VLC is one of the most popular video apps because it can play just about any format you throw at it. Fans will be happy to hear that VLC 4 will bring a more modern look to the app in the coming months.
The team behind it are also considering the possibility of using a Plex-style business model to secure the app’s future, and planning a moonshot – literally …
Protocol has a piece on both the past and the future of VLC, opening with the history of the app.
The student staff running the Ecole Centrale Paris campus network had a problem. The university’s Token Ring network had become far too slow for students living on campus. For years, the technology had done its job, providing access to email and newsgroups. But in the mid-1990s, students wanted more. They wanted to download files, surf the Internet, and most importantly play Duke Nukem 3D, which was impossible on the aging network architecture.
However, the university was unable to provide a network update. In dire need of an outside sponsor, the students struck a deal with a major French broadcaster to use the campus grounds as a test bed for an early version of IP-based TV delivery. The Idea: Instead of equipping each dorm with its own satellite dish and set-top box, students would find a way to stream TV signals over their local network.
“The aim of the project was to show that you could retransmit the satellite feed and decoding [it] on normal machines, which would cost a lot less ”, says Jean-Baptiste Kempf, chairman of the VideoLAN Foundation. To achieve this, students developed a video server and a playback app, called VideoLAN Client at the time. The project was passed on as students graduated, and eventually the team behind it decided to make it open-source.
It was the Mac that led to the first significant increase in usage.
Weeks after VLC was released as open source in 2001, a developer in the Netherlands ported it to MacOS, creating the first real usage peak. Apple’s early versions of OS X didn’t come with a built-in DVD player app, and early adopters of the new system flocked to VLC as a replacement.
Since VLC is still popular, it isn’t exactly known for a fancy or modern user interface. But the chairman of the VideoLAN foundation Jean-Baptiste Kempf says this is about to change.
Twenty years after its first open source release, the app is as popular as ever, with between 800,000 and 1 million downloads every day. In addition to the desktop versions, there are now also official VLC apps for iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV and Chrome OS, among others. And in the coming months, VideoLAN will release VLC 4.0, with a revamped user interface. “We’ve made the interface a bit more modern,” said Kempf.
The team has always declined offers to commercialize the app, but is now considering a possible way to secure the future of VLC.
Kempf pointed to Plex and its ad-supported video services as one model to learn from. “That’s something that could work for VLC,” he said.
Oh, and that moonshot …
Videolan also has plans to celebrate its 20th anniversary this year, starting with a literal moonshot: the team plans to place a video time capsule on board the first commercial lunar space flight later this year and is currently asking VLC users for their own videos. to submit. “There are a lot of people in the VideoLAN community who really love the space,” said Kempf. “We have SpaceX fans, die-hard fanboys” […] “The monthlying is absolutely, utterly crazy, but it’s so much fun.”
There’s no word yet on the release date for VLC 4, but be aware of this space.
Photo by Redrecords from Pexels
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