VLC for Windows 8 development taking longer than expected

[Half Monk 697]

VideoLAN successfully raised enough money via Kickstarter several months ago to work on a port of the popular free media player VLC for Windows 8. However, the development of the port has taken longer than expected.

 

 

VideoLAN President Jean-Baptiste Kempf made a post on his personal blog Sunday to explain, in highly technical detail, what he and the Windows 8 VLC team have had to go through to develop the Windows 8 port.

Kempf states:

The main objective of the Kickstarter was the compliance of this core to the WinRT Store Application limitations. We're almost there, but not quite.

 

The biggest hurdle was working with the forbidden APIs. Kempf says there were over 15,000 symbols that had to be dealt with in VLC, including 600 unique symbols (Windows API calls). He says there are now just 16 symbols left, with another 32 if the team wants to use the networking code. Kempf says, "This is cool, but not enough, since we must be at 0 to enter the store."

 

However, Kempf seemed confident that the remaining issues would be taken care of, but added there is still a lot of work to do before the VLC Windows 8 port is ready to launch. He offered no clue as to a specific release date.