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Tuesday, October 27 2009

VLC: CDDB on Windows!

By JBK on Tuesday, October 27 2009, 09:28 - VideoLAN

CD-Audio

Audio-CD have usually two main ways to get the meta-data associated with the tracks:

  • embedded CD-Text information
  • online, with CDDB protocol, using FreedDB

VLC and Audio-CD

VLC has had 2 main Audio-CD modules, named CDDA and CDDAX, one using libcdio, the other not.

On windows, because of the difficulty to get libcdio, we use CDDA. But CDDA didn’t have CD-Text support. And libcddb didn’t work for us, at all.

So, on Windows, it used to be no CD-text, no CDDB…

Part one: VLC 1.0.0

VLC 1.0.0 has seen the addition of CD-Text for the CDDA module, and Windows version got it.

Part two: VLC 1.1.0

VLC 1.1.0 will see the addition of the CDDB support for VLC for Windows, since the fixes for libcddb and regex have just been done, tested and pushed by your servant on the main tree of VLC!

Yeah!

Conclusion

While VLC 0.9.x on WIndows didn’t had much to get information from CDs on Windows, VLC 1.1.x will have both CD-Text and CDDB to get informations from your Audio-CDs.

Of course, VLC isn’t the best for audio, but improving can’t hurt, can it?

one comment

Saturday, October 24 2009

VideoLAN and April

By JBK on Saturday, October 24 2009, 03:25 - VideoLAN

This is a short post topic about the VideoLAN association.

What is April ?

Pioneer of free software in France, April has been since 1996 a major player in the democratization and the spread of Free Software and open standards to the general public, professionals and institutions in the French-speaking world. In the digital era that is ours, it also aims to inform the public on the dangers of an exclusive appropriation of information an knowledge by private interests. The association is made up of individuals, companies, associations and organizations from various backgrounds who share the values of freedom.

VideoLAN and April

As of today, the VideoLAN association (or non-profit organization) is now a full member of the April association.

We have worked together quite a few times, and you might have seen the April’s campaigns on videolan.org, but we weren’t officially a member.

However, now that VideoLAN has a clean association and status, we were able to formalize this relationship.

Let’s hope it will be for the best.

no comment

Monday, October 19 2009

Meet me in SF bay area soon

By JBK on Monday, October 19 2009, 09:41 - VideoLAN

Hello fellow readers and VideoLAN fans,

This is a very short post to tell you that I will be around San Francisco / Bay Area for a few days at the end of the month.

So, if you need / want to see me or need to discuss VideoLAN matters, please contact me as soon as possible.

no comment

Saturday, October 10 2009

VLC and Windows 7 Logo

By JBK on Saturday, October 10 2009, 11:07 - VideoLAN

Compatible with Windows 7

The new operating system from Microsoft Windows 7 will be out this month.

As every time with Windows, there is a new Logo program for certification. As opposed to Vista, where they were 5 or 6 different logos, there is just one logo for everyone.

VLC 1.0.2 has been tested against the testing suite and was considered as "Compatible with Windows 7". This just mean that VLC conforms to the specifications and tests from Microsoft. It is supposed to check for common issues to minimize the number of crashes, hangs, and reboots and is  compliant with Windows 7 64-bit.
VLC also install and uninstall in the correct way on Windows 7.

Of course, this should be transparent for all users, but it will matter for people upgrading older install of Windows to Windows 7. This also shows the quality that can be managed in open source community.

Works with Windows Vista

At the same time, VLC also got the "Works with Windows VIsta" Logo. I am not sure it is really of any interest now. :D
 

VLC issues on Windows 7

However, be careful, VLC still has issues on Windows 7, because of many broken drivers, made by major hardware makers. It can show pixizelated outputs when rescaling. Please change the video output to OpenGL and restart VLC as a work-around.

one comment

Monday, October 5 2009

Ubuntu Karmic tryouts

By JBK on Monday, October 5 2009, 10:04 - Geek & Computer

Ubuntu update required

My girlfriend had a very weird bug on her openoffice and on many gtk apps, where hovering the buttons or going one page down or up wouldn’t refresh the display correctly. I have tried many things, but nothing worked correctly. She had also weird bugs while using WPA2 WiFi network.

So, instead of doing an update, as usual, I took the beta of the Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 and reinstalled the laptop.
I usually have /home on separate partitions, and that proved once again to be a good idea.

Installations

The installation went without many issues, once I fixed the Dell MediaDirect mess that screwed up the partition table. The installation was quite fast too. The new look seems quite ok, but nothing "woauw".

Then, I reinstalled it on 3 other machines.

Good

  • Great installation, wifi and most devices worked, without issues,
  • Many applications correctly installed,
  • Great new look for the windows and overall look,
  • Ubuntu Software Center seems quite a nice step forward,
  • vlc has moved from multiverse to universe and is up-to-date,

Bad

  • nVidia drivers install is still counter-logical,
  • Humanity icons suck. Orange ones are too much of the same, and the grey ones (WiFi and so on) are impossible to read,
  • F-Spot and Tomboy… .Net crap and slow… Seriously I don’t get it.

Meeting Mark and Ubunteros

For some reasons, I met Mark at a conference and said "Hi!". Nothing important, but still cool.

He made a cool talk about Cadence, Quality and Design.

Then, I met a few cool Ubuntu developers (and former DD) and it was nice, except that we had a big discussion about vlc not being in main.

Here are some of the reasons and some ‘bad faith’ comments from me:

  • VLC is too big for core install (haha, Mono!)
  • there is already one multimedia stack, GStreamer (then WTF does xine hang there?)

Anyway, it was quite cool, and this Ubuntu release seems very promising.

no comment

Friday, September 4 2009

VLC 64bit running on Windows 7 64bits. 1st!

By JBK on Friday, September 4 2009, 10:13 - VideoLAN

64 bits and Windows

64 bits VLC is a "hype" topic those days in our community.

On Windows, we couldn’t have a 64bits native version, because of lack of correct compiler (No, Microsoft Visual doesn’t fit in correct compiler section.

Fortunately, the mingw-w64 hackers are making a new one, and they ROCK. Huge thanks to NightStrike and ktietz!

VLC Win64

So, I have been working a bit on it. And two days ago:

Voilà :D

Don’t expect something complete soon, but still :)

2 comments

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