
VLC 2.2.0 multi-releases - jbk
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2.2.0.html
======
jbk
So, it's the first time we do a coordinated release of VLC.

We're doing it for desktop (Linux, Windows, OS X) and mobile ports (Android,
Windows Phone, Windows RT, iOS) but also for Android TV.

It's been quite difficult, but we're finishing the work we've started 2 years
ago to move to mobile: the code base is now ready for that, without hacks.

So, a lot of the cooler stuff for mobile are going to happen for 3.0.0
though...

And for developers, now libVLC should be usable for most platforms, notably to
create apps that play videos.

~~~
rogerbinns
Why can't I install it from Google Play Store for Android? This is the link
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.v...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc)

I get told "This app is incompatible with all of your devices." and for each
device says "This item is not compatible with your device". I have 7 different
devices on my account, most with Android 4.2+ which is marked as the minimum
version.

~~~
iBotPeaches
Are you doing any DPI change hackery?

That is usually the most common reason for Play Store errors like that.

~~~
jbk
> Are you doing any DPI change hackery?

No, it's just the beta version. You need to be in the G+ community.

------
justbaconplease
Typically in the Anime scene VLC is known as being inferior. Many cases MPC-HC
with the MadVR renderer and Xy-Vsfilter or XySubFilter for subtitles are
recommended for superior playback.

Do you have any input on this, perhaps to debunk the inferior claim (maybe
it's due to subtitle rendering?) or if any improvements to catch up?

Anyway, thanks for the software. I love VLC, using the portableapps.com
version here at work to stream radio and watch TV shows during lunch hour.

~~~
jbk
While this used to be true, it's not anymore. We have a good SSA rendering
platform, we support HLSL shaders since this release and we have good up and
down scalers...

------
gear54rus
I once tried to use VLC to stream an MP4 stream captured by some kind of 3rd
party driver so that others could use their VLCs to connect to it and watch
what's on air. However, as soon as I begin streaming, it always hung on me
(normal playback of the same MP4 captured stream is fine). Were there any
improvements in streaming part of VLC? Is it even supposed to work?:)

Thanks, top notch player, I use it exclusively on all my PCs.

~~~
jbk
> Were there any improvements in streaming part of VLC? Is it even supposed to
> work?:)

Yes, but it works only in very specific cases. We're doing a lot of work on
that for 3.0.0

~~~
gear54rus
Thanks for the reply!

Can you be more specific on those specific cases?:) Is the bitrate or maybe
stream format a problem? Is there a configuration that will always work (we
can even forget about MP4) right now?

~~~
jbk
TS/h264/mpga or HLS ;)

------
SwellJoe
I can't say enough good things about VLC. It has its quirks (the glitch when
switching between videos in a playlist is annoying as hell), but when it comes
down to it, there is nothing comparable, at any price. I use it professionally
in an audiovisual company I started a few years ago, for screening films on
huge screens outside, and I've tried several alternatives (often to address
problems that turned out not to be VLCs fault, like the fact that Apple ProRes
format literally cannot be played back reliably on a laptop computer at high
resolutions, including in Apple's own players) only to be horribly
disappointed in them.

The playlist features are great. It's smart about multiple displays, and can
be configured in such a way that it always get's the right display...we have
two different types of projector (one is 1920x1200 resolution the other is
1280x800), and VLC is the only player that can be configured to always open
the video fullscreen on the projector and put the controls on the primary
display. I can't say enough about how important this one is. It's incredibly
configurable...it's kinda stupid how busy the display is, by default, and it
can be a little tricky to find all of the various OSD options, but once the
configuration is right, it's perfect. It looks as good as any player I have
for nearly every format, including DVD and Blu-ray, so even if the client
brings me a film the day of the event, I can pop it into a playlist and expect
it to Just Work(tm) (with the exception of high res, lossless, ProRes, which
has to be converted to a compressed mp4 or similar, first).

I've often considered making a custom version just for my kind of use
case...it wouldn't take much to make it perfect for professional cinema usage
(well, maybe there's the DCP question which I haven't researched lately), or
at least for low and mid-range type cinema options, for indie film events and
such. An automatic compression option for loading files that are in lossless
formats, no glitch on switching between videos and images in a playlist
(assuming the video mode doesn't have to change, the import step could
normalize videos to one resolution and color depth, as well), and maybe some
built-in auto-calibration options (with a video input). Would be amazing.

~~~
jbk
> the glitch when switching between videos in a playlist is annoying as hell

Are you sure those are still present?

~~~
SwellJoe
Not entirely sure, as we haven't done any big video screenings since last
summer (we mostly do outdoor screenings, and it's been too cold for that), and
I haven't tried the new version, at all.

But, it was an issue that was present for a _long_ time, and I found a
discussion on the mailing list from maybe three years ago when the problem
first surfaced. Someone explained that it was an intentional change, but my
understanding was that it was only supposed to happen when the video mode
changed (i.e. to a different resolution or bit depth). But, we tested it
extensively with videos that were identically processed (same container, same
compression/encoding, same resolution, same color depth) and it would still
glitch. We minimized its visibility by setting the background of the OS to
black and hiding all icons and toolbars, which made it close enough to
invisible that our clients never noticed it. But, I could spot it, and in an
otherwise flawless and reliable experience it was always really annoying.

I'll check the new version out as soon as I've got some free time. We'll need
to prepare for the new summer season in a few weeks anyway (we're in Texas,
where it gets warm early), and I've been planning to switch to running our
videos off of a Linux system, instead of Windows, since I'm finally seeing
acceptable audiovisual performance as of the past year or so.

~~~
jbk
If resolution (and even that) and mostly chroma are similar, VLC should
recycle. If it does not, please file a bug.

As for using Linux, try the OpenGL module, instead of the default.

------
soylentcola
This is probably semi-off-topic but seeing all the helpful questions and
answers in this thread I figured I'd ask:

Is it possible to create a play-along track (along the lines of synced
subtitles in a .srt file) or just use a subtitle file with a
transparent/invisible font that is either sent to or readable by another app
or plugin?

I only ask because I've been trying to think of ways to create synchronized
"lighting tracks" that control my Hue lights. Controlling Hue lamps is very
basic and involves sending a set of valued to a given lamp that tells it what
hue/saturation/brightness to display.

I figured since subtitle tracks are already built to display time-synched info
and there are plenty of editors for captioning a video and saving the subs in
a small secondary file, it would be an interesting way to trigger other things
like lights or other electronics.

I just don't know how a plugin or "companion" program might read the string
being displayed at a given time or a player like VLC might write that data to
another program while it's playing.

Is this just me misunderstanding how it all works or is it something that
could be done with another app or a VLC plugin?

~~~
jeffasinger
VLC does have a web interface where you can query the position in the current
track. Polling that may be accurate enough for what you want.

~~~
soylentcola
Interesting... I wonder how much overhead it would take to keep polling like
that. I'm not a software or web developer but I like learning things and I'm
no stranger to throwing together ugly projects just to see what I can do.

Right now it seems like most of the Hue apps for integration with video work
in one of two ways: either sampling color values for what's on screen/what
your smartphone's camera is picking up or using companion mobile apps that
listen for audio triggers.

The first method tends to result in lots of color changing and it can be
distracting in practice. Even if you weight it to be less sensitive, I don't
need the lighting to change all the time.

The second method requires you to either edit the audio track to add cues or
be involved in the production of the original video. Again, not easy to add
after the fact.

Basically I want my "mood lighting" to subtly follow or complement the mood of
what's on screen without lots of rapid disco-light changes but I also want the
ability to throw in the occasional "punctuation" like bright flashes when
there's lightning or an explosion on screen.

I figured a "script" along the lines of a sub track would be a great way to do
it since a sub track is already just that: a small file with a script for when
to send a string of data to the overlay at certain times. If there was a way
to use srt files or the equivalent, you could distribute them easily and load
them up in a VLC plugin when you fire up your DVD/Bluray. Probably wouldn't
sync up with every pirate rip out there but as long as it worked with the
"standard" versions on disc or your home rips with easy editing, it would be a
neat project.

Wonder how one would go about writing a plugin for VLC that essentially
duplicates the subtitle functionality but sends the data to a server process
or other companion app that's listening for lighting values on the fly.

------
rizwan
Do you guys have a link to the VLC app on the iOS App Store? I ask because
there are so many clones it is very hard to find it.

On a related note. Is there anything you can do (trademark, etc.) about
getting the scammy clones off of the store?

~~~
japaget
VLC is no longer available on the US App store. It was pulled, probably either
by Apple for no longer being in compliance with App Store guidelines, or by
VLC because a last-minute bug was found. I do not know which is true, and
neither Apple nor VLC is talking about it.

~~~
feepk
This is untrue. Apple is just publishing it in different regions at different
times. I had a call with them 3 hours ago and they told me that it can take up
to 12 hours (!) until all regions have it.

------
seanalltogether
Does anyone know why the self updater on OSX is not able to find the update? I
just get the message

"VLC 2.1.5 is currently the newest version available."

~~~
joshstrange
I just checked on my Mac (Latest OSX) and VLC 2.1.4 and it's working (I was 1
version behind it looks like)

~~~
hybridtupel
Well no, the new version is 2.2.0 and the version before was 2.1.5 so actualy
you got the previous update with the updater.

~~~
joshstrange
I'm sorry, I meant "One version behind was was the newest before 2.2.0" I
realise that was confusing now. I said it in case there was a bug in 2.1.5's
updater that was not present in 2.1.4's.

------
Sidnicious
> VLC 2.2.0 auto-rotate the videos taken from phones, to fight VVS!

What does this mean? (i.e. will videos taken on phones always be shown
horizontally, even if they were shot vertically?)

~~~
jbk
It means you never need to rotate your head to watch a movie, because the
gyroscopic info are read and used.

~~~
nacs
Does this mean if someone turns the phone camera midway through the video to a
different orientation, VLC will autorotate the recorded video at that time?

Or is it only the initial orientation?

~~~
izacus
As far as I know, .MOV has only one transformation matrix, so you can't do
that.

But this fix will help with mobile vides, where cameras for performance
reasons don't actually rotate recorded videos when you're filming in non-
default orientation - they just note the rotation in transformation matrix,
which was ignored by VLC until now.

------
mgraczyk
The carousal on the landing page has some elements not the same size as the
rest. That causes the text below to shift in sync with the carousal's
rotation. That is very annoying when reading the release notes below,
especially on a small screen.

~~~
jbk
Oops, I'm on it.

------
ezekieldas
There have been rumors of an upcoming release offering Chromecast support. I
don't see Chromecast listed as an input media for 2.2.0. Does anyone know if
this is being worked on for a future release, or am I overlooking something?

edit: It may be a longer wait...

[https://github.com/videolan/vlc/blob/master/NEWS](https://github.com/videolan/vlc/blob/master/NEWS)

~~~
jbk
Yes. We've been working on ChromeCast, and many other features for 3.0.0. It's
been merged since a long time, but is not completely usable, therefore not
released.

~~~
zz1
Any plan on working with Matchstick as well?

~~~
jbk
So far, no. Working on Mozilla technologies is usually very painful.

~~~
zz1
Too bad! I hope there will be better news once it comes out around August. :)

------
aktau
On linux I use mpv (best and most actively developed of the mplayer family,
imho), which has had zero-copy HW accel (vdpau and vaapi) for quite some time
now. But on all other platforms I enjoy VLC. Kudos to the team, it was a long
time coming and must be quite gratifying to see it come to fruition.

------
tdkl
Sadly it's still crashing when clicking Set file associations in the Settings
:
[https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/11953](https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/11953)

Running Windows 8.1 64bit and tried 32bit VLC.

~~~
luma
Mine is crashing under Server 2012R2 running a transcode. Reverted to 2.1.2
and everything works again.

------
pramalin
I know this is not the most appropriate place to ask. Last year I tried
creating subtitles for a movie in Tamil and VLC rendered the texts incorrectly
like in the very old browsers. Is the unicode rendering improved in this
release?

~~~
jbk
A bit, but not enough. It's going to be fixed in 3.0.0, I think.

------
bresc
Why are the mobile versions (Windows) looking so nice, displaying cover art...
and the OS X version looks like from the 90s

I would really like to ditch iTunes, but iTunes is just nicer and easier to
manage.

Apart from that... I love you VLC :)

Edit: What The F __*???!! I just googled out of curiosity for screenshots of
the windows version:[http://www.neowin.net/news/new-vlc-windows-8-screenshots-
sho...](http://www.neowin.net/news/new-vlc-windows-8-screenshots-show-
revamped-ui)

When is this going to come to OS X?

~~~
jbk
Well, it's mostly because we are waaaaay more organised and focused than
before and we're focusing on the mobile for now... But it will change later
this year or early next.

~~~
bresc
I get it... mobile is big, but what is the reason to not invest any time into
the look and feel of the regular version?

~~~
jbk
lack of resources? We're volunteers with no money...

------
yunong
VLC is awesome, but it's sorely lacking one feature on OS X -- which is the
ability to open multiple movies at once. I surely hope this is something
they'll ad at some point!

~~~
dullcrisp
It's not very convenient, but you can use `open -n /Applications/VLC.app` to
open a new instance.

~~~
hasenj
or just `open -n -a vlc`

------
kethinov
Does anyone know the status of blu ray menu support for VLC? I heard it was
being worked on but I can't find any current info on the status and challenges
associated with it.

~~~
jbk
This release improves a lot the support of Blu Ray Menus.

It's the first version with BD-Java activated, so please try it :)

~~~
kethinov
Sweet!

I just tried it on my Mac and it works! Blu ray on a Mac! :D

~~~
exhilaration
Wait, VLC can play protected Blu-ray discs? We don't have to use shady
software?

~~~
jbk
Yes. It's not simple, but yes, you can.

------
shoelzer
> VLC 2.2.0 auto-rotate the videos taken from phones, to fight VVS!

What is VVS?

~~~
protomyth
Vertical Video Syndrome
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA)

------
jonnynezbo
I've always loved VLC, but these days I typically stream my media using Plex.
Is there a good reason to use VLC now that I'm bought into Plex?

~~~
click170
IMO plex and xbmc serve a different purpose.

Plex/xbmc is a more of a home entertainment system. Vlc is merely a media
player (that is incredibly awesome at what it does, thus the reputation).

I use xbmc on my TV in the front room because it tracks where I am in a series
and which movies I've seen. I use vlc on my computer to watch a one off
documentary or something.

I think you could build a plex or xbmc like system _using_ vlc but to compare
them I think is comparing apples to oranges.

For what its worth I stick to XBMC when I don't need a web interface. Plex
isn't entirely Foss, xbmc is.

------
keehun
Thank you for finally bringing it to Windows Phone!!!

------
comex
Cool, this means I can access the network from Lua plugins again, which was
accidentally broken (for a trivial reason, code-wise) in 2.1. Apparently the
bug was fixed almost a year ago [1], but the functionality remained unusable
in the 2.1 patches.

[1]
[https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/9495](https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/9495)

~~~
jbk
Yes, and it's properly fixed, so it won't break again.

------
technonerd
What gpg key does vlc use to sign builds.

------
Razengan
It's still not aware of renamed/moved files on OS X. Every other app picks up
the new location of a file if you move it while it's in use, but VLC complains
if it encounters a moved file in the playlist, getting stuck in an infinite
error loop if you have it set to Repeat One.

------
zanny
"reads front page of HN" omg VLC 2.2 resume playback finally!

"alt tab"

pacman -Syu

extra/vlc 2.1.5-5 -> 2.2.0-1

Neat.

------
tracker1
Not sure if this is added, but for me the two killer features would be a
network/smb file browser for being able to play from my NAS box.. and
Chromecast support (already on the horizon) ... those two would be killer
imho.

~~~
jbk
Both are heavily under development for 3.0.0

------
fugyk
Why can't I update VLC 2.1.5 using 'Check for update' in OSX.

------
IvyMike
I'm probably doing something stupid, but on I can't seem to get the "Resume
playback where you left off." feature to work on Windows. Is there an option
somewhere I need to enable?

~~~
etix
Should be enabled by default. Just seek within a video file to any position
that is not at the very beginning or the end and close VLC. Once you play that
file again it should prompt you to resume the playback.

EDIT: of course this doesn't apply to streams or non-seekable files

~~~
IvyMike
Weird... after I opened a file using the "Media->Open File" menu item, it
started appearing. (It now works even in cases where I open a file by double-
clicking on it. Strange)

In any case, awesome!

~~~
Shadess
Not working for me :<

~~~
mynameishere
Me neither.

The only reason I downloaded it was for this feature. This _dead simple
feature_ which was available in 1976 (or whenever) when VHS came out. It
should be in every digital player at version 1.0.

Very poor work. It's really spotty, and it shows up as a bar at the top of the
window on seemingly random loads, about 10 percent of the time. Whatever video
player VUZE uses works 100 percent of the time and doesn't stupidly ask you if
you want to start at the last position. This seems like a feature that should
take five minutes to implement and they managed to mess it up bad.

~~~
mg1982
I agree. I actually rolled back to the previous version since there's an
extension that works perfectly for this that is broken by the new version.
Check it out:

[http://vlcsrposplugin.sourceforge.net/](http://vlcsrposplugin.sourceforge.net/)

Just like to add my thanks to the vlc guys. I've been using it for 15 years
and it's a true credit to the foss movement.

------
stefanix
Thank you VLC-coders. VLC is stellar and a role-model foss project.

------
coherentpony
Any way I can contribute? I'm not familiar with video codecs or technicals.

~~~
jbk
Most of the work is far far from video codecs and internal.

We have lots of work to do. You are welcome to join.

------
shmerl
Thanks for your great work!

------
hackbinary
Anyone know if they fixed the broken dlna?

~~~
jbk
Partly. But it will be in the mobile versions in March

~~~
hackbinary
Is there a way I can help?

~~~
jbk
Can you code C or C++?

------
AndyQue
Thank you! VLC is the best, can play even corrupted files. Congratulations on
the release and all the best.

------
hackaflocka
VLC is the greatest media player for iOS.

Much better than iTunes, which is shit and garbage, like most apple software
(go ahead, downvote me apple fanboi).

About 6 months ago, VLC suddenly vanished from my iPhone. Turns out, Apple,
feeling threatened by VLC, had banned it from the App store.

VLC: I have missed you so much... thank you for coming back to me.

~~~
SiVal
What is the story of VLC and the Apple App Store. Has Apple rendered any
verdict or is it just submit each version, hope for the best, sometimes yes
sometimes no, randomly with no comment?

~~~
hackaflocka
As long as the Supreme Circle Jerk consisting of Phil Schiller, Eddie Cue and
Tim Cook feels like it, it'll be available. The day their food doesn't taste
quite right, the bisque isn't warm enough, etc., they'll arbitrarily ban it.

------
higherpurpose
How come there's no 64-bit version yet? Wouldn't that improve performance for
something like video-decoding?

Also, it's disappointing to see there's still no native (and automatic)
subtitle-seeking feature.

~~~
jbk
> How come there's no 64-bit version yet?

The 64-bit Windows binary is getting deployed on the mirror right now.

> Wouldn't that improve performance for something like video-decoding?

64-bit is a tradeoff for video, less CPU usage, but more memory pressure, so
the improvements are usually limited... It's more important to have good
hardware acceleration, than 64bits.

> Also, it's disappointing to see there's still no native (and automatic)
> subtitle-seeking feature.

It's a new feature of 2.2.0

~~~
astrange
x86-64 is such an ABI improvement over x86-32 that it's always 10-20% faster,
even with the larger size pointers. Win64's ABI is a little worse than other
platforms for libavcodec, since it has some callee-saved SSE registers and
everyone else is caller-saved, but still true.

Hardware decoding is much more important for power savings than anything else.

~~~
izacus
Most standard video decoding code uses CPU feature detection and hand-
optimized ASM for important bits, so x86-64 doesn't really add anything
worthwhile for most video players and encoders - most of the magic is done in
SSE/AVX codepaths anyway.

~~~
astrange
And x86-64 turns those 8 SSE registers into 16! Those handwritten assembly
paths are much easier when you don't have to write stack spills.

~~~
izacus
Hmm, you have a point there - x64 does make writing ASM significantly easier.

