Day 1: a VideoLAN history

Most people know VLC, but they don't know the history of the VideoLAN project.

Well, they don't even know what VideoLAN is, and that we are not a company...

1st February 2011

Today is the 10^th anniversary of the switch to GPL of the VideoLAN project applications...

But, but, but... What was before the GPL?

1996: First VideoLAN project

The network of the campus of the École Centrale Paris, one of the prestigious French "Grande École" university, has always been managed by a student organisation named VIA Centrale Réseaux.

In 1996, it had a very slow Token-Ring network, but the students wanted an upgrade. They found investors at the condition that they could justify the need for a new network...

Therefore, they decided to push Video on the network...

Remember, this is 1996, were your average Pentium couldn't decode a DVD and when Youtube and Google didn't exist...

This student project achieved his goals in early 1998, and a new network came.

1998: Second VideoLAN project

As it was successful, it was decided to go on the project.

And they restarted the project from scratch, in 1998.

But in the mind of open source and modularity.

This is when the VLC media player that you know of, was born.
If you look at the first commit of the repository, in August 1999, you'll see that the most copyright indeed is from 1998.

2001: Open Source

As VideoLAN was a student project, the university had moral rights on the software produced.

Thanks to the students and Professor Jean-Philippe Rey, the direction of the university allowed the switch of all code produced to GPL.

The letter from Mr. Gourisse was signed on February 1^st, 2001.

Since 2001

Afterward, the project has went on, with students and then volunteers from around the world.

The project, has, of course, left the university and is a backed-up by a volunteer non-profit organisation.

Today, VLC averages 24 million downloads per month (including two-third of updates) and the user-base is counted in tens of million.

Day 2: a new website design

As you might have seen, we've change the design of the main website.

The website design was done by Argon and this project was sponsored by netzwelt.de.

It is still a work in progress, but we'll keep working on it with your help.

Day 3: A cool video about VLC

For our 3^rd day, we'd like to share a video that we think should be more known.

Video created by Adam Vian.

Day 4: The best skins for VLC

For our 4^th day, we'd like to share the 6 best skins we've seen this year.

Day 5: Small photo from the VideoLAN team from FOSDEM

For our 5^th day, we'd like to share a small photo we've done during the FOSDEM conference, where some people from the VideoLAN team met today, and tomorrow.

The picture is taken in front of the huge Brussels green cone.

Day 6: Best extensions for VLC

VLC extensions

For our 6^th day, we'd like to speak about extensions for VLC and provide a few.

Extensions in VLC are not very popular yet, because we are missing a few functionnalities.
Still, some are already cool to use.

Extensions in VLC can add new features that we don't want to support in the main core, or that we cannot.

Some extensions

VLC extension: subtitles downloader

This small extension allows you to get subtitles directly from web databases
Download it now!

VLC extensions: movie information

These are, in fact, 4 extension to get more information about the movie currently playing:
Allocine.fr extension
IMDB.com extension
themoviedb.org extension
thetvdb.com extension

NB: the legality of the use of these extension is not clear yet. If you have any info, please share with us.

VLC extension: Add Similar files

This extension will find the similar files in the same folder (like for TV shows)
than the file playing and add them to the playlist.
Download it now!

Sorry, but because of the FOSDEM event, this day 6, that was supposed to be out on sunday, went out on monday :D

Day 7: Cool thing to do with VLC

For our 7^th day, we'd like to show out feature of VLC that you probably don't know about.

Running with coloured text output

One of the most useless feature of VLC is the Colored ASCII mode. To use it:
- vlc -Acaca
- Preferences → Video → Change "output" to "Color ascii-art video output".

Running with no interface

If you like the MPlayer usability, or if you want a VLC with no interaction, you should use the dummy interface:
vlc -Idummy or cvlc.

You can also approach this mode with the Interface Preferences options: change to "minimal starting mode".

Playback your screen

Try this one:
Media → Open Capture Device → Change "Capture mode" to "Desktop"
Enjoy!

You can record, transcode and stream it too!

Open a Youtube URL

To open a Youtube video in VLC:
Media → Open Network → Paste the complete Youtube URL, like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVXGLPl3n7E
Enjoy!

Use the interactive zoom

Did you know about the interactive zoom filter in VLC?

To use it, play a video, then
Tools → Effects & Filters → Video Effects → Geometry, tick "Magnification/Zoom".
Use your mouse in the top left corner to have fun with it!

Day 8: Cones

For our 8^th day, here is a small collection of nice cones.

New VLC cone, GCI-rendered, by Richard C. G. Øiestad

From the creator of the actual VLC icon, here is a new one.

Some nice VLC cone

A small cone with a translucent film strip around it.

Funny cones

High-Quality Cone icons done by Tom Bigelajzen

Day 9: VLC community numbers

For our 9^th day, we'd like to speak about numbers.

Commiters

The number of committers metric is too often discarded, in open source projects.
We believe this is a good way to mesure the popularity of a project.

Official committers

The official commiters are the ones who have or had write access.
They are 48 of them, but most of them are inactive, those days...

External committers

The external commiters are people from the community, who send patches. There patches are then applied into the main repository, by other committers.
They are more than 500 of them, during the first 10 years of the project.

Downloads

The download numbers are always inaccurate, because many downloads are not counted:

• Linux numbers, because users download directly on their distributions;
• Unofficial mirrors, and direct FTP accesses;
• Websites like download.com, CNET, 01Net or softopedia.

Numbers before sf.net

When we mainly used our own set of mirrors, we had counted 440 million direct downloads.

Those downloads were done between December 2004 and June 2010 and did not include updates.

Numbers since sf.net

Since last june, we are using SourceForge for distribution, especially in order to have a 3^rd party counting the downloads.

As you can see, VLC is already at the 4^th position, on the Top Downloads, For all time of SF.net.

The numbers are over 191 million, but are including signatures and updates.
The actual numbers are thefore closer to 74 million direct downloads, over the last 7 and half months.

That would make the total at around 514 million direct downloads.

Users

As VLC is not phoning home when one uses it (for example, proprietary players like RealPlayer or DivX do), we cannot know exactly the exact userbase.

We can only guess from the download numbers... Do your own estimation then :D

Day 10: A short promotional video about VLC

For our 10^th (and last) day, we'd like to share a short promo video done for VLC.

This video was created and directed by a team of French students, realised by a group of technical volunteers and shot and produced by Holistic Productions.

Please share.