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VLC Launches On Chrome OS Thanks To Android Port

Posted by timothy on from the early-birthday-present-to-me dept.

An anonymous reader writes: VideoLAN today launched VLC, the world's most used media player, for Chrome OS. You can download the new app, which is a port of the VLC version for Android, from the Chrome Web Store. Chrome OS was one of the last desktop operating systems for which VLC was not available (the media player exists for Windows, OS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OS/2, Haiku/BeOS, and ReactOS). Yet Chrome OS wasn't an easy operating system to support, as VLC is a native application on all platforms (it uses low-level APIs to output video, audio, and gain access to threads) built using mostly C and C++. Writing VLC in JavaScript and other Web technologies, as Chrome OS requires, is not an easy task by any stretch.

44 comments

  1. ChromeOS? by bcothran · · Score: 1

    Is the chrome OS being discontinued by Google?

    1. Re:ChromeOS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't Google being discontinued by Alphabet?

    2. Re:ChromeOS? by Meshach · · Score: 2

      Nope. See the real press release.

      --
      "Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
      Aldous Huxley
    3. Re:ChromeOS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is the chrome OS being discontinued by Google?

      Google is being discontinued by Google. They hate their customers so they constantly create products then get people to depend on them then TAKE them from us. TAKE them from us. That is the way of their CONservative kind. They create Google search for us, which is great, but now here if we use the name Google, we get screamed at. This is such an unpleasant place to work. I understand Google hates the name Google and want to see it destroyed and forgotten, but stop yelling at us. It's driving me nuts.

    4. Re: ChromeOS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't understand why we hate our name so much. There is so much stress here from being terrified of accidentally calling us Google.

    5. Re: ChromeOS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a terrible name so I'm glad our management recognizes that and has banned the use of that word.

  2. Chrome OS? by bcothran · · Score: 0

    Isn't the Chrome OS being discontinued by Google thougg?

    1. Re:Chrome OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Isn't the Chrome OS being discontinued by Google thougg?

      Why don't you try that just one more time to really get it right?

    2. Re:Chrome OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL, I almost replied something like that.

      (Captcha "Prove yourself" was "unproven")

  3. 95% of code from the Android version by iampiti · · Score: 4, Informative

    From TFA: Android Runtime for Chrome (ARC) makes it easy to make Android apps work on Chrome OS. "“The ARC solution was a blessing, and helped us to recycle 95 percent of the Android code and optimizations".
    Also, I don't know why the author decided to include ReactOS in the list of supported OSs since there's no special version of VLC for it, it just runs the Windows binary.

    1. Re:95% of code from the Android version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it takes whatever measures are necessary to ensure it runs in both.

    2. Re: 95% of code from the Android version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When can we expect the Android version not to freeze for several seconds loading large playlists or to gain playlist editing support?

    3. Re: 95% of code from the Android version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You already have the latter in the nightly builds.

  4. Eh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eh, VLC is okay, mostly due to the wide variety of codecs available in it, but I'm impartial to Clementine, mostly for the pre-loaded station, particularly SomaFM!

    1. Re:Eh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know that VLC and Clementine fills two different needs, even if they slightly overlap (ie they both can play audio files), right? Good luck trying to play or convert video files using Clementine.

  5. Quite Useful by freefal67 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While many people's first reaction might be that this is just a silly proof of concept, I can say from personal experience that it will actually be quite useful. I set up a Chromebox for my folks (got sick of providing Windows support). When my mom plugged in a USB drive with a short video, it wouldn't play without first being saved to Google Drive to be reencoded. Hopefully having a VLC app will fix the problem of ChromeOS only natively supporting a limited number of codecs.

    1. Re:Quite Useful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a Chromebox on my TV, and it will be neat to use it as a DLNA client for my media server PC.

  6. Um... WTF? by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 1

    "Writing VLC in JavaScript and other Web technologies, as Chrome OS requires, is not an easy task by any stretch."

    No... ChromeOS has ways to write native and semi-native apps:

    NaCL - https://developer.chrome.com/n... and PNaCL

    That said, if you already have a functional Android app, ARC is probably easier. Works great for Quasseldroid if you remove one socket configuration call (TCP_KEEPALIVE socket option) currently not supported by ARC.

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  7. Damn you, VLC! by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    ...the media player exists for Windows, OS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OS/2, Haiku/BeOS, and ReactOS.

    What? Still no FreeDOS, Amiga, Nintendo DSi or ATmega328P support?

    1. Re: Damn you, VLC! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly that! Where is the port for my Amiga 500?

    2. Re:Damn you, VLC! by un1nsp1red · · Score: 1

      And ReactOS? Was there really that much demand for that port?

    3. Re:Damn you, VLC! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A FreeDOS port would be nice -- render the video in ascii graphics.
      Nintendo DSi has the problem of requiring Nintendo to cooperate.

  8. Linux? by klapek · · Score: 2

    It's really odd that an os based on linux kernel is so problematic when it comes to porting applications.

    1. Re:Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Picture tux the linux penguin strapped face down on the boardroom table at google hq while all the google execs take turns fucking him in the ass. That's the relationship between linux and android.

    2. Re:Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The average Linux program makes approximately zero direct kernel calls without going through a library. The underlying kernel is not a very visible part of a platform anymore, except when it is buggy.

  9. Mod parent up. by Kludge · · Score: 1

    It's not just Linux. I think it is also X-windows!
    Write a media player in javascript? WTF?
    I am continually amazed that people buy up crap that restricts what they can do on really powerful computers.

  10. VLC as default by should_be_linear · · Score: 1

    I wonder what legal reasons prevent including VLC as default media player in Android, ChromeOS, Windows. It certainly is way above anything these systems provide in video department.

    --
    839*929
    1. Re:VLC as default by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Informative

      I wonder what legal reasons prevent including VLC as default media player in Android, ChromeOS, Windows.

      You sound like you already know the answer to your own question.
      VLC includes code to account decoding of patent-encumbered media formats. DVD playback, AAC, AC3 are all formats that are not really free for people to implement playback for without paying the piper.

      You know VLC for iOS will not decode AC3 -- unless you change you time zone location to somewhere outside the U.S.?

    2. Re:VLC as default by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a big fan of VLC but the Android version was pretty unstable for me. I ended up using another 3rd party. I still keep VLC installed because it's amazing at playing broken videos or unusual codecs but the Android version needs some work still.

    3. Re:VLC as default by scdeimos · · Score: 1

      You know VLC for iOS will not decode AC3 -- unless you change you time zone location to somewhere outside the U.S.?

      You know VLC for iOS will not even see most DLNA servers on the local network? And when it does, occasionally, list a UMS server it is unable to enumerate even its root folder contents? It would have been nice to see VLC for iOS work as well as its desktop counterparts on Windows, Linux and OS X, but I doubt that will ever happen. More license sales lost to 8player and ArkMC I guess.

  11. Announcing VLC for Chrome OS by Meneth · · Score: 2

    The original blog post from the VLC team: http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/po...

  12. Re:Um... WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The blogpost especially speaks of PPAPI and NaCL.

  13. Written in Javascript? by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, maybe the GUI and glue logic. The actual heavy lifting codec side will almost certainly be done by libraries written in C/C++ with possibly some assembler.

    Hate to burst your bubble webdevs, but javascript is a loooong way from being able to decode video streams in realtime on its own.

    1. Re:Written in Javascript? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hate to burst your bubble webdevs, but javascript is a loooong way from being able to decode video streams in realtime on its own.

      Is that right ?

    2. Re:Written in Javascript? by Viol8 · · Score: 2

      Yes, it is right.

      From that page: "Once the video stream has been received, it is fed into the C wrapper around libogg, libtheora, and libvorbis for decoding"

      I would suggest you try reading stuff first before you post links to it.

    3. Re:Written in Javascript? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe you missed this bit: "Ogv.js is an Emscripten compile of libogg, libtheora, and libvorbis."

      Please tell me you know what Emscripten and asm.js are, so I don't have to spell this out for you.

  14. just installed and tried this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It really does not work at all. Alpha ware, at best.

  15. VLC! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ffs put back MIDI playback on every OS ffs... can't fucking listen to my MIDIs on android... ty

  16. CKermit by JBMcB · · Score: 1

    The goal should be to hit every platform CKermit supports. Terminal support through aalib or libcaca thank you very much.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  17. VLC on Android saved my ass today by Shompol · · Score: 1

    I needed a reliable playback of an MP3 file with ability to to seek for my child's school presentation. Lately I noticed being incapable of doing the simpliests of tasks on Android unless it is handled by the pre-installed software. Something as obvious as drawing on a photo or an MP3 playback result in hours of wading through the junk yard known as the Google Play. There is all sorts of bloatware, spyware, apps that cannot open a file, apps that cannot save a file and everything in between. I got too spoiled by "apt-get install".

    1. Re:VLC on Android saved my ass today by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      Maybe opening the MP3 would work in a web browser too.