[ryandrake]

Hah! I actually initiated the project because I'm a long time XBMC/Kodi user. I started using it when it was called XBMC, on an actual Xbox 1. I am sick and tired of its crashing, poor playback performance, and increasingly bloated feature set. It's embarrassing when I have friends or family over for movie night, and I have to explain "Sorry folks, Kodi froze midway through the movie again" while I frantically try to re-launch/reboot my way back to watching the movie. VLC's playback engine is much better but the VLC app's TV UX is ass. This application actually uses the libVLC playback engine under the hood.

[apitman]

I think anecdotes like this may prove very relevant the next few years. AI might make bad code, but a project of bad code that's still way smaller than a bloated alternative, and has a UX tailored to your exact requirements could be compelling.

A big part of the problem with existing software is that humans seem to be pretty much incapable of deciding a project is done and stop adding to it. We treat creating code like a job or hobby instead of a tool. Nothing wrong with that, unless you're advertising it as a tool.

[ryandrake]

Yea, after this little experiment, I feel like I can just go through every big, bloated, slow, tech-debt-ridden software I use and replace it with a tiny, bespoke version that does only what I need and no more.

The old adage about how "users use 10% of your software's features, but they each use a different 10%" can now be solved by each user just building that 10% for themselves.

[indigodaddy]

Have you tried VidHub? Works nicely against almost anything. Plex, jellyfin, smb/webdav folder etc