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VLC Player For Surface RT Scam for Money or What ?

F2504x4

New Member
Okay first off I know that the thread title is lets say attention getting, but with the lack of constistant updates from the developers on the progress of getting a working version out it nees to be to get some real answers from those involved in the project. I have been watching the other thread on this but not much has come out on what is going..
here are a couple of quotes of asking basically the same thing.. Very legit considering the money was collected long ago. Another point other apps came out that do work of the Arm based Tablet . It is time for real updates to come out regarding this, btw I tried to ask this question on VLC and it was quickly deleted.... To me I think they had no real interest in fulfilling task of getting a working version of VLC for arm based tablets.

So when is this coming for the RT? I'm really starting to get fed up with how long it is taking, it shouldn't take 2 bloody years to release this, if so this guy needs to find a new day job!

So 1) there is a bunch of them, and they STILL can't get it released almost 2yrs? and 2) sorry nonprofit doesn't compute when they received over $45,000 of donations from people who want to see VLC player on the Surface RT, so to me there's absolutely no excuses for taking so long... sounds like your making excuses for them. Their actions just say to me thanks for the money suckas!

qoute from VLC site : Funded! This project was successfully funded on Dec 29, 2012.
This project’s goal is a fully featured port of VLC media player to the new Windows 8 User Experience. A second release will also add support for Microsoft’s Surface tablets.

VLC media player for Windows is currently installed on about 100,000,000 devices worldwide. The existing version runs on Windows 8’s desktop mode, and is available only for Intel-based PCs. This new port will be natively integrated within the new User Experience and will also support ARM-based tablets in a subsequent release/ end quote

Two years and 40 some thousand dollars later and still no working player.

All that is needed is a real progress report with updates given in a more timely fashion....
 

kundas1

Well-Known Member
OMG don't get me started on this! this is utter complete BS what the people from VLC are doing! and I don't care what excuses or reasons but it shouldn't take 2 years to release an app when other programmers are releasing apps in like 2-6 months time! and that's a FACT. it's pretty blatantly obvious that the people of VLC are taking the money and having a good time and taking their sweet time releasing a working app and very very low on their interest list to complete.... it's not fair to all the donators and pretty insulting if you ask me, I have lost ALL respect for the VLC team and will never support them in any way or fashion ever again. I suggest to all those who donated to demand their money back for "goods not delivered" or sue them.. but that's just me lol
 

Hstakz

Member
100% agree with you!
OMG don't get me started on this! this is utter complete BS what the people from VLC are doing! and I don't care what excuses or reasons but it shouldn't take 2 years to release an app when other programmers are releasing apps in like 2-6 months time! and that's a FACT. it's pretty blatantly obvious that the people of VLC are taking the money and having a good time and taking their sweet time releasing a working app and very very low on their interest list to complete.... it's not fair to all the donators and pretty insulting if you ask me, I have lost ALL respect for the VLC team and will never support them in any way or fashion ever again. I suggest to all those who donated to demand their money back for "goods not delivered" or sue them.. but that's just me lol
 

oion

Well-Known Member
First of all, I expect none of you have either Kickstarter/crowdsource or programming experience, given your posts.

I've actually donated $$$ to several Kickstarters including a couple software ventures worth several million $USD, with 2-3 year expected cycles from actual for-profit dev firms, and which haven't been released yet. One has even been pushed back by half a year. But I knew the risks going in. Then there's the fact that primary goal of the VLC KS actually did come to fruition (Win8 Metro experience); therefore, it's legally impossible to classify the VLC kickstarter as a wholesale scam. The subsequent RT-ARM part is problematic if you donated solely for that purpose, and if you did donate (and none of you did, it sounds like, so you're just whining for the sake of whining), then certainly trying to get your money back from the Amazon fund connection may be worthwhile if you dropped a good chunk, but let's face it: Less than $80k USD is not very much especially for multiple programmers. It's barely enough for a single devoted dev for a single year. That money was used up quite a while ago just trying to debug the basic Metro interface for Win8 desktop, considering how many problems they were having late 2013. Also, only an idiot would use the word "donate" and then "demand refund"/whatever in the same breath.

What you call "excuses" is in fact "reality" in software development, sad but true. Especially for a nonprofit freeware venture where they can't even recoup some overhead by charging for the Win8 metro app...even if KS has some clause telling creators that they need to follow through, but Kickstarter explicitly never guarantees anything. Anyone who crowdfunded this has less stable legal footing for the sole reason that the Metro version was indeed released, so VLC really didn't just run off with the funds. Your lawsuit cries are amusing, especially from my point of view as an actual backer of many crowdsource projects. Here's an analysis on failed crowdsource vendures and why people who fund them (not any of YOU) need to have a very clear understanding of risks going into one.

If you want to humiliate them into submission by spamming social media and getting mass media on your side, there's that route. But the Windows ARM population out in the wild is low single digits and Surfaces are like the red-headed stepchild of mobile technology, already a laughingstock to many with expected death according to that same mass media. Devil's advocate says: definitely not worth pursuing anymore when the main bit was released already (on top of which the Windows RT philosophy is in direct opposition to VLC's foundation; maybe things would be different if MS didn't kill the jailbreak :p).

It would be better to have a closed-source paid app instead of the expected VLC free app. Part of the problem is that so many people scream and complain about apps costing more than $1 that developing for such a small market like Windows RT ends up being a vicious cycle of nothingness.

By the way, VLC is open source. So...get crackin'.
 

kundas1

Well-Known Member
Oion, you can try to spew your BS here but that's all it is... your nonsense and what you have to say is worth less than a Indonesia rupiah... save it for someone else as I have absolutely no interest in reading what you have to say. If you don't like what we feel and have to say about this, then go else where but others feel the same as I do. facta non verba!... Nuff said
 
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F2504x4

New Member
...........

Okay first money was raised and the goal exceeded.....Users came through on this request well over a year ago..

the biggest issue is the lack of updates on the progress, we all ..err well most of us realize it is not always easy getting a product developed . But that is not excuse for not giving regular progress reports. I do not mind donating to worthwhile projects, but when they do not hold up their end by either not producing a desired result or no updates then they get placed a on do not donate list which as many users who give money will remember . This hurts future donations...

As it stands KickStarter is on shaky ground....Do you see my point ?
Unfortunately this thread needed to be created to help insure that future projects that ask for donations do a better job of follow-ups, timely updates..etc....

@ kundas1 while I appreciate what you are saying as well, please tone it down just bit, I want to get some results and bring attention to this issue....
 
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kristalsoldier

Well-Known Member
I'll second this concern on the lack of updates - not only for the Windows platform, but also for the Android platform. I noticed last evening that on my partner's Nexus 10, the VLC app remains in beta - as far as I could discern, there appears to be no real issue with functionality, but the disclaimer is there. I only hope they are quicker with the Windows platform - both in terms of updates and in terms of releasing a RT version.

I do like VLC and use it all the time on my desktop machine. I also would not mind paying for it if it could work across my Windows devices but maybe that's a model that the VLC folks don't want to follow.
 
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F2504x4

New Member
Bump with some more lack luster news..

Unfortunately for Surface 2 owners, VLC for Windows 8 doesn’t yet support the ARM architecture — but the developers say that ARM support is coming eventually. <----Yea right

Way back in November 2012, VideoLAN (the group behind VLC) launched a Kickstarter project to fund the creation of Metro version of VLC. The Kickstarter went on to successfully raise around $80,000 — and now, just over a year later, VLC for Windows 8 has been released to the Metro app store. Being a beta release, there are some bugs, and it’s not 100% stable, but it’s still very usable. There’s no ARM support yet, but the original Kickstarter said there would be a “subsequent release” that adds it
VLC for Windows 8 finally arrives, bringing MKV and subtitle support to tablets | ExtremeTech
 
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F2504x4

New Member
Been searching to see if there has been any news of a VLC player for the Surface RT/2 yet...
Really frustrating to see them make promises of a player and then blow it off after they got the money...
 
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