Sadly i recently learned VLC doesn’t just always work.

About a year ago i had an issue with playing FLAC files on VLC, where there would be short periods of no audio. I had recently made some upgrades to my audio hardware, so i was looking at my new hardware/cables/config… but in the end i realized it always happened at the same point in the same files, so a software issue was more likely:

https://code.videolan.org/videolan/vlc/-/issues/27696

Nice quote from this issue: VLC is broken since months Use their nightly version, it has a nice new interface too, and no bugs. I don’t get how they can keep a huge breaking bug like this in vlc from MONTHS.

And neither can i… until a year ago VLC was for me the pinnacle of “it just works”. Now after them leaving a bug causing audio playback issues into their stable version for months, they broke my trust in them… they’re probably still the best option out there, but now i’ll just say probably, not for sure, and there is room for improvement…

And if it were some obscure format, sure, but FLAC? …

I love his reply, but i’m afraid history so far has shown that supporting open platforms is not a competitive advantage. The number of hackers like us in the smart home market is negligable. Proper closed platforms rake in the big money, and the public loves it… Add on some cloud integration & a subscription to functionalities that would take a home assistant user not much time to set up, and you’ve got something the average customer seems to want…

Still a shit (and probably without any real legal basis) attempt by Haier, but if they’re actually aiming at a walled smart home system, from an economical perspective they’re probably right… And i hate that they’re right…