VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multi-platform multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, Ogg, OGM, MOV, wma, wmv...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
The VideoLAN project targets multimedia streaming of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and DivX files, DVDs, digital satellite channels, digital terrestial television channels and live videos on a high-bandwidth IPv4 or IPv6 network in unicast or multicast under many OSes. VideoLAN also features a cross-platform multimedia player, VLC, which can be used to read the stream from the network or display video read locally on the computer under all GNU/Linux flavours, all BSD flavours, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, Solaris, QNX, Familiar Linux... It's Freeware
Features in VLC (VideoLAN Client):
- Rewrite of the playlist (tree structure, input preparsing ...)
- Preferences improvements
- XML parsers
- Client-side SSL/TLS support
- Massive Matroska improvements
- Support for SOCKS proxy
- Support for Shoutcast Meta-data
- Support for (HE-)AAC raw-audio streams
- TiVo demuxer
- Samba (Windows shares) access module
- Dirac decoder and encoder
- PNG decoder/encoder
- Support for Apple Lossless Audio Codec
- Services discovery modules (brand new SAP module, HAL discovery, DAAP (iTunes shares), shoutcast)
- Support for 20/24 bits LPCM
- Video snapshot support (png or jpg)
- Image file video output (png)
- Mosaic (picture-in-picture system)
- Pocket PC port
- Brand new Internet Explorer ActiveX plugin
New in this version:
Core support:
* Statistics collection (bitrates, packets, connections, ...)
* Support for downloading updates
* Updated strings
Input:
* Initial support for RTSP-over-HTTP (to allow NAT traversal)
* Linux DV (Digital Video - Firewire) input
* Improvements to the Audio CD input
- Separate playlist entries for the tracks
- Support for CDDB
* Support for more DVB (satellite) encryption modules
* Improved subtitles encoding support
* Improved support for playing MP4 files from the Web
Decoders:
* Cook (Real audio) support
Playlist / Services discovery:
* XSPF playlist support
* Podcast support
* Updated Shoutcast to use new listing
Audio output:
* New JACK audio output
Video output:
* New video filters:
- magnify: allows you to zoom on part of the image
- gradient and edge detection: "cartoon-like" effect
- bluescreen: overlay parts of a video transparently on another one
* Logo video filter: can now loop through multiple images
* RSS video filter: display feed images. Support for Atom feeds.
* Improvements to the subtitles rendering
Stream output:
* Initial support for throttling users on VOD streams
Interfaces:
* System to inform the user and request information
- HTTP authentication
- Fatal errors
- ...
* wxWidgets
- VLM (VideoLAN Media Manager) control panel
- Improved media information panel (shows statistics, metadata, ...)
- Drag & Drop support in the playlist
* Skins2
- New default skin
- Support for Winamp 2 skins
- Improved playlist handling
- Support for popup menus, animated bitmaps, equalizer, ...
* OS X
- Embedded Video output
- new Go-To-Specific-Time feature
- Video cropping and aspect ratio changing while playing
- Improved media information panel (shows statistics, metadata, ...)
- support for processing multiple items with the wizard in a single run
- option to save selections in the wizard for a session (default enabled)
* HTTP
- New default interface pages for VLC and VLM (including a mosaic wizard)
- A bunch of new RPN functions
Windows Port:
* MSN messenger "Now playing" support
OS X Port:
* Mac-Intel compatibility
* Enhanced support of various audio output devices
* Growl "Now playing" support
*Nix port:
* Ability to log to syslog
* Root wrapper to avoid running VLC as root
Developers:
* New libvlc API (not finished yet)
* Java bindings
* A bit more automatic testing
