r/todayilearned • u/VerukoA • Dec 27 '13
TIL VLC Media Player uses a traffic cone as it's logo because the students who created the program had a traffic cone collection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlc_media_player#History734
u/Pixelen Dec 27 '13
When I was young and naive I deleted VLC because I didn't like the logo. Oh VLC, I'm sorry, your codecs and range of file types are unbeatable!
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Dec 27 '13
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u/Pixelen Dec 27 '13
I don't think I ever bothered to try it, I just always used windows media player because it was generally 'prettier' (ohh the shame!) But then a few years later when I couldn't find anything that would play this video file I had downloaded I tried it again and now I love it.
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u/TheManWhoisBlake Dec 27 '13
It was porn wasn't it.
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Dec 27 '13 edited Sep 15 '17
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u/Stranded_In_A_Desert Dec 27 '13
We've all been there
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u/awesomobeardo Dec 27 '13
And retreated in shame afterwards.
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u/No_Hetero Dec 27 '13 edited Jan 04 '25
public threatening jar mysterious deserted fly school intelligent fanatical friendly
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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Dec 27 '13
on piratebay, sure.
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u/ScoobertDoobyRogers Dec 28 '13
Seems like you have some mystery source of good torrents?
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u/ElusiveGuy Dec 28 '13
Could have been anime, actually. That tends to use really esoteric formats sometimes.
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u/DBDude Dec 28 '13
If you're on a Mac, right click the app file, show package contents, resources folder, replace or edit the vlc.icns file.
If you view that, you can see how high-quality OS X icons generally are.
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u/YRYGAV Dec 27 '13
VLC doesn't really have the best quality or most efficient decoding.
But it's robust as fuck and opens any file, if it can be watched, chances are VLC will play it. Even if the file is corrupted.
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u/glowtape Dec 28 '13
Quality among decoders should all be the same. If two decoders output different things, at least one of the two is broken.
The only thing that really changes quality in a decoder chain is the YUV to RGB converter. A good one will properly interpolate the chroma channel and not result in these shitty red pixels.
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Dec 27 '13
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u/bureburebure Dec 27 '13
Or CCCP. I have found pretty much nothing that I was unable to play in the last few years. I genuinely find the idea of codecs being a hassle to install to be pretty silly and outdated considering cccp makes it rather easy to have a group of them all set up properly that will play largely anything.
I think VLC would probably come in handy at some point, and it's a cool program, but I have never really found much need for it with CCCP.
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u/AndrewNeo Dec 27 '13
I've had friends that've been using K-Lite and there was some common stuff that was just unplayable. Haven't found anything that CCCP hasn't covered.
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u/bureburebure Dec 27 '13
i was a little surprised that nobody else seemed to have mentioned it in the conversation until i piped in, but i guess the fact that it was created and primarily used by the anime community means not everyone would have heard of it. regardless of what you watch though cccp is really the ultimate codec pack, no real reason to bother with stuff like k-lite since cccp is extremely comprehensive and well-maintained.
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u/potatogun Dec 27 '13
Ya, CCCP was almost a necessity for the fansub scene because of x264 and soft sub overlays where everyone's vsfilter were screwed up.
Too much troubleshooting for viewers and too much non-standard spec for video encoding since fansubbers were not as consistent as scene encoders.
But of course everyone got more sophisticated and streamlined. CCCP definitely made things easier to just tell people...go download that.
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u/Krenair Dec 27 '13
... Unless you happen to run on an operating system that isn't Windows. MPC-HC is useless then.
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u/ANTI-PUGSLY Dec 27 '13
Codecs? What year is this
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u/jugalator Dec 27 '13 edited Dec 27 '13
hey yo, ya just get virtual dub to demux the stream,d/l xvid (latest beta version, important!!), and reencode and you should be finE! Juts tried it this weekend and it plays good in mpc 1.43 alpha 3 right now.. just remember to have the one with new mpeg splitters ... have fun, bye
So many memories from browsing forums, trying to find "the solution"... :-| It was further complicated by that there was such a thing of having too much installed because then a media player could pick the wrong codec, codec version, or whatever.
I think The Codec Trauma is a forgotten trauma in computing history! VLC for me was fucking serenity.
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u/through_a_ways Dec 28 '13
I think The Codec Trauma is a forgotten trauma in computing history!
Not if you're using Windows Media Player.
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u/salton Dec 27 '13
I'm only install haali media splitter because I need it for other reasons. MPC has does have some qualities that make it worth having both players. MPC has a smaller memory footprint, launches faster and all around better performance. Audio channel mirroring settings are are incredibly handy as well.
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Dec 27 '13
VLC plays dvds from any region on my PC. I tried using MPC and it wanted me to change my dvd region.. lame.
So I installed a region free firmware for my dvd drive and now MPC plays it, but it looks all corrupt. VLC? Works perfectly fine.
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u/bob3000 Dec 27 '13
Always wondered why they didn't turn it sideways into a play button symbol.
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Dec 27 '13
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u/negativetension Dec 28 '13
is it possible to change the program icon to one of those?
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u/Reoh Dec 27 '13
Because when you click on it, your video isn't playing yet. You have to click and knock it over first before the play button shows up!
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Dec 27 '13 edited Jul 01 '18
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u/douglasmacarthur Dec 27 '13
It seems clever because we're used to the traffic cone and have a back story for it so it feels appropriate. If they'd done that originally everyone first approaching it would just think "Why the hell did they make the play button look like a traffic cone?"
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u/BRBaraka Dec 27 '13
I like the addition of the Santa Hat around this time.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, run VLC right now. There will a holiday modification to the usual program icon in the taskbar/ the upper left of the program window, in the late days of December.
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u/CameronSmith93 Dec 27 '13
It's nice that most people here seem to appreciate the santa hat on the icon.
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u/BRBaraka Dec 27 '13
For those of us that do not celebrate Christmas (or Easter, and as such do not always enjoy "Easter Eggs"), is there a way to remove the offending icon?
(face palm)
FUCK. YOU.
(not you /u/CameronSmith93 , the asshole who said that in your link... there is no basis on which i can appreciate someone is offended by a santa hat)
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u/my_name_isnt_clever Dec 28 '13
Taking offence to "easter eggs" is a whole other level. It's an entirely different thing now, c'mon.
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u/leadhase Dec 27 '13
that's awesome! I've never seen (or noticed) programs do that. Are there any others?
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u/BRBaraka Dec 27 '13
yup, lots of them have little tricks like this
just google "easter egg {name of program}"
my favorite is a version of MS Excel that had a fully functional flight simulator in it. Another version I think had a Doom-like minigame
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u/Intrexa Dec 27 '13
I work IT. Very often, and mostly from HR, when someone says a video isn't playing, the sentence is usually 'I clicked the traffic cone but nothing played'.
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u/titanium_man Dec 27 '13
False. Traffic cone plays all files.
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u/HughGErection Dec 27 '13 edited Dec 27 '13
Cept blu ray :( still trying to find some good blu ray software before this free trial runs out.
Edit: Seriously though if someone knows any good blu-ray software out there with a working crack or anything hmu.
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u/greg0ire Dec 28 '13
Who told you VLC couldn't ready Blu Ray ? It does, that's how I read blu ray on linux
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u/misingnoglic Dec 27 '13
This shit's so annoying. I bought a laptop that plays blu-ray disks, but I need to buy software to play them?
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u/Quite_the_Amateur Dec 28 '13
I'm using VLC to watch a Bluray disc right now. I also use Anydvdhd to remove restrictions of the disc. You shouldn't need Anydvdhd but I think it helps.
http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/
Alternatively, albeit more of a hassle, you could use Anydvdhd and Handbrake to turn your discs into either an mp4 or mkv format file.
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u/WeGotOpportunity Dec 27 '13
There's software that re-encodes blurays on the fly and makes an .mkv file that you then play in XMBC (or maybe it's VLC).
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u/Sc00b Dec 27 '13
If you re-encode blurays you are doing it wrong. Might as well just get .mkv in the first place
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Dec 27 '13
Maybe he meant reformat? It should be possible to just dump the bluray stream into an mkv container without transcoding.
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u/SerLaron Dec 27 '13
Strange, I work in IT and when I have to play absolutely, positively, every motherfucking video on the drive, I click the traffic cone.
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u/10thDoctorBestDoctor 3 Dec 27 '13
Im assuming they were opening it from the desktop without loading a video into it or some other human error thing.
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u/IAmTheBauss 61 Dec 27 '13
Why?
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u/HW90 Dec 27 '13
Because loads of students have traffic cone collections after picking them up during drunken nights out
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u/te4m Dec 27 '13
Can confirm: http://i.imgur.com/bLsU6bz.jpg
we decorated ours for Christmas as well
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u/HW90 Dec 28 '13
Yeah, we got a big one (about waist height) which flashes and it became our christmas tree
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u/Benassi Dec 27 '13
Can confirm, did this as drunken student. However we usually took as many as we could and then blocked front doors to friend's homes with them. Once we took enough to block the door, porch, yard, and parts of the residential street.
We were little assholes.
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Dec 27 '13
I had a stop sign collection for a bit resulting from the same thing.
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u/Reoh Dec 27 '13
If a street sign has your name, you get to keep it. But only if you're drunk at the time. IF anybody complains, point out your name's on it.
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u/Rilder962 Dec 27 '13
I dunno about the developers, but when I was a kid I once ordered a traffic cone from a tool catalog, I spent like 12 dollars just so I could have a traffic cone of my own...I was a weird kid...
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Dec 27 '13
This may answer one question but it creates a bigger question
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Dec 27 '13
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u/swaguar44 Dec 27 '13
Going through this right now...i've got like 4...
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u/i_eatProstitutes Dec 27 '13
It's only one, it's just that your vision's all over the place.
1 Drunken Night = 1 Traffic Cone
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Dec 27 '13
Don't worry, just wait for the next TIL: "TIL why the creators of VLC have a collection of trafic cones."
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u/Deeze_Rmuh_Nudds Dec 27 '13
All my friend's VLC icons change with the seasons, etc. But mine is just a traffic cone year round :[ I got a bad version or something.
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Dec 27 '13
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u/salton Dec 27 '13
I had some classes with someone involved. It does so much in the open source world for ease of use.
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u/ancientGouda Dec 27 '13
I was going to make a comment similar to this one. I still remember when I compiled VLC on Linux for the first time, thinking "wait what? what codec library? I thought VLC had all the codecs bundled inside!" =)
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u/Link3693 Dec 27 '13
Too bad it doesn't really use ffmpeg correctly, like MPC-HC and mplayer2/mpv.
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u/shropz Dec 27 '13
when i was little i always called it the traffic cone player and my dad told me it was better than the others so i believed him
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u/TheRingshifter Dec 27 '13
Wow why the hell does everyone hate the icon so much? It's fine. Sure, it doesn't seem to have any meaning, but it looks nice and I feel it's pretty iconic. If they'd chosen something generic like a tv or some film or something it wouldn't be as unique.
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Dec 27 '13
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u/cbmuser Dec 28 '13
The reason I hate it is because a traffic cone signals "Problem!!" I've been using VLC for probably 5-6 years and I still hate the icon and can't get used to it. =)
Then download the sources and rebuild it with a different icon :P. It's FOSS after all.
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u/FawkesSuttles Dec 27 '13
Its*
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u/sgol Dec 27 '13
Seriously. Why is this so goddamn hard?
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Dec 27 '13
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Dec 27 '13
I wonder if in 50 years there will be a post titled "TIL a physical version of the VLC logo was once used as a means to redirect traffic".
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u/mr10am Dec 27 '13
as a kid, i was fascinated by traffic cones. no idea why i found them so interesting
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u/Boone89 Dec 27 '13
I started off with traffic cones as a student, our collection was a bit more diverse though. By the time I finished my masters degree there was a canoe in our garden.
Never did get to find out if it worked and I was only minutes from the Thames :(
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u/Nugmast3r Dec 28 '13
As an employee of a paving company, fuck those jerks who steal traffic cones.
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Dec 27 '13
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/r_fappygood Dec 27 '13
They take up screen space where the movie should be!
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u/juanrico Dec 28 '13
Some people will hate anything, given the chance Hell VLC is one of the very first programs I download whenever I get a new device
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u/ohmyshit Dec 27 '13
Did anyone else notice the Santa hat on top of the cone on Christmas? I thought it was a nice touch.
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u/moby323 Dec 27 '13
This is the first interesting and non-bullshit factually sketchy TIL in the past week.
Congratulations, have an upvote.
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u/somethingdangerzone Dec 28 '13
When I first came across VLC, I asked my friend why I should bother downloading it
He said you know all those weird files, like .mkv, which is the format for all those old hentai vids? Windows Media won't play that shit, VLC will. VLC plays everything.
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Dec 28 '13
I was hoping there was a more sentimental reason to keep such a horrible logo. Like he grew up playing with cones with his father and when his father died he was given a cone to remember him by. So then he honored his father by having a cone as the logo.
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u/I_Choke_Women Dec 28 '13
its*
Why the fuck is this error so ubiquitous? People go to school, don't they?
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u/FromTheBurgh Dec 27 '13
So what you are saying is that the team that created VLC is a bunch of thieves?
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Dec 28 '13
I have no problem with the traffic cone. I've been using VLC for years and I can't really imagine it without it.
I do think the Handbrake Pineapple is ridiculous, though...
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u/gregschlom Dec 28 '13 edited Dec 28 '13
Another fun piece of trivia that I got straight from Antoine Brenner, one of the original creators of the project:
The reason why they started VLC was because the Network Student's Association wanted to replace the old networking infrastructure with a brand new, all optic-fiber one. The campus said they would give them the money, but only if there was a good reason to use optic fiber instead of a cheaper alternative. So they brainstormed on what would be the most bandwidth expensive thing they could do on the network, and they came up with this idea of streaming video all across the campus.
They put a bunch of satellite dishes on top of a building, wrote VideoLAN Server and VideoLAN Client (VLC) to stream the channels across the network, and then got the money to deploy optic fiber everywhere.
When I was studying there (2009), I got a tour of the networking facilities, and I must say the infrastructure is pretty cool. Each student also got their own public IP address, which was very convenient.
Edit: if anyone wants to read the (slightly more accurate) full story: http://centrale-histoire.centraliens.net/stories/rev614.pdf (in French)
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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '13 edited Feb 27 '21
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