Why bother with various media players when there is superior vlc?

[CaffeineAddict]

I've tested various music players mostly and one video player (dragon player)
Notably those here because I was looking for KDE based ones: https://apps.kde.org/categories/multimedia/

Well, they all either suck or lack something.
For instance Juk won't play *.waw files, amarok is dead, Elisa's UI is bad etc.

I was in denial of vlc for years but now I've installed it and figured out it's very simple yet powerful player that handles all kind of files, both audio and video, so I can play anything I want with it.

 

[dos2unix]

I like VLC a lot, it has been my main goto for a long time. It plays everything.
But for asthetics on mp3's I'm realy liking qmmp. It's a little lighter on resources.
But it doesn't seem to handle video like VLC.

 

[Condobloke]

Works for me

I just adjust the setting so that it takes up where it left off, if I have to reboot/shutdown etc....and also set the space bar to pause play, and the arrow keys to run the video forward or backward, if I need to see a scene again.

Quite perfect.

 

[KGIII]

Yup. There are a number of good reasons why VLC is often installed as the default media player.

It plays pretty much anything audio or video related, assuming you have the proper codecs. Some distros, such as Mint, include a number of proprietary codecs, making it easier for new users. It's pretty seamless.

 

[MikeRocor]

I can't shake the feeling that vlc, with its long list of dependencies, is a bit "heavy" when I'm using an ultra light distro - but I use it anyway and I use it all the time (for music). It's not like I don't load libreoffice and the gimp, too - and I almost never actually -use- those. All that shtuff doesn't seem to hurt system performance in the least.

And almost all of those dependencies are already loaded for other apps.

 

[ron.alan]

This thread caught my eye because I just recently installed Strawberry. VLC was chopping off the first half-second of music from CDs (I mean old-fashioned "albums"). Strawberry plays them perfectly. And I don't know if it's just me, but it sounds better also. Is that even possible?

 

[theLegionWithin]

i like vlc but for videos I usually use smplayer. I'll give qmmp a try for audio

 

[dos2unix]

vlc, with its long list of dependencies, is a bit "heavy"

In fedora it's actually a "group" install.

dnf group install vlc
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
Package "vlc-plugin-gstreamer-1:3.0.21-15.fc41.x86_64" is already installed.
Package "vlc-plugin-pipewire-3-4.fc41.x86_64" is already installed.

Package                                              Arch         Version                                               Repository                        Size
Installing group/module packages:
 vlc                                                 x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                      373.6 KiB
 vlc-plugin-ffmpeg                                   x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                      302.7 KiB
 vlc-plugins-extra                                   x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                        2.0 MiB
Installing dependencies:
 SDL_image                                           x86_64       1.2.12-38.fc41                                        fedora                        89.3 KiB
 aribb25                                             x86_64       0.2.7-4.fc41                                          fedora                        71.6 KiB
 daala-libs                                          x86_64       0-28.20200724git694d4ce.fc41                          fedora                       463.5 KiB
 gnu-free-fonts-common                               noarch       20120503-34.fc41                                      fedora                       491.9 KiB
 gnu-free-sans-fonts                                 noarch       20120503-34.fc41                                      fedora                         2.9 MiB
 libdca                                              x86_64       0.0.7-12.fc41                                         fedora                       221.1 KiB
 libdvbpsi                                           x86_64       1.3.3-12.fc41                                         fedora                       287.5 KiB
 libebml                                             x86_64       1.4.5-2.fc41                                          fedora                       186.5 KiB
 libkate                                             x86_64       0.4.1-30.fc41                                         fedora                       126.9 KiB
 libmatroska                                         x86_64       1.7.1-7.fc41                                          fedora                       663.1 KiB
 libmicrodns                                         x86_64       0.2.0-10.fc41                                         fedora                        61.1 KiB
 libnfs                                              x86_64       5.0.3-2.fc41                                          fedora                       467.7 KiB
 libspatialaudio                                     x86_64       3.1-16.20200406gitd926a2e.fc41                        fedora                         1.3 MiB
 libtiger                                            x86_64       0.3.4-29.fc41                                         fedora                        93.1 KiB
 libupnp                                             x86_64       1.14.20-1.fc41                                        fedora                       269.0 KiB
 libusb-compat-0.1                                   x86_64       0.1.8-8.fc41                                          fedora                        57.1 KiB
 lirc-libs                                           x86_64       0.10.0-44.fc41                                        fedora                       344.8 KiB
 live555                                             x86_64       2024.09.20-1.fc41                                     fedora                         1.4 MiB
 protobuf-lite                                       x86_64       3.19.6-10.fc41                                        fedora                       861.2 KiB
 schroedinger                                        x86_64       1.0.11-31.fc41                                        fedora                       933.8 KiB
 vlc-cli                                             x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                       35.4 KiB
 vlc-gui-qt                                          x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                        3.0 MiB
 vlc-plugin-lua                                      x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                      863.9 KiB
 vlc-plugin-pulseaudio                               x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                       93.1 KiB
 vlc-plugins-video-out                               x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                      718.5 KiB
Installing weak dependencies:
 vlc-gui-skins2                                      x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                      876.0 KiB
 vlc-plugin-kde                                      x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                       34.4 KiB
 vlc-plugin-notify                                   x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                       18.3 KiB
 vlc-plugin-visualization                            x86_64       1:3.0.21-15.fc41                                      updates                       64.6 KiB
 xset                                                x86_64       1.2.5-6.fc41                                          fedora                        41.8 KiB
Installing groups:
 VideoLAN Client                                                                                                                                            

Transaction Summary:
 Installing:        33 packages

Total size of inbound packages is 7 MiB. Need to download 7 MiB.
After this operation, 20 MiB extra will be used (install 20 MiB, remove 0 B).

33 packages, 119 files. 7 Meg.

But it's modularized very well. Well it's running, the memory and CPU are within 1% of qmmp.
It only uses what it needs.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@ron.alan :-

This thread caught my eye because I just recently installed Strawberry. VLC was chopping off the first half-second of music from CDs (I mean old-fashioned "albums"). Strawberry plays them perfectly. And I don't know if it's just me, but it sounds better also. Is that even possible?

Nah, it's not just you. I, too, can hear the difference; even with the onboard equalizer engaged & configured, for playing purely audio files, DeaDBeeF just sounds better to me. Which is why it's my default audio player.

I like Kodi (the 'home theatre' app, formerly known as XBMC) for playing videos, but for an all-round, do-anything media player I always have VLC "installed". My VLC3 'portable' package for the Puppy community can be 'shared' between multiple Puppies on the same, or even different machines, by the simple expedient of running it from a flash drive. It's based around an AppImage, so all dependencies are "built-in".

It's the only media player I know of that will handle literally anything you can throw at it.

(I usually have mPlayer installed for various webcam utilities I've built over the years, so SMPlayer & MPV frequently get a look-in, too. My Linux worldview has always been about "choice", y'see. I'm a bit of a software junkie, if I'm honest!)

Choice is GOOD.....and Linux never disappoints.


Mike.

 

[Condobloke]

DeaDBeeF just sounds better to me. Which is why it's my default audio player.

Ditto

 

[ron.alan]

do-anything media player I always have VLC "installed".

I keep VLC for videos and DVDs. I couldn't get SMPlayer (my previous preferred media player) to play DVDs.

 

[bob466]

I use Celluloid.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I use Celluloid.

I use a streaming service for music but if I had my own music collection I would use something other than vlc because I see media players such as VLC more as a video player. I use Celluloid myself as well because Celluloid has full wayland support and it seems more minimal than VLC.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

I don't have any music or video collections except one in game repo and since file formats wary vlc is great.
Also I can set file associations in DE all to vlc without having to worry whether it will play it or not.

One ring to rule them all.

--

Audacity is great because it opens every audio file, but sadly it asks whether to save project every time you want to close the file which is annoying, and there is no option to disable this due to design.

 

[MikeWalsh]

I use a streaming service for music

Ditto.....but since the site I use - RadioTunes - provides you with your favourites list as a .pls file, along with what they call a "listen key" when you subscribe (cuts out the ads; been with 'em for going on seven years at this point), it means I can listen to my radio "channels" in DeaDBeeF, and enjoy its superior sound reproduction.....because DeaDBeeF supports the .pls extension.

Works for me!


Mike.

 

[Condobloke]

radio tunes.....

Understandable, but a shame.

 

[MikeWalsh]

Can't say I'm surprised, Brian. It's the way of things these days.....but the "free" service was always more ads than music. 5 minutes of music, nearly 10 minutes of ads......ad infinitum; rinse & repeat, over & over....

Nah, I couldn't be doing with that. £7 a month ain't bad, given the sheer variety (and quality) of music on offer. I didn't grudge that, 'cos I like having "music while you work"; helps me concentrate, y'see. It and my NetFlix sub are my only two regular online outgoings (I'm a huge sci-fi buff).....oh, and £1.59/month for my GoogleDrive sub.....which guarantees me 100GB of storage. And that safeguards all the software I've produced for the Puppy community.....another worthwhile investment, in my estimation.

Less than £15/month for my online entertainment AND cloud storage. That does me nicely...

(shrug...)


Mike.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

@Condobloke
This is how things go regarding anything online be it a service or software...

They first start for free to gain on user base and then start either selling user data or charging for their product, or selling their brand to 3rd party all together.

 

[f33dm3bits]

They first start for free to gain on user base and then start either selling user data or charging for their product, or selling their brand to 3rd party all together.

And then they add ads to the current subscription and create a new subscription without ads and increase the price with 20% and then repeat the cycle infinitely.

 

[Condobloke]

@CaffeineAddict, I am aware of the 'ploy' used re offerring for free....then to start chargeing etc etc

It would appear radio tunes have been offering free for in excess of 7 years, and have only just started to introduce a charge.