this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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I'll allow their use of AI.

Sadly they've got a Ricky Gervais video as the ai subtitling sample, but then again it is his anti Hollywood golden globes speech... which was essentially controlled opposition.

Nevertheless.

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[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 95 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Finding VLC back in the day was euphoric; no more worrying about esoteric formats or “oh sorry you don’t have that codec good luck finding it,” everything just worked.

[–] CarbonScored@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I know I'm late to the party, but I do want to honor the CCCP, the Combined Community Codec Pack. As being an amazing set of open-source codecs that made most of my media work, pre-VLC. They used the hammer and sickle logo and all.

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 67 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'll allow their use of AI.

The problem with most any technology isn't that it exists, just how it's used. Like I've heard Netflix has started using "AI" to dub content, including adjusting the lip sync, and from basically the moment "AI" became the trend of the day, I was thinking about how it could be used very effectively in dubbing to make content much more accessible across the world — but when this is being done by a for-profit corporation, I'm of course going to be skeptical of it. It isn't exactly being done in the way I would've done it myself.

VLC on the other hand is FOSS developed by a non-profit organization, and it's calling this new feature "AI" because that's a word people recognize. "AI" is above all else a brand: if VLC were just upfront about how there's no real meaningful difference between this new feature and how automated audio transcription and local translation have worked for many years already, at least that I can tell, I guess that wouldn't have looked as "cool" on a booth sign.

[–] peppersky@hexbear.net -1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Like I've heard Netflix has started using "AI" to dub content, including adjusting the lip sync, and from basically the moment "AI" became the trend of the day, I was thinking about how it could be used very effectively in dubbing to make content much more accessible across the world — but when this is being done by a for-profit corporation, I'm of course going to be skeptical of it.

Dubbing has been done for like a hundred years, you don't need AI for it.

[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago

I was thinking more specifically about using voice cloning to help make dubs in small or endangered languages. Because obviously you don't "need" AI to make a dub — and ideally you really shouldn't — but if one actor alone can be given effectively infinite range, or multiple actors can take turns sharing the same voice, then this could drastically lower the barrier of entry for making a decent-quality dub of something, right? And there might be other use cases, too, but that's the thing that stands out to me.

[–] pinguinu@lemmygrad.ml 62 points 5 days ago
[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 45 points 4 days ago

VLC has been part of my default list of software that gets deployed out to PCs I manage for going on a decade now. It's just good software.

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 39 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

It’s a shame that one of the most famous anti-Hollywood speeches boils down to.

“Hey fellow rich people? You’re all too nice and it’s making everyone sick! Drop the philanthropy and be open douchebags!”

Literally a call for the ruling class to be LESS ethical.

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 22 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Zizek makes kind of the same point and I'd hate to go to bat for either of them but I think they're correct on that one. All the philantrophy is just bullshit anyways, smoke and mirrors. The only thing it serves to do is obfuscate the horrible shit

"It is good to be attacked by enemy"

[–] lukewarm_ozone 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

...do you truly think it's better for billionaires not to donate to charity than to do so? Because I'm sorry, but whatever complicated moral justification you have for berating them for it, these donations still have a large positive impact on the world.

[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago

well it's got charity written on there so it must be good

[–] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 42 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] ratboy@hexbear.net 19 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Wait why's he a fed? I just know that he's annoying

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 45 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Works for Bellingcat. They're an OSINT (open source intelligence) org who receive most of their funding from US/UK governments and NED (National Endowment for Democracy - US propaganda arm & CIA cutout).

Full of intelligence assets & aggressively manufacture consent (and sometimes faked 'evidence') in support of US foreign policy and to go after state enemies.

[–] ratboy@hexbear.net 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yikes, that's real bad. Wonder why he would be so open about being employed by them considering his audience

[–] REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Let's just say, a grifter has only to be smarter than his victims.

[–] ratboy@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I guess that's the thing, though. I assume that his target audience would be more capable if critical thinking if they knew this about him. Maybe it's just kinda buried info, unless you go poking around and researching Bellingcat or have followed him pretty closely over the years which I admit I've done neither

[–] REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 days ago

They only have to believe themselves to be able to think critically. Whill eating that NATO slob like good little piggies.

You do not even have to go as far as looking into Bellingcat, noticing how his "Bastards" somehow include the entire western shitlist is something that already leaves a rancit smell.

[–] MolotovHalfEmpty@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's still an enormous pool of Americans who maintain their chauvinism via the facade of the two party system, where every admitted problem with America can be attributed to the far right - whether that's fash marching in the streets, republican politicians, or 'rightwing' billionaires. Any uniparty or foreign policy can simply be blamed on the other team in order to preserve the idea of America as a postive beacon of light in the world, and mroe importantly, their own heads.

If your audience is only ever looking for you to prescribe blame to that group, you can completely wash any complicity of yourself or your audiences role and views in the problem.

[–] ratboy@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago

So basically you're saying that his audience are libs, more or less, who maintain that blind spot intentionally so that they don't have to engage in self criticism and do the hard work it takes to shift their own paradigm? Cuz yeah it's much easier to just take his word for it, I guess, than thinking that someone on "your team" could be doing something nefarious...It's just very difficult for me to understand people who are happy with surface explanations and don't want to do further investigation. To me that quality is the foundation of leftist thought.

If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt I could see him acting as a plant to throw the feds off, maybe, but how likely is that? Idk

[–] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 26 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

In addition to what Molotov said he's also openly talked about working with the feds training them to recognize online extremism, and I don't trust anyone who's willing to train cops

Edit: he-admit-it

[–] ratboy@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wah holy shit. So he was trying to harm reduction his CIA/Fed collaboration? Niiice

[–] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yea pretty much. He puts on this anarchist/leftist aesthetic/costume but anyone who works with the feds is no comrade of mine.

I believe his "defence" is that he's training them to persecute right-wing extremists, but I can't believe he's so naive as to think they wouldn't use that knowledge to suppress leftists

[–] ratboy@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago

Yeah that's super suspicious, and good to know. I was on a road trip and listened to one of his Behind the Bastards where Margaret Killjoy was the guest and he just flat out interrupted her constantly and kept finishing her sentences, it was so frustrating that even with that I decided I didn't like him but this is even more reason. Not just insufferable, but an insufferable opp

[–] Aquilae@hexbear.net 32 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I use MPV these days but VLC is a real one catgirl-salute

[–] Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] peppersky@hexbear.net 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Why?

Is it risky? Is there a safer alternative?

[–] niph@hexbear.net 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

VLC is truly irreplaceable. Its continued existence gives me hope for humanity

[–] merthyr1831@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

VLC is truly utopian

[–] ThermonuclearEgg@hexbear.net 25 points 5 days ago

I don't even use VLC and they still get my upbear

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 25 points 5 days ago

Pixelated Ricky Gervais looks an awful lot like treatler

[–] godlessworm@hexbear.net 22 points 5 days ago (1 children)

i always cringe when people on reddit post that speech like it's the most badass thing they've ever seen and heard. i never even watched it. once i heard it's ricky gervais "taking hollywood to task" i figured, i don't really need that in my life.

[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago

And nothing happened after. It's great someone was able to say some stuff about someone....but that means fuck all if there aren't any consequences. If you point out Harvey Weinstein's accomplices and enablers, but don't actually remove them from their positions or take legal action, you're the equivalent of a strongly worded letter to the editor.

Anywho I'm ranting but lately I've grown tired of liberals and their inaction or outright obstruction. They say shit like "So-and-so really went after Trump and tore right into him! Really slammed him!" When I point out he's not even getting fined, is still taking office, and definitely isn't going to prison, they always have some excuse.

[–] PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

My relationship with VLC is on the rocks due to the fact that it has a hard dependency on an old version of ffmpeg which causes annoyances on Gentoo.

[–] PoY@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 days ago

i can't seem to get the interface to work the way it used to.. it's always way too small now and i can't just pause/play by clicking in the window anymore.. there are tons of people with tutorials on how to fix that but I've gone down some crazy rabbit holes and never did get it to work

it drives me nuts because it used to be the default

also it does some really funky things in Android Auto like not loading a whole playlist and there's no random or repeat functionality which sucks but that's probably just Android Auto being a piece of crap

[–] Remotedeck@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Is vlc a piracy software that I didn't know had that functionality? I thought it was just a really good media player

It’s very good at playing those random garbage files people will upload that you accidentally downloaded.