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takeshi7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 12, 2014
26
0
A few weeks ago, I asked on the VLC media player Facebook page if they can recompile for OSX PowerPC. The PowerPC version is getting somewhat long in the tooth. At the time they said there were some technical challenges preventing them from making it for PowerPC any more. But lo and behold I get on today and there is a new update available for PowerPC. I just thought I'd spread the word on here. I think it is great that there is still software teams willing to support this old, but still capable architecture.
 

takeshi7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 12, 2014
26
0
Oh no. I guess they are having technical difficulties. When I click on the link for 2.0.10 (the new version) I get a 404 error. I guess the mirror is currently down.
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,455
4,405
Delaware
I just launched VLC, and a window popped up, telling me that an update was available. I let that install, and now have the PPC version 2.0.10

I know that not everyone is comfortable with doing the internal updates, but usually works for me...
 

gavinstubbs09

macrumors 65816
Feb 17, 2013
1,386
256
NorCal boonies ~~~by Reno sorta
Glad to see a new update as they were gonna kick us to the curb, running great on my G5!
 

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Goftrey

macrumors 68000
May 20, 2011
1,853
75
Wales, UK
Running like a dream on my MDD. So glad they backtracked & released this update. Keeping the numbers up - especially with such a big player is always good.
 

CptSky

macrumors regular
Feb 1, 2013
147
29
A few weeks ago, I asked on the VLC media player Facebook page if they can recompile for OSX PowerPC. The PowerPC version is getting somewhat long in the tooth. At the time they said there were some technical challenges preventing them from making it for PowerPC any more. But lo and behold I get on today and there is a new update available for PowerPC. I just thought I'd spread the word on here. I think it is great that there is still software teams willing to support this old, but still capable architecture.

VLC 2.1 is not supported on PowerPC. The 2.0.X version is still updated.
 

takeshi7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 12, 2014
26
0
VLC 2.1 is not supported on PowerPC. The 2.0.X version is still updated.

Unfortunately you're right. I hope they can get those new versions with h.265 working on PowerPC. That would extend my Mac's usefulness as a media player for the foreseeable future.
 
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AmestrisXServe

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2014
263
4
Unfortunately you're right. I hope they can get those new versions with h.265 working on PowerPC. That would extend my Mac's usefulness as a media player for the foreseeable future.

I'm a bit perplexed. I had thought that VLC for PPC OSX was axed around v0.92, or v0.98. At least, that is what I last saw in their public archives, and those v0.9 releases are terribly broken and big-ridden.

Did I somehow miss all of these releases, or do they require Leopard?

Confirmed, versions newer than 0.9x require Leopard, or later. I do not know why, but they have a hard-coded OS Version requirement in the binary. Why can they compile 2.0.10, while no-one has ever fixed the bugs in 0.9x, that cause a crash when using the playlist (for anything), to allow h.264 in Tiger?

I'll continue to file this under lazyware, until someone compiles a version that is at least 10.4 compatible, and newer than 1.0.0. I would suspect that while 0.9.10 is the latest binary, that v 1.0.x could compile, or at least, the error in the GUI could be resolved by someone.

For those unaware, dropping any file onto the playlist causes a crash in v0.9x; or simply refuses to add anything, always displaying a 'blank' playlist. Another oddity happened somewhere between 0.84 and 0.86i, as 0.84 opens in about two and one-half seconds, whereas 0.8.6i takes over a full minute. (Thirty times as long.)

I think these are related to a change in the VLC preferences, but I have not seen any direct documentation on either problem. Occasionally, deleting the VLC preferences fixes these issues, but they can periodically return without warning.
 
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ihuman:D

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2012
925
1
Ireland
I'm a bit perplexed. I had thought that VLC for PPC OSX was axed around v0.92, or v0.98. At least, that is what I last saw in their public archives, and those v0.9 releases are terribly broken and big-ridden.

Did I somehow miss all of these releases, or do they require Leopard?

Confirmed, versions newer than 0.9x require Leopard, or later. I do not know why, but they have a hard-coded OS Version requirement in the binary. Why can they compile 2.0.10, while no-one has ever fixed the bugs in 0.9x, that cause a crash when using the playlist (for anything), to allow h.264 in Tiger?

I'll continue to file this under lazyware, until someone compiles a version that is at least 10.4 compatible, and newer than 1.0.0. I would suspect that while 0.9.10 is the latest binary, that v 1.0.x could compile, or at least, the error in the GUI could be resolved by someone.

For those unaware, dropping any file onto the playlist causes a crash in v0.9x; or simply refuses to add anything, always displaying a 'blank' playlist. Another oddity happened somewhere between 0.84 and 0.86i, as 0.84 opens in about two and one-half seconds, whereas 0.8.6i takes over a full minute. (Thirty times as long.)

I think these are related to a change in the VLC preferences, but I have not seen any direct documentation on either problem. Occasionally, deleting the VLC preferences fixes these issues, but they can periodically return without warning.

:rolleyes: You sound like some self-entitled, rich, snob. Get over yourself. The people responsible for back porting are doing this for you in there free time - I think they could be doing other things than that, they don't have to do this. Why don't you compile this for 10.4, then? Until you do I'm filing you under lazyware.
Has it ever crossed your mind that the technologies and libraries requires by VLC to operate are just not there in 10.4? That there is just no point in supporting or spending valuable resources for an OS that is barely capable for supporting the program? Limited time and effort is much better spent on supporting platforms that you can actually work with and support than wasting it on another that would require a near-rewrite which would throw out a good portion of the code and time and effort used to create it.
Of course since you know what to do you could just compile a version 10.4 compatible. Or are you just too lazyware?
 

tigerintank

macrumors 6502
Jun 16, 2013
271
47
don't have access to my iMac g5 right now.

does anyone know if this will improve performance and allow higher spec video to be played, as well as the additional functionality that comes with a later release?
 

takeshi7

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 12, 2014
26
0
don't have access to my iMac g5 right now.

does anyone know if this will improve performance and allow higher spec video to be played, as well as the additional functionality that comes with a later release?

I'm not really sure if you should expect performance increases from this release. It is more focused on bug fixes than performance.
 

MrPilot

macrumors 6502
Apr 30, 2013
316
24
version 2.0.10 changelog:

Changes between 2.0.9 and 2.0.10:
---------------------------------

Core:
* Fix broken behavior with SOCKSv5 proxies
* Fix integer overflow on error when using vlc_readdir

Access:
* Fix DVB-T2 tuning on Linux

Decoders:
* Fix some Opus crashes with some filters

Video output:
* Performance improvements on OS X if a Mac includes more than one GPU
* Stability improvements on OS X

Demuxers:
* Fix youtube, dailymotion, cue lua parsers
* Fix divide by 0 on ASF/WMV parsing
* Fix missing samples at the end of some wav files

HTTP lua interface:
* Stability improvements

Contribs:
* Fix live555 and libpng security issues
 
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AmestrisXServe

macrumors 6502
Feb 6, 2014
263
4
:rolleyes: You sound like some self-entitled, rich, snob. Get over yourself. The people responsible for back porting are doing this for you in there free time - I think they could be doing other things than that, they don't have to do this. Why don't you compile this for 10.4, then? Until you do I'm filing you under lazyware.
Has it ever crossed your mind that the technologies and libraries requires by VLC to operate are just not there in 10.4? That there is just no point in supporting or spending valuable resources for an OS that is barely capable for supporting the program? Limited time and effort is much better spent on supporting platforms that you can actually work with and support than wasting it on another that would require a near-rewrite which would throw out a good portion of the code and time and effort used to create it.
Of course since you know what to do you could just compile a version 10.4 compatible. Or are you just too lazyware?

The current sources do not compile with XCode 2.5, and all the resources for doing this have vanished, right down to the documentation. The UI module is the primary culprit: The video modules are not the problem, and the developers wilfully abandoned the version that can compile on Tiger, for non-essential UI changes.

If the resources were still available, compiling it myself would not be as large or a problem, but even so, considering all of the other platforms that are still supported by the VLC team, some of which are far older than OSX 10.4, it still strikes me as a decision made with no regard to the userbase.

I wouldn't care if a build for 10.4 was released every year, or even every two years, but the project for XCode 2.5 was killed by a programming staff decision, regarding it as 'unnecessary', in 2009, and references for compiling on Tiger were eliminated from the technical documentation and the Wiki.

Beyond this, a version that could be compiled with gcc using Macports with other support libraries (GTK/Gnome/etc.) was never considered, and any topic relating to such was rejected out of hand, despite that the software should work under that kind of configuration, which would eliminate the need on XCode dependencies.

10.4, and for that matter, 10.3, can both support the core programme, and the a/v modules. Where is the reference material that documents what changes in the core require XCode 3 or XCode 4? Without that kind of documentation, code modification, and cross-porting by a person outside of the core dev team is not realistic. Those are the reasons for which I have not assembled a later build, or fork.
 
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