VLC media player to get Torrent capability soon?

Published February 13, 2013 7:46am

What has been considered a Swiss knife of media players may soon get a lot more versatile.

The VLC media player, revered by many for its ability to play various media formats, may gain BitTorrent streaming abilities too, a tech site reported.

Citing a report on TorrentFreak, The Next Web said a group of supporters had pledged $10,000 to find the developer to help them support the file-sharing protocol.

"As reported by TorrentFreak, the group of supporters have spoken with VLC’s creators, VideoLAN, and posted a new project on freelance coding marketplace Elance, offering $10,000 to developers that can commit to the project and outfit the application with the features that it would need," it said.

Also, the developer should be able to add support for Torrent files or Magnet links, allowing users to “start watching any media files within VLC after a minimal delay.”

On the other hand, The Next Web quoted VideoLAN’s Jean-Baptiste Kempf as saying developers had submitted their own code to add such a feature, but were "lacking in quality."

He said BitTorrent-related modules for VLC have been of low code quality so far and have not been merged.

"We really care about code quality and maintenance, since we are not many in the VLC project,” Kempf told TorrentFreak.

Kempf said that while a BitTorrent module for VLC "could be a fun idea," it should "match and behave correctly" in the VLC architecture.

Still, The Next Web said VLC can expect a boost in its user base, "if developers are able to make the project a reality." — ELR, GMA News

Tags: vlcmediaplayer, bittorrent