I hope this doesn’t come across as a silly question, but I’m trying to understand how VLC gets integrated into other applications by examining source code.
A while back, I came across information suggesting that Miro utilizes VLC libraries or incorporates its source code somehow. But when I dig through the Miro codebase, I can’t locate any obvious VLC references or imports.
This has me puzzled about the integration approach. Does anyone know the specific technique Miro uses to incorporate VLC functionality? Are they using a wrapper library, dynamic loading, or some other method that makes the VLC dependency less obvious in the source?
I’d really appreciate any insights or pointers to help me understand this integration pattern better.
Check if Miro uses ffmpeg instead of VLC directly - tons of apps ditched VLC bindings coz they’re a pain to maintain. The VLC integration might be compiled as native extensions too, so you wouldn’t see it in the main source tree.
From what I remember working with Miro’s code a few years back, they dropped VLC integration in later versions. The VLC stuff was handled through Python bindings like python-vlc or libvlc bindings - that’s probably why you’re not seeing direct VLC references in the main source files. These bindings usually get loaded dynamically at runtime instead of being statically imported, so they’re harder to track down in the code. Check the requirements files or setup scripts for VLC dependencies, and look for media player abstraction layers that might be wrapping the VLC calls. Also, Miro eventually switched to GStreamer for media playback in some distributions, so depending on which version you’re looking at, the VLC integration might not even be there anymore.
Depends on which Miro version you’re looking at. I’ve debugged similar media issues before - Miro uses libvlc through ctypes bindings, not regular Python imports. VLC components get loaded via dlopen calls or similar dynamic loading, which is why you can’t find obvious import statements. The integration happens in media backend modules where they define function prototypes and load VLC shared libraries at runtime. Search for ctypes usage or shared library loading patterns instead of direct VLC imports. Also, some distros packaged Miro with VLC support compiled separately, so the actual integration code might be in platform-specific packaging rather than the main source tree you’re checking.
The integration probably uses conditional imports or a plugin system that only loads VLC when it’s available. I’ve seen this same confusing setup when looking at media apps with multiple backends. Miro likely has a media abstraction layer where VLC is just one option among several engines. The actual VLC code might be hidden in platform-specific modules or separate plugin folders you won’t see in the main codebase. Try grepping for “libvlc” or “vlc” (case-insensitive) across the whole project - include config files and build scripts. Sometimes these integrations just call VLC as a subprocess instead of linking libraries directly, which makes them nearly impossible to find without running the code.