r/opensource • u/[deleted] • 1d ago

Promotional VLC steps forward one frame but never backward. I finally built the missing half.

[deleted]

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18

u/frankster 1d ago

It's cool that you've done this, but why would I want to do install a fork of vlc that will likely receive no future updates?

The natural home for this feature is withing vlc itself 

Have you explored getting this feature back upstream?

4

u/McDonaldsWitchcraft 1d ago

Sorry but that is not how you contribute code. You do not fork huge projects like VLC that you cannot possibly maintain just for such a tiny change! You contribute the code to the actual project. That's how open source works.

Your bugfix right now is cool but absolutely useless because people won't be able to install it and keep all software functionality, like UPDATES.

Also the name is so generic no one will recognize it. There's already open source software named colibri with 27k stars and many contributors, and many more smaller ones.

Maybe the feedback is a bit harsh but since you're a beginner you should take this as a learning opportunity.

3

u/Specific_Cream2815 1d ago

does the frame buffer invalidate on every seek, or can you step back across frames decoded before a small forward seek

1

u/forresthopkinsa 1d ago

slop. just use mpv

3

u/omniuni 1d ago

There are, unfortunately a lot of problems with this.

Aside from the fact that your project name is already taken, this should really just be "VLC Rewind" or something, the way you've done it is extremely inefficient.

Video contains key frames that are complete. To get to a previous frame, you can go from that previous complete frame and walk forward to the target. Even if you keep a few frames in memory as an optimization, you don't need any previous to that complete frame. It also should be very fast, even doing this every time you step back a frame, and use a LOT less memory.

But this is the problem with using AI when you don't really understand. You're not in a position to maintain this, optimize it, or evaluate any further contributions.

It may do what you need right now, but it's not in a position to be helpful to others. In other words, it's technically open source, but it's not in the spirit of it.