Bug 469822

Summary:	Please be more explicit about whether to package with VLC or not
Product:	[Applications] Elisa	Reporter:	Jack Hill <jackhill3103>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Matthieu Gallien <matthieu_gallien>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	jf.mundox, nate, timaadu756
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Jack Hill 2023-05-15 21:54:05 UTC

SUMMARY
Elisa currently has libVLC set as a recommended package, but not all distros seem to compile with VLC. This comment from a merge request ( https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/elisa/-/merge_requests/400#note_606702 ) seems to indicate that the VLC backend is purely to allow Elisa to play patented codecs on Windows without the user having to manually install codecs. Hence, it makes me wonder if we should recommend that package maintainers should package Elisa *without* VLC.

If the Qt6 ffmpeg backend allows us to use patented codecs on Windows then the VLC backend will become obsolete anyway, so it's likely we'll drop the VLC backend at some point in the future. Might as well start pushing for it now, right?

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2023-05-16 18:46:41 UTC

If the Qt6 QtMultimedia backend can supplant the VLC backend completely, then I'm all for it.