
VLC 360° Technical Preview - SkarredGhost
http://people.videolan.org/~jb/Builds/360/
======
AdmiralAsshat
Can someone familiar with the project explain why Linux support isn't
available yet? I'm not familiar with how VLC's code is structured, other than
a Qt-driven interface. I guess I assumed that the backend was cross-platform
as well. Does the 360 degree support depend on libraries that are not yet
widely available for Linux?

~~~
jbk
It works totally fine on Linux, without any issue.

We just don't provide Linux binaries, except Ubuntu Snaps, because it is
extremely difficult to do.

Just pull the code from the repo and you'll get that :)

~~~
jmhain
> We just don't provide Linux binaries, except Ubuntu Snaps, because it is
> extremely difficult to do.

Have you considered packaging with Flatpak [0] as well? Very similar to Snaps,
but it'll work with many distros instead of just Ubuntu.

[0] [http://flatpak.org/](http://flatpak.org/)

~~~
morganvachon
According to the Flatpak site, you have to install the Flatpak base first,
which is only officially available for Fedora, Arch, and Ubuntu, with
unofficial/testing/backported ports for a couple other distros. There is no
source download I could find on the site, which is necessary to build it for
unlisted distros like Slackware (though I suspect its strict reliance on
_systemd_ would cause issues there anyway).

This all flies in the face of their marketing statement "The days of chasing
multiple Linux distributions are over"; you can't claim a one-size-fits-all
system if it only fits six out of hundreds of distros.

Edit: To the downvoters, please reply instead, and tell me why you disagree
with what I wrote. If I'm wrong I'll own it.

~~~
l2dy
I didn't downvote you, but here's the source[1].

[1] [https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak](https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak)

~~~
morganvachon
Yep, I found the source by searching for it on Github, what I was calling out
was the fact that a link to the source from the Flatpak website itself was
buried at the very bottom of the "about" section where I missed it completely
the first few times I went over the site. It should have been included in the
"Build" or at least "Developer" section of the site.

Maybe it's just an oversight on their part, but I find the lack of any
discussion of source or licensing (is it GPL, MIT, BSD?) on the site a bit of
a put-off. I see from digging into the Github files it's LGPL, but why not
advertise that, and the source link, more prominently on the main page? That,
along with the other issue I mentioned (catering to only a few distros while
claiming support for all distros) gives me pause.

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fsiefken
360-degree feature request: interpolating 360 degree video from standard 16:9
Lost episode format. This should be doable as most information is there in
previous and future frames so a 3d Photosynth (Microsoft) like model can be
build. The rest can be guesed or be given a default texture themed by the
surrounding pixels (like Philips Ambient), similar as to how people color
black and white pictures or enlarge pictures with fractal-based interpolation
techniques.

~~~
pedalpete
I think what you're suggesting is create the scene based on multiple shots and
removing the people? Or just using different scenery shots? Is that correct.

It's actually quite interesting and I think you are correct that you could
create a 360 environment from a trove of clips which is 'good enough' to pass.

I do wonder about how the story line unfolds in 360. A film was made with cuts
so you didn't have to move around. What happens when an actor on your left is
speaking to an actor on your right, or behind you. Do you miss out on bits
because you were not looking where the director thought you would? do you feel
more or less realism? It's an interesting proposition.

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martell
Where can I get some decent Creative Commons 360 video resources to play
around with this or some decent paid film I can buy made in this format?

I am Looking forward to the watching films with a VR headset when support is
added next year. Good stuff jbk and team

~~~
SexyCyborg
My stuff is all Creative Commons:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzGeUG3dR0tKtO0KVkANv...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzGeUG3dR0tKtO0KVkANv4D2VxLVl9RrG)

You can use a plugin to download them. Resolution is not amazing (used LG 360)
but decent enough.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Off topic: I absolutely love your DIY posts on Reddit. Appreciate the openness
in which you deep dive into your projects.

~~~
SexyCyborg
Thanks!

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y04nn
Well done, I like the possibility to change the "focal length". One thing I
don't like on Youtube 360° videos is that they are too zoomed in this makes it
difficult to watch.

~~~
jbk
We spent a large amount of time troll^Wdiscussing about the behaviour of the
"focal length", notably whether we should increase the fov, the zoom or both,
depending on the angle requested. I have to say that I'm quite happy with what
we've decided to use, in the end.

So your comment makes me happy :)

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someonewithpc
Not to be pedantic, but it should be called spherical video. :P

~~~
camoby
Not to be pedantic, but it should be called Equirectangular video. :P

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babayega2
Any Linux support (build) yet ? It seems to indicate that it works on MacOS
and Windows only.

~~~
jbk
We usually don't build binaries for Linux, we let the distributions do it, by
themselves.

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camoby
Just a bit of feedback: One thing I noticed, compared to the 2.2.4 version is
the errors and warning popup.

On the 2.2.4 version, all errors/warnings (eg: from a playlist which hits some
404s) appear in a small single list window and do not require a click OK to
continue.

This new version pops all errors into a separate pop-up which requires an OK
to dismiss.

Pretty annoying.

Otherwise, great to see 360 video adoption.

ps: Also, I used to be able to drag the video around (or to another monitor)
in the middle of the player screen. Now it appears that I have to grab the
title bar.

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fsiefken
I get 360 degree video, but is there support for 360 degree stereoscopic
video? For example can you load two 360 degree videos taken an inch apart and
play together?

~~~
mdrzn
In what way would you put two 360° camera 1inch apart? Apart in what
direction? One would block at least 180° of the other cam.

I guess you would need at least 4 to get the result you want.

~~~
crazygringo
It's super cool. Like this:

[https://gopro.com/odyssey](https://gopro.com/odyssey)

[https://vr.google.com/jump/](https://vr.google.com/jump/)

"Advanced computer vision and a whole lot of computing power to transform 16
pieces of video into stereoscopic VR video."

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superdude
Whoa that's pretty impressive.

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bitmapbrother
This is nice and all, but where's the Chromecast support they promised a long
time ago?

~~~
jbk
ChromeCast is in all the nightly builds since a very long time.

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skrowl
Will this eventually work with the hardware on my Pixel XL and my Daydream
headset?

~~~
jbk
We hope so, yes.

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garaetjjte
How to enable stereographic ("little planet") projection?

~~~
jbk
little planet is not stereographic, but you activate that by zooming out and
dragging it as you like.

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krick
I wonder when something like this will be available for mpv.

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jbk
I don't want to be rude, but you _really_ should use the official URL:
[http://people.videolan.org/~jb/Builds/360/](http://people.videolan.org/~jb/Builds/360/)
.

The current link is quite fishy, tbh.

Source: I wrote this page and this build, and I lead VLC development...

~~~
x0f1a
Hello Jean-Baptiste, first, thanks so much for VLC. Incredible contribution to
keep the personal computing free. I have a curiosity, is there any reason for
not distributing officially the 64bits version? I guess it would very useful,
as lot of heavy users have from 16 to 64gb of RAM. thanks again.

~~~
jbk
Hey x0f1a,

Just laziness from my side, I have to admit. It is just a preview, so I
thought one build using 32bits is fine for everyone, it's not an everyday
build.

The nightly builds are still both 32 and 64bits and will work fine, as soon as
all patches are in.

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butterfi
No disrespect is meant to OP, but since I don't know anything about
softwarecrew.com and the site looks sketchy as hell, I would offer:
[https://nightlies.videolan.org/](https://nightlies.videolan.org/)

~~~
evv
If this had been posted on medium, nobody would have accused the source of
being sketchy. Statements like yours encourage people to publish on big
centralized sites, which are easier to control and censor. This centralization
slowly erodes the open web, so thanks for that.

~~~
brazzledazzle
This site has an off feel. If it didn't have the sidebar filled with ads and a
"freeware rehoster" look it would fair a lot better. The name is debatable but
"crew" has a piracy/hacker connotation for me.

I think lot's of personal or non-central sites fly under the radar but this is
the first time I've seen this insinuated that I can remember so I could be
wrong.

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gf263
This site makes me feel dirty.

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mtgx
Meanwhile, subtitle support hasn't been working for weeks. And it still takes
5-6 clicks to even download a subtitle, while on other players it's either
automatic or 1 click away. Why does the VLC team care so little about
subtitles? This could be trivial to fix with a small UI change, yet it would
have a big impact on people who need subtitles.

~~~
jeremiep
Its open-source, nothing prevents you from stepping in and fixing it yourself.

I had no problems with subtitles, and can't find any issue related to it that
isn't years old. I'd say if there's an issue its either unknown or low
priority from the low demand to fix it.

~~~
voltagex_
VLC probably has a lower barrier to entry than some projects, but this advice
still grates every time I hear it. There's a lot of things that could
potentially stop someone contributing to VLC, even the ability to build it
from source.

