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Tag: VLC Player

  • VLC Player hits Apple TV so you can play your home movies

    VLC Player hits Apple TV so you can play your home movies

    Apple TV can now play a wider range of video formats following the arrival of VLC Player on the set-top box.

    The open-source app supports virtually every video and audio file format in existence, which is good news for anyone with a collection of home movies that were unplayable on the iOS box.

    The work depicts Jobs in his trademark black turtleneck jumper carrying an early model of his Apple computer and with a black bin bag slung over his shoulder.

    With today’s announcement, SpaceIL is the first of the 16 Lunar X Prize teams to book a ride off the planet. If the mission succeeds, it will be the first Israeli mission — as well as the first private spaceflight mission — to soft-land a vehicle on the lunar surface. Eran Privman, CEO of SpaceIL, claimed the group isn’t focused on the competition, but they are confident they can win. “I promise you once we land on the Moon, we’ll look around and see we are the first,” he said.

    Only three nations have ever landed a spacecraft intact on the Moon: the United States, Russia, and China. Many countries have slammed lunar orbiters or probes into the Moon to study its environment, but gently landing a spacecraft is trickier. The Moon is big enough to have a gravitational pull, but it doesn’t have an atmosphere to slow incoming objects. Spacecraft in lunar orbit must fire retro-rockets, very precisely, in the opposite direction of the Moon. That way they can slowly descend without slamming into the rock. It’s a delicate procedure that usually requires a lot of time and money, which is why only government agencies have been able to do it up until now.

    A trait carried over from their debut, luckily for us listeners

    Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances.

    SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during launch. (SpaceX)
    SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket during launch. (SpaceX)

    That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man’s delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn swells.

    Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge.

    Lauren Mayberry’s lyrics touches on elements of heartbreak

    God the direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge.

    jh123But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark. I knew the Indians would soon discover that they were on the wrong trail and that the search for me would be renewed in the right direction as soon as they located my tracks. I had gone but a short distance further when what seemed to be an excellent trail opened up around the face of a high cliff. The trail was level and quite broad and led upward and in the general direction I wished to go. The cliff arose for several hundred feet on my right, and on my left was an equal and nearly perpendicular drop to the bottom of a rocky ravine.

  • HBO Asks Google To Remove VLC Player Link In DMCA Filing

    In what appears to be a case of either mistaken identity or guilt by association, in one of their recent DMCA filings, HBO included a takedown request link pointing to the VLC media player. For those who are not aware, a DMCA filing, at least regarding search engines, asks for the providing engine to remove links that point to sites offering and/or supporting the distribution of copyrighted content. Google gets over a million of them a month.

    In this case, HBO was going after sites that were pointing to torrents for Game of Thrones and Veep, among others.

    During the process of listing the URLs it would like to see removed from Google’s search index, HBO included a link that points to the aforementioned VLC Player. The link in question was featured on TorrentPortal.com, a site that tracks bit torrent files around the web, much like the name suggests. The site was in HBO’s targets for the following links:

    http://www.torrentportal.com/details/6093717/Twenty+Feet+from+Stardom+(2013)+BRRip+XviD.torrent

    http://www.torrentportal.com/details/6091931/The.Evil.Dead.HD.EXTENDED.%5B1080p%5D.torrent

    http://www.torrentportal.com/details/6093721/VLC-Media-Player-2.0.7-Final-(32-64-bit)-Official.html

    Whatever your position is on file sharing, from HBO’s perspective, it’s easy to see why the first two links were included. They are pointing to torrents that promise infringing content. The third, however, is a innocuous link that points to a legitimate utility that millions of people use. You might also notice that the first two links, while going to infringing torrents, the copyrighted content in question–The Evil Dead and Twenty Feet From Stardom–does not “belong” to HBO. These movies were not titles included in HBO’s DMCA dragnet, but yet, they are part of the takedown request list.

    Is this a case of HBO overstepping their boundaries, or are they simply taking the “It takes a village” approach to ridding the Internet of illegal file-sharing? Furthermore, do takedown requests for legitimate content somehow invalidate the rest of the DMCA filing? Of course, this is just part of a bigger discussion, that is, should it even be illegal to link to infringing content? As Torrent Freak points out, this behavior is par for the course with HBO and its filings:

    Over the past months HBO and many other copyright holders have built up a dubious track record when it comes to DMCA takedown notices. In addition to many “bogus” claims the company also tried to have its own website removed from Google.

    The above mistakes may be relatively harmless to the site owners, but they show once again how much can go wrong with these automated DMCA notices. This is particularly troublesome since Google is down-ranking sites based on the number of DMCA notices it receives for them.

    Is this a case of the “boy who cried wolf” or is HBO just being thorough?

  • VLC Player Upgrades To The Twoflower Version

    The video player of choice — well, at least it should be for any web savvy individual — VLC, is famous for its ability to overcome most file format hurdles during its playback process, has been updated to the 2.0 level. Introducing “Twoflower,” the next step in the evolution of VLC’s fantastically robust media player.

    The changes in the current version of the VLC player, which jumping from version 1.2something to the 2.0 level, are plentiful; and VLC’s download page is full of information concerning the new features the “Twoflower” version contains, including extended support for the Mac environment. While the are too many new additions to include them all, here are some highlights of what “Twoflower” promises:

    With faster decoding on multi-core, GPU, and mobile hardware and the ability to open more formats, notably professional, HD and 10bits codecs, 2.0 is a major upgrade for VLC.

    Twoflower has a new rendering pipeline for video, with higher quality subtitles, and new video filters to enhance your videos.
    It supports many new devices and BluRay Discs (experimental).

    Completely reworked Mac and Web interfaces and improvements in the other interfaces make VLC easier than ever to use.

    Twoflower fixes several hundreds of bugs, in more than 7000 commits from 160 volunteers.

    While that last “feature” is more of an explanation of how things get done at VLC, it’s also important because it focuses on the open nature of the player. It’s completely free to download, and the ability to decode and support so many different media file types comes solely from volunteers.

    You can, of course, donate to their cause, but even with that pointed out, it should be noted that, even though it is a free program, there is no nagging ad support that can be cleared if you purchase the full version. Simply put, VLC embodies the definition of “free and powerful software,” in spirit and its execution. Simply put, if you use your home computing device to listen/watch media files and you don’t have VLC installed, you’re only cheating yourself.

    Other fixes and new features include:

    For Video

  • Rewritten video output core and modules, allowing subpicture blending in GPU.
  • Shader support in the OpenGL output, for colorspace conversion, including 10bits.
  • New video outputs for Windows 7, Android, iOS and OS/2.
  • New debanding, grain, denoising and anti-flickering filters.
  • New deinterlacing filter, including an Inverse Telecine algorithm.
  • There’s more:

    Format upgrades

  • Multi-threaded decoding for H.264, MPEG-4/Xvid and WebM.
  • Support for 10bits codecs, WMV image and some other codecs.
  • Rewritten support for images, including jpeg, png, xcf, bmp…
  • Important changes in RealVideo and Real Format support.
  • CrystalHD cards and Android OpenMAX support for hardware decoding.
  • As indicated, Mac users were not left out of the “Twoflower” fun either:

    For Mac Users

  • Completely new, single window interface:
  • – Available in 2 colors: Lion grey and QTX black.
    – Extensions support and better Lion integration.

  • Support for all QTKit devices through qtcapture and qtsound modules.
  • Continued support for X 10.5 and PPC users (1080p and ProRes on Dual-G5!).
  • There’s even a section addressing those who watch anime on VLC:

    For Anime Fans

  • Vastly improved MKV demuxer.
  • Rewritten linked segments and ordered chapter files support.
  • Correct support for FLAC, RV and Hi10p in MKV.
  • Rewritten seeking support in cue files.
  • Various ASS subtitles improvements.
  • As indicated, BluRay support has been included in “Twoflower,” although, VLC expresses this is in an experimental phase. Apparently, menus for these movies have been deactivated, but support for BluRay menus will be coming soon. Of course, the lack of BluRay menu support should the least of your worries in relation to VLC.

    Simply put, the thing just works, and it works very well. The “Twoflower” era is just another step in the evolution of this powerful and reliable media player.