[HN Gopher] VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS ...
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       VLC's Jean-Baptiste Kempf Receives the European SFS Award 2025
        
       Author : kirschner
       Score  : 166 points
       Date   : 2025-11-07 20:31 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (fsfe.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (fsfe.org)
        
       | alex_duf wrote:
       | well deserved
       | 
       | I've heard he was working on an extremely low latency gaming
       | system: Kyber
       | 
       | Anyone has any recent news on that subject?
        
       | lucketone wrote:
       | VLC is definitely one of the best projects. Congrats!
        
       | fcksilvalment wrote:
       | One of the few honorable techies who didn't sell out
        
       | jonplackett wrote:
       | I'm old enough to remember crappiness before VLC. Such a useful
       | piece of software. Well deserved. What a dude.
        
         | ttoinou wrote:
         | K Lite Codec Pack + Media Player Classic was great
        
       | antirez wrote:
       | So many hours of fun watching videos over the years, without the
       | constant fear that some odd codec would make the experience
       | impossible. Thanks, VLC!
        
         | DANmode wrote:
         | "If you insert a slice of bologna into the disc tray, VLC will
         | _play_ it."
        
       | cocoto wrote:
       | The award is well deserved, VLC was a godsend a few years ago but
       | I'm not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays. All other
       | players play videos just fine on Linux now. I guess VLC is only a
       | thing on Windows because the default software is crap. On Linux
       | almost everyone now use whatever is the default player or MPV for
       | the nerds.
        
         | rnewme wrote:
         | > I'm not sure what VLC brings to the table nowadays Lack of
         | backdoors?
        
         | DANmode wrote:
         | So, the same value-add as always!
        
         | 1313ed01 wrote:
         | I use it on my Android phone. Is there a better FOSS media
         | player (or better any media player?).
         | 
         | VLC also still (or at least recently?) provides APKs you can
         | download to install on very old Android versions. I have it
         | installed on a few old Android tablets (and by old I mean
         | something like Android version 4).
         | 
         | MPV everywhere else though.
        
           | spookie wrote:
           | MPV is on android too. But VLC is alright
        
         | K3UL wrote:
         | I might be wrong but I think the guys at VLC are still very
         | important contributors to ffmpeg, which is still a big deal.
         | They also (kinda recently) developed some really low latency
         | tech for streaming called Kyber So bottomline the player might
         | not be used that much (although on mobile the app is very
         | popular still) but the tech they develop for it, is
        
         | ho_schi wrote:
         | Yep.
         | 
         | VLC was not important on Linux. Because we have ffmpeg as
         | foundation, used by mplayer and nowadays mpv. The later is my
         | recommendation. Whether on the tty (awesome!) or on Wayland. If
         | you prefer a native Gtk an interface is available, named
         | Celluloid. In all these cases mpv is mighty, reliable, fits
         | into the environment with a frugal interface.
         | 
         | We've also players based on gstreamer but ffmpeg is more
         | reliable.
         | 
         | But the need for a reliable player on Windows, Android, macOS,
         | iOS and tvOS is big. Because their default players suck. VLC
         | comes with an awkward UI and the weird built-in stuff for SMB.
         | But from a 2001 point-of-view it makes sense, LAN-parties are
         | nice and back then they were everywhere. And Windows doesn't
         | support WebDAV well.
         | 
         | My favorite is mpv. But I'm still tankful that I've one usable
         | player in my iPhone.
         | 
         | PS: VLC also uses ffmpeg?
        
         | gyomu wrote:
         | I used VLC until I looked for a backward frame step
         | functionality. I then found this thread on the VLC forums where
         | the maintainers explain (with bad attitude) why this
         | functionality is technically impossible. Everyone points out
         | that mpv supports it, but the maintainers double down and say
         | they're Doing It Wrong and it shouldn't be possible.
         | 
         | So anyways, I switched to mpv.
         | 
         | https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=120627
        
       | entrepy123 wrote:
       | Public service announcement: VLC is on iPhone in the App Store,
       | too. (Some people don't know this.)
        
       | wara23arish wrote:
       | I remember using VLC and figuring out how to download subtitles
       | and use them within it.
       | 
       | I suddenly became the computer person of my family at 11 because
       | of that
        
       | jauntywundrkind wrote:
       | Still really hoping his game/app streaming system Kyber
       | eventually materializes! https://kyber.media/
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39929602
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RvosCplkCc
       | 
       | Incredibly accomplished already. What gravy this would be though.
        
       | homarp wrote:
       | If you wondered SFS comes from the SFSCon, which is the South
       | Tyrol Free Software Conference, SFSCON
       | 
       | past winners: https://www.sfscon.it/awards/
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-07 23:00 UTC)