheFood (May 9, 2012)

Quietlyawesome94 said:


> I personally recommend Plex Media Player just because of all the eye candy. You tell it where your media is and it downloads all the meta data by it's self. Including covers, descriptions, IMDB ratings and more. It plays videos well too.
> 
> As for VLC Player, that's what I previously used. It gets the job done.


Plex is so shitty compared to XBMC.
Seriously SHITTY


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## Quietlyawesome94 (May 9, 2012)

ThatDudeWithTheFood said:


> Quietlyawesome94 said:
> 
> 
> > I personally recommend Plex Media Player just because of all the eye candy. You tell it where your media is and it downloads all the meta data by it's self. Including covers, descriptions, IMDB ratings and more. It plays videos well too.
> ...



Don't tell me it's shitty if you aren't going to tell me why.  Plex has a really nice Android app that lets me stream my Plex collection to my Android Tab. All I see for XBMC is a bunch of shitty remotes.


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## ThatDudeWithTheFood (May 9, 2012)

Quietlyawesome94 said:


> ThatDudeWithTheFood said:
> 
> 
> > Quietlyawesome94 said:
> ...


Playback is better.
Plex fucks up from time to time which is gay.
XBMC plays everything I throw at it.
XBMCs themes I like better.
Scraping and adding libraries is 10x easier in XBMC.
Maybe its just preference but the playback is undeniably better in XBMC and as far as I can tell you can do that on XBMC too.

Plex Media Server is hawt though.


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## Quietlyawesome94 (May 9, 2012)

ThatDudeWithTheFood said:


> Quietlyawesome94 said:
> 
> 
> > ThatDudeWithTheFood said:
> ...



Interesting. I guess there is nothing preventing me from just using media server for my Android tab and using XBMC for my PC.


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## Fishaman P (May 9, 2012)

I use VLC to play videos in weird formats, when I just want to watch 1 video, or when I'm using it portably (from a flash drive).

I use XBMC to kick back in my bed and use my remote to conduct anime marathons.

The only issue I've ever had with VLC was when it stopped showing videos for apparently no reason (audio was fine, as was VLC under Ubuntu), but it turns out it was AMD's fault for releasing bugged drivers as official ones.


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## Foxi4 (May 9, 2012)

Fishaman P said:


> (...) turns out it was AMD's fault for releasing bugged drivers as official ones.


This is something I noticed about VLC - it works better or worse depending on the hardware and the drivers - it's heavily hardware-dependent and strongly relies on hardware acceleration which varies from one machine to the other unless you set it to fully software mode, which is sort of pointless.

I can understand how to some people VLC is the pinnacle of video and audio playback and to some it's just "bad". The settings tab is very extensive and it really does require a little bit of tinkering to set it up on picky machines.


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## kylster (May 9, 2012)

Prefered Media Players:
VLC (has self contained codec)
Media Player HC (recommended for anime???)
Media Player Classic (good but don't use anymore)
Windows Media Player (this is good if you only install the codecs you need)
If you need to find out which codec a certain video needs/uses you can use "gspot" and then just Google  ; pretty simple to do and then you wont have to worry about codec conflicts. Surprisingly you will not need a whole lot of codecs and most things I find encoded in 10bitDepth are usually .MP4 which is native to WMP anyways, that is to say your encodes are in 10bit & not 8bit.


XBMC for windows???? I absolutely dislike due to the fact it takes the whole screen up and and it's much simpler to just to just use one of the other 4 media players I listed and just double click the picture for full screen.

I should mention I have VLC & Media Player HC installed as I do like to use MP-HC to watch anime and VLC for everything else albeit I have used WMP since it's there lol but I mostly like VLC for it's non codec interference.


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## air2004 (May 9, 2012)

I prefer VLC. I have had issues with garble from time to time when I make jumps in video , but it will auto correct itself after a few seconds. Not sure why it does it , but when I go back a few seconds after the jump , the video is fine . It could be a hardware issue , or just a strange codec that the video was coded in because it doesn't happen all the time , and my rig is king


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

Some types of frames require previosu





air2004 said:


> I prefer VLC. I have had issues with garble from time to time when I make jumps in video , but it will auto correct itself after a few seconds. Not sure why it does it , but when I go back a few seconds after the jump , the video is fine . It could be a hardware issue , or just a strange codec that the video was coded in because it doesn't happen all the time , and my rig is king


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types


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## Akotan (May 9, 2012)

VLC is great indeed but you might want to try this one: http://lifehacker.com/5822672/the-best-video-player-for-windows


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

So it's a fork of KMPlayer, which is a GUI/fork for MPlayer?


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## Deleted-236924 (May 9, 2012)

alphamule said:


> Those damn FLV files that barely play on anything but your browser.


MPC-HC runs FLV.


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## the_randomizer (May 9, 2012)

Lacius said:


> VLC is one of the first things I install on a new computer. It's definitely the recommended video-player.



Doesn't it also disable DVD region locking?


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

Not just by being installed, but when actively played it does ignore the region flag.


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## Hells Malice (May 9, 2012)

The -ONLY- time I had issues with VLC was watching C3.  It'd freeze every...I dunno what they're called, section? change. Like going from part 1 to part 2...it'd freeze. It was really annoying, but it was the only anime (or video, period) to ever screw up on VLC for me.
The glitchy/pixelated screen prowler posted a screenie for in page 1 stopped happening after I updated to whatever the hell version i'm on now.

I have issues with a lot of other media players. I used Media Player Classic for ages, but it couldn't run 10-bit anime, so I ditched it.

Windows Media Player is just plain unreliable, even with codec packs and the like.


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

Pingouin7 said:


> alphamule said:
> 
> 
> > Those damn FLV files that barely play on anything but your browser.
> ...


Hmm, yeah.  Back when I tried that last, FLV Player was the only one that didn't barf all over my desktop.  Once I got it working, I saw no reason to retry the other players.  I'll have to try it again on MPC.  Well OK, to be fair, VLC played it but slow and buggy.  FLV at the time must have been one of the most proprietary formats in existence!


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

Well FLV's existed for a while, it's just nobody really cared about it until all the "DOWNLOAD FROM YOUTUBE" sites started cropping up.  It's a format for streaming low-bitrate stuff online so it wasn't really a concern until them.


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

the_randomizer said:


> Lacius said:
> 
> 
> > VLC is one of the first things I install on a new computer. It's definitely the recommended video-player.
> ...


Wow, it must be nice to live in the 1990's.  j/k
The region coding is done at the software level, not with some magical physically incompatible format like how some game systems used a different number of pins.  Or how TVs used a different number of frame lines/rows and color encoding which was a time variation instead of spacial.

VLC doesn't need to tell the DVD drive on RPC-1 drives to authenticate and thus report the region, extract keys, and so on.  If you tried to read a region 1 disc in a drive set to region 3, the drive would refuse to give you the keys.  It turns out that the keys aren't needed.  Thus, VLC just reads the data directly and decrypts it without that authentication step.  RPC-2 drives are royal bastards and don't read raw data without permission if they detect encryption/region flags.  There's a firmware for that, though.  If you use DVD Decryptor and select authenticate or use something like this to free your drive of these insane restrictions automatically (even if there's no fixed firmware).
*  Sorry, I was mixing up the RCE and RPC acronyms for the DVD standard.  RCE is the protection against region-free players that makes them play in a loop instead of the main movie and RPC-1/2 is the 'feature' that I mention in this paragraph.*
TL;DR version:  VLC only works if you bypass RPC-2.  Firmware/driver/DVD decryptor do that.

And yes, FLV's still a POS format.  But hey, if you want to play Adobe Flash videos on Youtube downloaded by DownloadHelper, well, you have no damn choice.  A lot of videos are MP4 now, though.


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## Archenyte (May 9, 2012)

VLC is not very good. Its only draw IMO is that it can be used right away and that the interface is user-friendly and much neater than the good players. VLC cannot take proper screenshots and can't handle softsubs properly. It's pretty much a nightmare to use if you're planning to play .mkvs and still bad for everything else. There's also the "Building font cache" problem and it's bad at seeking through videos without that glitchy green screen.

I suggest MPC-HC with CCCP if you're lazy and LAV filters if you're not (there are some good guides to setting those up). Also xy-VSFilter if you want better subtitle loading but that probably doesn't matter to you. You could also use mplayer2 instead right after installing.

MadVR is pretty much the best video renderer that you can get for MPC-HC, but it uses a lot of your CPU so it won't work on slightly old computers.

@[member='Hells Malice']
That's probably because you haven't updated your codecs or filters. 10-bit is supported by the latest CCCP and LAV filters (check the guide at Haruhi-chan).


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

Screenshots - yes it can and if you like a different way to take them, it has source code.  It's one freaking line of code to change/replace and most Linux users install the needed compilers eventually, anyways.  If you're on Windows and you hate VLC so much, just use the other popular free program called "Windows Media Player".  You get it free with the OS.

_Edit:  Sorry to be so snarky but it's annoying to see people pouring on the hate on a program that works.  I've used mplayer2 as well.  Heck, I've probably tried almost all of them from 2005 back and at least half since then._


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

This varies a little according to your system nowadays, but... VLC does screenshots fine with it's built-in function.  If you've tried screenshotting normally and found just a black rectangle, it's not VLC.  That's hardware acceleration, and you'll encounter it on any video player using it (which is the majority nowadays).  It's only players that don't offload the rendering of the image that allow it to be screenshotted (since a screenshot happens at the CPU level and not the GPU level, so at that point the image isn't in the screen), but this is often the case when you use things like codec packs to force something like WMP to accept filters it normally doesn't (since it has to do that through software).

As for softsubs, never messed with them.

I've only seen VLC build the font cache during the initial install.  If yours is hanging, then one of your font files is fucked up.  Other programs like GIMP can have the same issue in dealing with corrupt fonts.


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## Archenyte (May 9, 2012)

Well, if it's not VLC's problem with screenshots, then I guess I gave the player too much credit. Take a look at http://screenshotcom...parison/123877.
The subtitles are blurry; the F and r are cut out. There are artifacts everywhere.

EDIT: The font cache thing is a bit more relevant when you use softsubs with fonts added in I guess.


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

I'm not seeing any subtitles?

And by "artifacting" do you mean the color banding for the white on the sign?

Also could you get me the Tools - Codec Info for that video?


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## updowners (May 9, 2012)

Hells Malice said:


> The -ONLY- time I had issues with VLC was watching C3.  It'd freeze every...I dunno what they're called, section? change. Like going from part 1 to part 2...it'd freeze. It was really annoying, but it was the only anime (or video, period) to ever screw up on VLC for me.
> The glitchy/pixelated screen prowler posted a screenie for in page 1 stopped happening after I updated to whatever the hell version i'm on now.
> 
> I have issues with a lot of other media players. I used Media Player Classic for ages, but it couldn't run 10-bit anime, so I ditched it.
> ...


It was probably freezing on ordered chapters. Also MPC-HC can play hi10p video fine with ffdshow while VLC did not get hi10p support till version 2.0.


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## Archenyte (May 9, 2012)

The artifacts are everywhere, look at the background and stuff. Random blocks of gray where there shouldn't be any, the video looking as if it's bleeding into those black bars, some more covering the subtitles, etc.

I can't give the codec info because I have not taken these screenshots myself (I took them from a thread I was in a while ago, but it got deleted by a janitor), but I could take some new ones tomorrow for a new video.


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

Yeah I'm going to have to prefer non-anecdotal evidence. XD

(And of course stuff being taken from a recent version is always a plus towards the discussion of whether to use it or not since the people will be using the current version at the time of writing.)


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## wafflestick (May 9, 2012)

its amazing! and if you enable GPU acceleration (if you have a decent card of course) that baby roars


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## Sicklyboy (May 9, 2012)

Spoiler









VLC looks pretty okay to me.

Edit - gotta love jpeg compression.  The PNG source pic is fine.


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## IchigoK2031 (May 9, 2012)

I pretty much only use Media Player Classic- Home Cinema, with mainly CCCP codecs (I have other codecs, but its only so I can play 10-bit anime) ~


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## CrimzonEyed (May 9, 2012)

Mplayer2 > > > Potplayer > > > any other player

if Mplayer2 is to hard for you to setup/configure, use Potplayer instead


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

Oh, I thought the comment about screenshots was referring to how they could just F12 or something like games.  It's actually configurable.  The 'green screen' or 'blank' screenshot issue is common to every player.  VLC is fortunately very easy to configure for GPU or CPU decoding.  It's also possible to make it use external codecs.  Am I the only one in here that mostly just tries a different player until finding one that likes a file?  I've seen player A work great with videos 1 and 2, and player B work great with videos 2 and 3 or something like that.  It's annoying but usually a player will work with a specific format consistantly, at least.  You can just associate the file extension to make it the default player.  It's part of the reason that I had VLC in the first place - to act as backup for WinAmp and a few other player's issues with codecs.  VLC just plain worked without tracking down weird codec downloads.  Now it's actually a matter of it running decently fast and having a 'clean' GUI (if using the default or classic skins).

My brother uses Pot Player.  Then again, he has Windows 7 just so he can play Halo 2.  *shudders thinking about using it*


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## DarkStriker (May 9, 2012)

I loved VLC until i started to watch 10bit videos instead of 8bit(10bit uses less space and has more colors) and VLC gave me green screen on all the 10bit videos. There were those nighhtly builds that supported it, but no im not going to find them. So i changed to CCCP and never looked back.


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## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

Wait, 10 bits of color depth take up less space then 8?  This is news to me.


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

But higher compression and less FPS, most likely.  Without a link to some sample videos, there's no way to see.  I'm not 100% sure that they're legal to link to, either so that could be why no one's posted examples.


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## DarkStriker (May 9, 2012)

Rydian said:


> Wait, 10 bits of color depth take up less space then 8?  This is news to me.


It has to do with something like how they are being compressed and that. I remember seeing a posted picture around somewhere explaining the proccess. Its really not noticeable. Maybe 1MB-10MB less with a file size of 300 i think.

EDIT: @alphamule: Tons of examples around the net. If you see it taken down, then its because of copyrights infrigment like using clips from a copyrighted movie.


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

How exactly do you search for 10-bit color planes in a video search?  LOL, there any sites with legal samples like how Apple's site has QT videos?


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## DarkStriker (May 9, 2012)

alphamule said:


> How exactly do you search for 10-bit color planes in a video search?  LOL, there any sites with legal samples like how Apple's site has QT videos?


I meant more like this





And this. Take notice in the file size for this one lol.


Spoiler











AAAAND HERE:
http://x264.nl/x264/...e_bandwidth.pdf
Look at the first picture AND READ ABOVE THE PICTURE. That should get you a idea on how it works.


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## alphamule (May 9, 2012)

8-bit color=256 colors and a palette, shared among 3 color channels.
24-bit color=16777216 colors with no palette, shared among 3 color channels.

So what you're talking about is 24-bit and 30-bit direct color planes, or 8-bit and 10-bit palettes?  There's quite a bit of difference.  I thought MPEG and others used 24-bit color?  If so, there shouldn't be any visual difference going to 30-bit color.  But if it's 8-bit, then that would make a small improvement and mostly to smoothly shaded images (like some animation).  For movies, it would be useless since it's VERY rare to have the banding effect that 8-bit color gives on gradients.  Part of the reason is that photos are highly containing of random noise.  _Edit:  OK, found some info.  It seems that it is 24-bit and 30-bit as I thought.  Here's some theory about 10-bit versus 8-bit color channels._


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## yusuo (May 9, 2012)

Personally used to love VLC but the newer releases are more memory hungry and lag alot if you (like me) use multiple monitors, ive been converted to Media player classic now for it has the same support codec wise as vlc but is alot less hungry for my RAM


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## Arras (May 9, 2012)

CrimzonEyed said:


> Mplayer2 > > > Potplayer > > > any other player
> 
> if Mplayer2 is to hard for you to setup/configure, use Potplayer instead


I have to agree with this. I've used Mplayer2 for a pretty long time now and it has played everything I threw at it without a need for codecs. The main reason I stopped using VLC was because it doesn't support ordered chapters. If you have a MKV file with ordered chapters, VLC WILL crash/stop whenever the chapter changes.


----------



## DarkStriker (May 9, 2012)

alphamule said:


> 8-bit color=256 colors and a palette, shared among 3 color channels.
> 24-bit color=16777216 colors with no palette, shared among 3 color channels.
> 
> So what you're talking about is 24-bit and 30-bit direct color planes, or 8-bit and 10-bit palettes?  There's quite a bit of difference.  I thought MPEG and others used 24-bit color?  If so, there shouldn't be any visual difference going to 30-bit color.  But if it's 8-bit, then that would make a small improvement and mostly to smoothly shaded images (like some animation).  For movies, it would be useless since it's VERY rare to have the banding effect that 8-bit color gives on gradients.  Part of the reason is that photos are highly containing of random noise.  _Edit:  OK, found some info.  It seems that it is 24-bit and 30-bit as I thought.  Here's some theory about 10-bit versus 8-bit color channels._


I like how u edited your post to a link which i edited and posted before you. Keep in mind that what i watch is usually anime 90% of the time. Its very visible in the skies etc. And rather than theory. is a fact.


----------



## Mazor (May 9, 2012)

For me, the most interesting part when the VLC vs MPC-HC etc discussion comes up are the people who say "I've been using VLC for x long amount of years and it has been working perfectly". Now, I haven't used VLC past 2010 so I cannot comment much on the recent developments of the program. What I can say however is that anyone claiming that they've had VLC worked perfectly since long before that time, including people in this thread, are either spouting bullshit or must have been getting all of their video from the same source using obsolete format(s).

Some time over five years ago MKV became a very common, if not the most common, format for videos uploaded to filesharing sites such as torrent sites and has remained so since. Initially the support in VLC was outright laughable. Where MPC-HC, MPlayer and likely other players (but I personally only used these two in addition to VLC) would let you choose your audio track, VLC would instead just default to a language and not let you change, seemingly by alphabetical priority. This meant that for many anime dvd rips sourced from outside Japan you would default to English (E in English comes before J in Japanese) and for many dvd rips from Europe you would seemingly default to German "at best" and at any rate to some language other than the original a lot of the time.

The next problem with MKV files that instantly became apparent was subtitle support. For a very long time, at the very least until sometime 2008, VLC simply could not render a lot of subtitles instead showing nothing. For the cases where it could show the sub (besides hardcoded subs), the actual font and any visual style or effects of the sub would be entirely disregarded and an ugly default font shown instead. This problem was still present when I completely stopped using VLC in 2010. For some subs there was also a timing issue where lines would appear on top of each other.

Setting aside the above, perhaps the most important quality of a video player is the quality of its output. A subjective matter of taste at times, I think everyone should form their own opinion on how VLC compares in video quality to other players. One thing is however very clear to me: the output does not look the same as MPC-HC, not even near the same. In fact even when trying to mess with the settings of VLC I failed (could admittedly have been a failure only on my part) to get it particularly close to the output of MPC-HCs in my opinion vastly superior video quality.

On the 10bit issue I can't make much of comment except it seems to be another case of VLC lagging behind when something new appeared, leaving its userbase to post complaints online (much like I did myself some years ago when my beloved VLC dissapointed me on so many levels for MKV playback).

*tl;dr:* If you are one of the people who are claiming VLC has been working for you perfectly without even having compared the video quality and other aspects with anything else I'll be the one to inform you that you are the cancer killing these threads.


----------



## porkiewpyne (May 9, 2012)

Well while I won't say it's bad, I personally rather have MPC with K-lite or CCCP. Well back in the day, loooooooong ago, it was pretty terribad iirc but I guess it's pretty decent now.

PS: I rmbr reading in some forum somewhere saying that VLC is superior because it's simpler to install than K-lite or CCCP codec pack.... I swore that I wanted to headdesk myself to death.


----------



## DarkStriker (May 9, 2012)

porkiewpyne said:


> Well while I won't say it's bad, I personally rather have MPC with K-lite or CCCP. Well back in the day, loooooooong ago, it was pretty terribad iirc but I guess it's pretty decent now.
> 
> PS: I rmbr reading in some forum somewhere saying that VLC is superior because it's simpler to install than K-lite or CCCP codec pack.... I swore that I wanted to headdesk myself to death.


Haha. CCCP installs so easily that you start to think if that was CCCP itself x)


----------



## Archenyte (May 9, 2012)

So I got some screenshots ready.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123980
Tools > Codec info here: http://i.imgur.com/jZ3JD.png
There are those dark blocks almost everywhere on the shelf in that picture, but the thing I noticed first was: Why can't it even display the colours properly? The background colours look washed out (everything lost its saturation), not to mention the artifacts at the sides block out some of the video and there is excessive banding.
VLC has improved over the years (from way back when a certain fansub group crashed VLC with a bug they found in the subtitle renderer), but it is apparantly still too broken to be used to display videos. At least I didn't get a green screen.

Please do not use VLC unless it's your last resort.


----------



## SifJar (May 9, 2012)

Archenyte said:


> So I got some screenshots ready.
> http://screenshotcom...mparison/123980
> Tools > Codec info here: http://i.imgur.com/jZ3JD.png
> There are those dark blocks almost everywhere on the shelf in that picture, but the thing I noticed first was: Why can't it even display the colours properly? The background colours look washed out (everything lost its saturation), not to mention the artifacts at the sides block out some of the video and there is excessive banding.
> ...


I literally see almost no difference between the two screen shots. If it wasn't for the fact that it changed from one to the other on mouse over (i.e. if they were two separate images), I'm pretty sure I could not tell them apart. Now I see why people have problems with VLC - they are the equivalents of "audiophiles" for video. Is there a word for that? "Videophiles"?


----------



## CrimzonEyed (May 9, 2012)

SifJar said:


> Archenyte said:
> 
> 
> > So I got some screenshots ready.
> ...



If you don't see any big difference on the two image's you're blind/color blind :/


----------



## SifJar (May 9, 2012)

CrimzonEyed said:


> If you don't see any big difference on the two image's you're blind/color blind :/


*Looks round room with his 20/20 vision* Nope, pretty sure I'm not blind nor colour blind. There is a _small_ difference yes, but absolutely nothing worth caring about, let alone making a big deal out of.


----------



## Ziggy Zigzagoon (May 9, 2012)

I had experiences with VLC. While VLC does play a lot of formats, the controls were hard to manage.
Maybe I should try again, though...


----------



## Mazor (May 9, 2012)

SifJar said:


> I literally see almost no difference between the two screen shots.
> ...
> There is a _small_ difference yes, but absolutely nothing worth caring about, let alone making a big deal out of.
> ...
> Now I see why people have problems with VLC - they are the equivalents of "audiophiles" for video


I can't even be sure whether you are trolling. If you'd be saying that according to you there is only a small difference in quality I could definitely accept it, as I believe that's partly a matter of taste. But if your claim that there is almost no difference at all in those two images (i.e in colors etc) is serious then that would indeed be an indication that you do have impaired vision. Take a look again and tell me if you are honestly unable to tell that the VLC image is _considerably_ darker, this should be something anyone could easily tell.

Regarding the quality difference in this particular image it becomes most apparent when you look at the darker black parts of the guy's shirt. You can easily see the VLC screenshot showing a lot of boxes, something which becomes more or less annoying depending on what is displayed (as DarkStriker pointed out earlier, one thing that low quality stands out a lot for is clear skies, which low quality can make look really bad).

On a smaller note, you shouldn't make any decision on whether VLC vs other media players is a "videophile"-only issue you should have a look at more screenshots with varied content. This particular screenshot can at most be used as an indication of there being or not being a huge difference, not a definitive answer. Besides, perceived lower quality is just one of several reasons people argue against the use of VLC.


----------



## Sicklyboy (May 9, 2012)

Archenyte said:


> So I got some screenshots ready.
> http://screenshotcom...mparison/123980
> Tools > Codec info here: http://i.imgur.com/jZ3JD.png
> There are those dark blocks almost everywhere on the shelf in that picture, but the thing I noticed first was: Why can't it even display the colours properly? The background colours look washed out (everything lost its saturation), not to mention the artifacts at the sides block out some of the video and there is excessive banding.
> ...



That artifacting is still there between both players.  It's made *ever so slightly* more apparent with the *slight* color change that VLC applies.


----------



## Arras (May 9, 2012)

Archenyte said:


> So I got some screenshots ready.
> http://screenshotcom...mparison/123980
> Tools > Codec info here: http://i.imgur.com/jZ3JD.png
> There are those dark blocks almost everywhere on the shelf in that picture, but the thing I noticed first was: Why can't it even display the colours properly? The background colours look washed out (everything lost its saturation), not to mention the artifacts at the sides block out some of the video and there is excessive banding.
> ...


I love how VLC turns everything darker except for that single green bottle to the left of the bright blue one; it gets lighter instead. Also, what artifacts? I don't see anything different between the two except for the slightly changed colours.


----------



## Sicklyboy (May 9, 2012)

Also, how do you know it's not MPlayer showing the colors incorrectly?


----------



## SifJar (May 9, 2012)

Mazor said:


> I can't even be sure whether you are trolling. If you'd be saying that according to you there is only a small difference in quality I could definitely accept it, as I believe that's partly a matter of taste. But if your claim that there is almost no difference at all in those two images (i.e in colors etc) is serious then that would indeed be an indication that you do have impaired vision. Take a look again and tell me if you are honestly unable to tell that the VLC image is _considerably_ darker, this should be something anyone could easily tell.


They are _slightly_ darker. Not _considerably_ so. To the point where the images could be told apart side by side, but I most likely could not look at one isolated, after having seen both previously, and say for sure which it was. Furthermore, I am confident my vision is near perfect.


----------



## DarkStriker (May 9, 2012)

Ziggy Zigzagoon said:


> I had experiences with VLC. While VLC does play a lot of formats, the controls were hard to manage.
> Maybe I should try again, though...


Rofl. There exist other players that play MORE formats than the VLC. Its overrated really.


----------



## Mazor (May 9, 2012)

SifJar said:


> They are _slightly_ darker. Not _considerably_ so. To the point where the images could be told apart side by side, but I most likely could not look at one isolated, after having seen both previously, and say for sure which it was. Furthermore, I am confident my vision is near perfect.


I disagree with what you're saying but to be fair I guess peoples' definition of what is a considerable difference varies greatly. Out of curiosity, can you tell the difference between PAL and NTSC image?


----------



## DarkStriker (May 9, 2012)

Mazor said:


> SifJar said:
> 
> 
> > They are _slightly_ darker. Not _considerably_ so. To the point where the images could be told apart side by side, but I most likely could not look at one isolated, after having seen both previously, and say for sure which it was. Furthermore, I am confident my vision is near perfect.
> ...


Better resolution. There. Except for the not noticeable FPS limit, then PAL wins in all ways in terms of resolution, aspect ratio. Everything.


----------



## SifJar (May 9, 2012)

Mazor said:


> SifJar said:
> 
> 
> > They are _slightly_ darker. Not _considerably_ so. To the point where the images could be told apart side by side, but I most likely could not look at one isolated, after having seen both previously, and say for sure which it was. Furthermore, I am confident my vision is near perfect.
> ...


No idea. When playing an imported US DVD on a PAL TV via WiiMC, will the signal be converted to PAL or displayed as NTSC? If the later, then no, I see no real difference. But then I have not compared PAL and NTSC images of the same source content (e.g. any US DVDs I have watched, I have not watched PAL versions).


----------



## Mazor (May 9, 2012)

DarkStriker said:


> Mazor said:
> 
> 
> > SifJar said:
> ...


Note: PAL60 which has been used on consoles for the last decade has no "FPS limit" different than NTSC.



SifJar said:


> No idea. When playing an imported US DVD on a PAL TV via WiiMC, will the signal be converted to PAL or displayed as NTSC? If the later, then no, I see no real difference. But then I have not compared PAL and NTSC images of the same source content (e.g. any US DVDs I have watched, I have not watched PAL versions).


TVs don't convert between the two, so if you get color at all your picture is displayed in NTSC.  But that you see no difference between import DVDs specifically (especially when not directly comparing the same DVD) doesn't really say anything, I was hoping you would have played some import game. The whole point of my question was that personally I think that PAL and NTSC are about as different in color as MPC-HC and VLC in that screenshot and that there is a noticable difference between PAL and NTSC in games is something people can generally easily tell from the colors if they see a game they play a lot in the other format from what I've experienced.


----------



## tajio (May 9, 2012)

I use VLC Media Player for every video files that I have, but I use Media Player Classic for 10-Bit (Hi10p) files.


----------



## SifJar (May 9, 2012)

Mazor said:


> TVs don't convert between the two, so if you get color at all your picture is displayed in NTSC.  But that you see no difference between import DVDs specifically (especially when not directly comparing the same DVD) doesn't really say anything, I was hoping you would have played some import game. The whole point of my question was that personally I think that PAL and NTSC are about as different in color as MPC-HC and VLC in that screenshot and that there is a noticable difference between PAL and NTSC in games is something people can generally easily tell from the colors if they see a game they play a lot in the other format from what I've experienced.


Nope, only played imports on DS and PSP, which I don't think have the different formats?


----------



## Archenyte (May 9, 2012)

There is nothing wrong with liking VLC (I used to use it on my ancient computer that couldn't run MPC-HC), but to say that the vlcsnap looks fine is wrong. Both players are free (except MPC-HC takes a bit longer to set up properly), so why not switch to a player that can actually show you the video correctly? It's never a bad idea to upgrade if it doesn't cost you anything.

If you can't see the colour differences, I don't know what to say. The second picture looks off everywhere. You don't even need to look for the differences. The bartender looks as pale as a ghost, it looks like someone turned down the lights; and those red, blue, and green wine bottles look lighter for some reason. Brushing off QUALITY as "slightly darker" even though that's already a huge problem by itself? I seriously hope you don't do this.



> I love how VLC turns everything darker except for that single green bottle to the left of the bright blue one; it gets lighter instead. Also, what artifacts? I don't see anything different between the two except for the slightly changed colours.



The artifacts are mostly in the background. Most of them are just darker versions of the ones in MPC-HC (making them very noticeable compared to how closely you'd have to look for the ones in the MPC-HC screenshot), but there are some extra blocks lying around that were not in the original video. Some are on those glasses in the background as well.


----------



## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

Archenyte said:


> So I got some screenshots ready.
> http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/123980
> Tools &gt; Codec info here: http://i.imgur.com/jZ3JD.png


BOTH IMAGES HAVE THE SAME ISSUES.
Of course there is a brightness difference.  If that's what irks you, you can change the settings in the player.

Anyways as was said, the brightness difference simply makes *the already-existing video flaws* more apparant.  I brought BOTH images into photoshop to prove it.

Here's the VLC image showing the blocking on the shirt, which is _easily visible since it crosses a visual threshold_ into black (compared to the outer colors).







Now, here's the other player, normally.  There's the same blocking (because the video file contains the blocking), but there's not much contrast so _it's not very visible since it's from a shade of grey to another shade_, so it's understandable why people who aren't very sensitive to gradient changes would think the blocking doesn't exist here.






So to show it's there, here's the same image but with 50% contrast so you can see *the blocking exists because it's in the original video file*.






The flaws are in the actual video file.  WELCOME TO COMPRESSED MEDIA.  The reason it's so much more visible in VLC is due to the default brightness/contrast.  Read up on these subjects to learn more, and tweak the settings in one player to match another if you don't like seeing *the flaws that exist in the video file itself*.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision#Mathematics_of_color_perception

If you don't ever want to see this stuff, then only deal with video files that *have never been* put through any sort of lossy compression (and good luck with getting popular media like that).

EDITEDIT: Edited the wrong post. XD  Fixed.


----------



## FAST6191 (May 9, 2012)

Grunt grunt ugg real hairy chested bastards use graphedit or GraphStudio.

That over

Klite- I admit I have not checked it out in a while but my main problem with codec packs of old including klite so I tended to suggest people avoid it was they tended to have redundant stuff bundled and tended not to have great configs.

CCCP- I mainly use it as ninite installs it nicely although I did go manual before ninite made me lazy. MPC-HC and I guess formerly MPC were and are my video players of choice until I hit XBMC (which usually means I am looking at a projector or similar situation and a "10 foot UI" is needed).
CCCP and MPC-HC rarely drop the ball with subs either unlike VLC which these days usually works but is a bit spotty on occasion. I will not Haali splitter and VSfilter flank it as well as FFdshow which can make up for a lot. 

Codecs to encode are not really such a problem as most others are now command line and/or expect avisynth. I admit I do still have some VFW stuff installed (and especially since CCCP and ffdshow dropped the cheap and cheerful encoding side from the main installs).

VLC- is the world better for having it? In a world where windows media player exists is that even a valid question?
It has pretty decent streaming support (more so than most until I hit proper streaming stuff and I can rarely be bothered with that- it has allowed me to get in on streams that are at breaking point (e3, c3 congress, some nasa and LHC stuff) where others fell short but I am not sure I want to attribute that to VLC just yet) and works better with some broken MKV stuff without rejigging options or actually fixing it. It is fairly portable, quite light touch on systems in terms of registry and what have you and usually not that resource hogging so it can win a spot as a secondary player. Were it not for the portable/light touch and streams thing I would call it a nice entry level player with no compelling reason to have it installed if you otherwise know what you are doing and are not too lazy.
Speed wise... most people have not graduated to full 1080p or better H264 of the ultra high profile and settings persuasion yet.

Can't say I install it on client machines though or even really have it on my USB drives of wonder. It could win a place on it though if I felt I needed such a thing.

DVD region free... oh do not make me install anydvd (or I guess dvd43 if I am in a mood for pain) or properly rip the thing.


----------



## raulpica (May 9, 2012)

I'll just take this, and leave it here:



RupeeClock said:


> prowler said:
> 
> 
> > Zerosuit connor said:
> ...



*leaves thread*


----------



## Mantis41 (May 9, 2012)

Before we had decent codec packs VLC was the only way to ensure all video formats played without issues. Now we have proper codec packs regularly updated VLC is only really needed as a player and these days there are better alternatives depending on your tastes.


----------



## Sicklyboy (May 9, 2012)

Mazor said:


> DarkStriker said:
> 
> 
> > Mazor said:
> ...



If you're talking about a TV *converting* a PAL image to an NTSC one, then you're right.

But that's not remotely necessary when the TV can display both just fine.  My TV, cheap Vizio one, has no complaints about showing NTSC *and* PAL formatted video signals.


----------



## Mazor (May 9, 2012)

plasma dragon007 said:


> If you're talking about a TV *converting* a PAL image to an NTSC one, then you're right.
> 
> But that's not remotely necessary when the TV can display both just fine.  My TV, cheap Vizio one, has no complaints about showing NTSC *and* PAL formatted video signals.


Not sure what part of my post you are addressing and what your point is. I simply said that SifJar is indeed not watching a PAL image for his NTSC DVDs on his european TV (that obviously also handles PAL) because no conversion from NTSC is done. As long as he gets color at all for his NTSC DVDs that means the TV handles NTSC and NTSC is being displayed.


----------



## Archenyte (May 9, 2012)

Rydian, that's wrong because this isn't just a brightness issue. The colours themselves are off.

What does it take to convince you that it doesn't display the video properly? The video in VLC is too dark in some areas while being too light in others. Of course there are flaws in the video (that's why people choose 10-bit over 8-bit), but VLC displays the video with flaws that are not in the encode itself. I'd like you to try adjusting the brightness of your player and try to get the exact same result as in MPC-HC.

These problems are quite apparant in other posts in this thread. The screen shot comparison I linked to earlier of Bakemonogatari was a perfectly normal video (8-bit H264), but you chose not to accept it. There are many problems with VLC, but you wanted to ignore them and instead attacked me (and not only showed me incorrect evidence, but showed evidence that VLC still sucks because it takes flaws and makes them even bigger). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to uninstall VLC, clear it from my registry, and leave this thread. Enjoy VLC.

P.S. VLC is only good if you're streaming videos (and not music), which is not the best option if you can download the video anyways.


----------



## Rydian (May 9, 2012)

"Chose not to accept it"?  I'm just not a fan of anecdotal evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

That said, since you're grapsing at straws to try to make me out like a bad guy, here, have some MORE proof that the flaws exist in the original video file, using your more recent example.

MPC





Three color samples, from left to right.
RGB 151514 - HSV 60,5,8
RGB 161615 - HSV 60,5,9
RGB 171716 - HSV 60,4,9

VLC




RGB 141414 - HSV 0,0,8
RGB 161616 - HSV 0,0,9
RGB 171717 - HSV 0,0,9

So we can come to two conclusions from comparing the values.

1 - The relative difference between the two IS THE SAME.  Between the three spots, the difference is ONE point in each of the the R, B, and G values in both situations.

2 - MPC appears to be doing color-correction _to make the banding in the original source file less evident_.  VLC seems to be displaying it as is without color-correction.

I don't have time right now to do the earlier example as well, I'll do it later tonight or tomorrow, gotta' run as it is.

As for the subtitle rendering errors.  I don't have anything to say in defense about that, if that's how VLC was rendering it, that's VLC's fault.



EDIT: I'm back, and looking at the previous example you gave it looks like there's upscaling going on, meaning _that's not the original resolution, so measurements of the colors will be incorrect_.  Grab a different example from me at 100% display, like the bartender one?


----------



## Centrix (May 9, 2012)

I think its all preference, what you like or don't like! I like Foobar 2000 for my audio and KMPlayer for my video!


----------



## Ziggy Zigzagoon (May 10, 2012)

DarkStriker said:


> Ziggy Zigzagoon said:
> 
> 
> > I had experiences with VLC. While VLC does play a lot of formats, the controls were hard to manage.
> ...


To be serious, what are these more capable players?


----------



## DarkStriker (May 10, 2012)

Ziggy Zigzagoon said:


> DarkStriker said:
> 
> 
> > Ziggy Zigzagoon said:
> ...


CCCP is one. Though the issue now is not formats, but the quality it has to offer.VLC suffers the issue of green screen from 10bits videos. Thats already a turn off. Not to mention almost all players now can run 10bits. Start reading this thread and maybe your head will finally understand why they dont like VLC. VLC was good, but not anymore.


----------



## SifJar (May 10, 2012)

Ziggy Zigzagoon said:


> To be serious, what are these more capable players?


Without codecs, none. With codecs, most media players in existence can play virtually every media format.


----------



## kylster (May 10, 2012)

Sorry I didnt have time to read all the posts albeit I was reading some from my phone and in reference to 10bit depth encodes it saves you about 100MiB of space on a 24min anime and the quality is the same or better then 8bit encodes depending if you drop the bit rate or keep it the same; either way you still save space when encoding in 10bit depth. So I will post a few links so you can see the info for yourself 

minitheatre.org/forum/10-general-encoding/139393-8bit-vs-10bit-tests.html
minitheatre.org/forum/11-x264h264/117470-10-bit-encoding-x264-hi10p.html
http://3xr-ani.me/?p=154
http://animeshoko.blogspot.com/p/about-us.html
http://www.unanimecorp.com/news/3-10bit-depth-hi10p/
http://haruhichan.com/wpblog/index.php/205/hi10p-info-guide.html (THIS IS A GOOD ONE!)

Have fun reading


----------



## 1NOOB (May 10, 2012)

vlc's shuffle sucks  ,  only bad comment i have for it lol


i usually start my tv show directory on random , since my collection si mostly show without a continuity (family guy ,tiny toon ,criminal mind .....(its like my own channel with only my favorite show and an unknown schedule where i can also choose which episode i want ))  and vlc is the one i find playing the same episodes too often


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## SakuDarkside (May 10, 2012)

Someone mentioned it already, but I recommend the CCCP (Combined Community Codec Pack), I use it with MKV and MP4 H264, and it is high performance player for his codecs (I mean, uses less RAM, CPU and VGA) 

Here's a link ~ http://www.cccp-project.net/


----------



## Ericthegreat (May 10, 2012)

VLC did not play 10 bit encodes till recently, but it does now so.... I find nothing wrong whatsoever with using it.


----------



## Rydian (May 10, 2012)

From reading the articles, 10-bit color is NOT better compression.  10-bit color allows lossier compression without people complaining because it doesn't look as bad as 8-bit at lower bitrates.


----------



## Ziggy Zigzagoon (May 11, 2012)

DarkStriker said:


> And this. Take notice in the file size for this one lol.
> 
> 
> Spoiler


I have to echo SifJar-san's comment. I can not see a difference between the two.


----------



## alphamule (May 11, 2012)

DarkStriker said:


> I like how u edited your post to a link which i edited and posted before you. Keep in mind that what i watch is usually anime 90% of the time. Its very visible in the skies etc. And rather than theory. is a fact.


LOL Double-ninja'd?  I found those links in Google at the same time, heh.



raulpica said:


> I'll just take this, and leave it here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


[email protected] fail
Yeah, that's the big issue with integrated codecs.  They don't always keep very uptodate with official codecs.  This is especially true for proprietary formats like FLV and QT.  I think it's kind of unavoidable to have several media players and assign them to specific file types.  :/  TL;DR version of this thread:  Just install multiple players and default to mplayer2.  More players=Good


----------



## DarkStriker (May 11, 2012)

Ziggy Zigzagoon said:


> DarkStriker said:
> 
> 
> > And this. Take notice in the file size for this one lol.
> ...


I guess you didnt bother to read what that post was about at all did you?


----------



## ZAFDeltaForce (May 11, 2012)

I have installed the K-Lite codec pack and VLC media player.

Been able to play everything I threw at it so far


----------



## prowler (May 11, 2012)

ZAFDeltaForce said:


> I have installed the K-Lite codec pack and VLC media player.
> 
> Been able to play everything I threw at it so far


VLC uses it's own codecs no matter what other codecs you have installed.
you'll need to use mpc-hc or some other player for the codecs.


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## B-Blue (May 11, 2012)

XBMC


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## alphamule (May 11, 2012)

prowler said:


> ZAFDeltaForce said:
> 
> 
> > I have installed the K-Lite codec pack and VLC media player.
> ...


Actually, you can adjust it to (not) use hardware acceleration and (OS-level) installed codecs.  See "Inputs & Codecs Settings" in preferences.  If you enable "all settings", then you can specify the options for specific codecs.  I wonder if there's players that silently fall back to internal implementations of codecs when the OS doesn't have them installed, _but uses them by default if they exist_.  Has anyone found this out?

Egads, look at this version history for VLC.  I must have been thinking of a really old version.  The earliest they still offer is 0.1.99, heh.  Yeah, that's a bit confusing where 1.1.0 came out after 0.1.99.  Wow, at least they admit that those were beta versions.  Anything starting with a 0 is VERY premature.  _(Or I just remembered it wrong after this time - it was about 5 years ago)_


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## DarkStriker (May 11, 2012)

Uhm. I found it BEFORE you. Look at the timers.


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## ZAFDeltaForce (May 11, 2012)

prowler said:


> ZAFDeltaForce said:
> 
> 
> > I have installed the K-Lite codec pack and VLC media player.
> ...


Oh no, actually the K-lite codec pack I installed is for WMP, which I use primarily.

For the random video file that WMP fails to play, I use VLC. Sorry, should have clarified that originally.

But thanks for the tip


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## Ziggy Zigzagoon (May 11, 2012)

DarkStriker said:


> Ziggy Zigzagoon said:
> 
> 
> > DarkStriker said:
> ...


I did read. The only differing opinion I had just happened to be the picture quality. I did notice the different sizes.


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## SifJar (May 11, 2012)

Ziggy Zigzagoon said:


> I did read. The only differing opinion I had just happened to be the picture quality. I did notice the different sizes.


The post you quoted was not the one I could not see the difference between. It was one there *isn't* a difference between. It was highlighting the file size saved by using a variable bit rate with a set quality over a fixed bit rate. The one I could not see (much) difference in was comparing VLC to another player.


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## Wizerzak (May 11, 2012)

I usually use VLLC for weird video formats that aren't supported by MWP (although I've install CCCP so they usually are now). My only problem is, when playing MKV files, the video will break up occasionally and get really bad - something that doesn't happen when using WMP.
Another problem I find is when you skip along using the time bar thing the audio will stop for a few seconds (while the video plays normally) as if it's trying to catch up. Whereas in WMP this doesn't happen - I can skip to anywhere in the video with no problems at all.


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## 1NOOB (May 12, 2012)

Ziggy Zigzagoon said:


> DarkStriker said:
> 
> 
> > And this. Take notice in the file size for this one lol.
> ...




the top one got better colors , the other one is more "white"


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## alphamule (May 12, 2012)

DarkStriker said:


> Uhm. I found it BEFORE you. Look at the timers.


Yeah but I didn't mean to copy them.  It's not exactly hard to accidentally find the same results when looking up '10-bit video smaller' or such.


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## DarkStriker (May 12, 2012)

Ziggy Zigzagoon said:


> I did read. The only differing opinion I had just happened to be the picture quality. I did notice the different sizes.


*Facepalm*..... That picture was meant to show the difference of file size with the same quality on the *SAME PLAYER *using 10bit instead of 8bit.... There is a post here that shows difference in VLC player and another player in terms of colors.......


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## Ziggy Zigzagoon (May 13, 2012)

*Greymon rams head through the wall*
Bother this! I got too mixed up!


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## Lacius (Oct 2, 2019)

Necrobump aside, I use VLC on my PC, Plex everywhere else.


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