VLC is one of the most popular video applications because it plays almost any format you use. Fans will be pleased to know that VLC 4 will bring a more modern look to the app in the coming months.
The team behind this is also considering adopting a Plex-style business model to ensure the future of the app and is planning a moonshot – literally …
Protocol has a piece about the past and the future of VLC, opening with the history of the application.
The student team that runs the École Centrale Paris campus network had a problem. The university’s Token Ring network had become too slow for students living on campus. For years, technology has done its job by providing access to e-mail and newsgroups. But in the mid-90s, students wanted more. They wanted to download files, browse the web and, most of all, play Duke Nukem 3D, which was impossible in the aging network architecture.
However, the university was unable to provide a network update. In desperate need of an external sponsor, students struck a deal with a major French broadcaster, which wanted to use the campus grounds as a test for an initial version of IP-based TV delivery. The idea: instead of equipping each dormitory with its own satellite dish and decoder, students would find a way to broadcast TV signals on their local network.
“The aim of the project was to show that it was possible to resend the satellite feed and decode [it] on normal machines, which would cost much less, ”said VideoLAN Foundation President Jean-Baptiste Kempf. For this, students developed a video server and a playback application, at the time called VideoLAN Client. The project was broadcast as the students graduated and eventually the team behind it decided to open it.
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, causing the first spike in real use. Early versions of Apple’s OS X did not come with an integrated DVD player application, and the first to adopt the new system migrated to VLC as a replacement.
Although VLC remains popular, it is not exactly known for a beautiful or modern user interface. But the president of the VideoLAN foundation, Jean-Baptiste Kempf, says this is about to change.
Twenty years after its first open source release, the app is more popular than ever, registering between 800,000 and 1 million downloads every day. In addition to the desktop versions, there are now official VLC apps for iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV and Chrome OS, among others. And in the coming months, VideoLAN will launch VLC 4.0, which will feature a renewed user interface. “We modified the interface to be a little more modern,” said Kempf.
The team has always declined offers to market 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 a model for learning. “This is something that can work for VLC,” he said.
Oh, and that full moon …
Videolan also plans to celebrate its twentieth birthday this year, starting with a literal lunar photo: the team wants to place a video time capsule on board the first commercial lunar space flight later this year and is currently asking VLC users to upload your own videos. “There are a lot of people in the VideoLAN community who really love the space,” said Kempf. “We have SpaceX fans, diehard fanboys” […] “The moon thing is absolutely, completely stupid, but it’s a lot of fun.”
There is no word yet on the release date for VLC 4, but keep an eye on this space.
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