Is VLC the only video player Macs need these days?

[tuqqer]

I used to have Flip4Mac, MPlayerX, Perian, and QuickTime Pro, but rarely do any of these work to play video files any more. The only one that consistently opens and plays EVERY video file is the freeware, VLC.

Is that your experience as well?

Have most of you simply dumped the other video apps, and now just use VLC?

I'm forever surprised that video files continue to be so oddly hard to play on one simple Mac application that Apple simply included with their OSX software. I feel for any Mac newbie trying to play video files. From a marketing standpoint, I wonder if anyone at Apple sees this as bad marketing, like I do.

In any case, I'm grateful for the team behind VLC.

[Black]

tuqqer wrote:
I wonder if anyone at Apple sees this as bad marketing, like I do.

Apple doesn't care about anything until it becomes a PR or support headache.

[jdc]

I dont even have VLC.

I cant really even think of a time that I ever needed it?

What is it exactly used for?

[Article Accelerator]

tuqqer wrote: Have most of you simply dumped the other video apps, and now just use VLC?

I mostly use QuickTime Player. For weird video files, VLC does the rest.

I do not use any plug-ins at all.

[sekker]

Haven't found anything that VLC doesn't play.

[jonny]

I think it's pathetic how often QP chokes on a file. What is Apple thinking?

[Article Accelerator]

jonny wrote:
I think it's pathetic how often QP chokes on a file. What is Apple thinking?

I think Apple is thinking that it only wants to support (and promote) ubiquitous, open video standards, i.e. H.264:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison...at_ability

[jonny]

Idiotic. I teach documentary film and it is pretty much universally held among my students that Quicktime player is weak.

And, on a side note, the number of my students editing on Final Cut has gone from 90%+ to close to zero.

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=jonny]
I think it's pathetic how often QP chokes on a file. What is Apple thinking?

I think Apple is thinking that it only wants to support (and promote) ubiquitous, open video standards, i.e. H.264:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison...at_ability

[Lew Zealand]

In recent versions of OS X (10.10 and 10.11), QT player seems to play fewer file formats than before. I was a big QT proponent when codecs could be added (via Perian, etc.) to play almost anything, but nowadays it's VLC all the way.

VLC rocks.

[tuqqer]

Glad I checked on this, and to see I'm not the only one who's seeing QT croak and almost every file I hand it except MP4s. Thanks all for the feedback.

Ok, I'm dumping the rest and sticking only with VLC. I actually just donated to their developer's site.