
We just released VLC 1.1.0 - jbk
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/1.1.0.html
======
a2tech
In very sad news they've removed the Shoutcast integration inside of VLC. This
was one of the great 'hidden' features of VLC-you could view essentially any
type of video or audio through a very slick integrated menu. Darn AOL for
strong arming them into removing the feature.

~~~
jbk
I promise that you will have a surprise quite soon :D

And the lua extension framework already let's you get it back.

~~~
catch23
hopefully soon! It's the main thing (shoutcast streaming music) I use VLC for.

~~~
jbk
In the next days...

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csytan
VLC was my preferred player in Windows, and still remains my default in OS X.
There is nary a format which the orange pylon cannot handle. Thanks to the VLC
and FFMPEG guys for all the hard work!

~~~
baddox
Last I checked something with their .flv support was bad. It might have been
the splitter or something. With a lot of .flv's you couldn't seek to anywhere
in the file.

~~~
jjs
IIRC, .flv files have an index that is used for seeking (including seeking
into a stream, in cooperation with the server).

Some encoders might not create the index properly, and some players might have
tricks to seek (offline?) even without one.

To repair these files, see: [http://muzso.hu/2008/12/18/fixing-flash-videos-
flv-for-use-w...](http://muzso.hu/2008/12/18/fixing-flash-videos-flv-for-use-
with-adobe-flash-media-server-fms)

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philjackson
You could write to a text file, in broken English, a vague description of a
song and I bet VLC could still play it. Great piece of software, thanks to the
devs.

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ericd
I'm seriously impressed with how far VLC has come in the span of a few years.
Crud files go in, perfection comes out. I wish more software was this robust.

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philwelch
The Mac OS X version is 64 bit, which means it'll work with 64-bit HandBrake.
Previously you had to use an odd prerelease build. This is what I was waiting
for!

~~~
nroach
cool! but still no hardware acceleration for OpenCL it looks like.

~~~
astrange
Video hardware acceleration has nothing to do with, and can't be helped by,
OpenCL. I'm just warning you in case you try to write it and fail.

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baskinghobo
No disrespect to VLC but I just did a side by side comparison with MPC HC and
VLC player and the MPC HC player looked much more clear -
<http://i.imgur.com/Mc2oS.jpg>. Any reason behind this?

~~~
brandong
I use both VLC and MPC-HC on my machines. On the lower end computers I've
noticed a large performance difference between the two: MPC-HC can crank out
720P on my 5year old laptops without hiccup, but VLC stutters all over the
place.

I've heard some recommendations on how to configure VLC to be more responsive,
but the fact remains MPC-HC performs better "out-of-the-box" than VLC.

I still keep VLC around for anything MPC-HC has trouble playing, however, as
VLC truly does play just about anything if it is playable at all.

~~~
jbk
Of course, MPC-HC uses GPU while VLC didn't until this version.

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BoppreH
I'm still waiting for an "auto-search subtitle" feature like the one in Media
Player Classic.

~~~
jbk
The new extension framework was designed for such features.

Here you go: [http://ale5000.altervista.org/vlc/extensions/subtitles-
mod.l...](http://ale5000.altervista.org/vlc/extensions/subtitles-mod.lua)

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neurotech1
I've used VLC player for a while, for playing both DVDs and downloaded videos.
It's a very versatile package.

It does not have the sound bug that causes Windows Media Player(with codec) to
make the background loud, and the main track soft.

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pragmatic
> so far, on Windows, VideoLAN is quite sad to be forced to recommend nVidia®
> GPU, until ATI® fixes their drivers on Windows

I noticed that MPC-HC uses much less CPU (using the GPU I assume. Are there
any tweaks to get VLC to do the same? Or is this quote above an indication
that this just doesn't work well in ATI cards?

BTW, I'm using ATI hardware and I find CPU usage around 10-20% in MPC-HC vs
~50% in VLC. In spite all VLC's other awesome features, The CPU useage and
resultant fan noise are a bummer.

I love the skins and plug in feature, btw.

Good work.

~~~
jbk
Well, until ATI fixes its driver, you cannot do much. Or until we found a
work-around.

But we are not really Windows developers...

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PatrickTulskie
You really should use Sparkle for the OS X release. VLC is one of the few apps
that doesn't use it and the built in updating mechanism in VLC never works
anyway.

~~~
l0nwlf
Yes. I wonder why the built-in update never works. It gave me the message
while updating 1.0.5 that it is the latest version.

~~~
jbk
Because we want our server to not die... So, first release, then, when calm is
back, make the built-in update.

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pyre
I don't see added support for the Broadcom HD decoder that Asus is shipping in
some of their newer model Eee PCs (1005PR). Anyone know if there plans to add
this? It would really help out HD decoding on the low-end platforms (esp since
the cards aren't integrated, so they can be bought as add-ons as long as your
low-end machine has a slot).

~~~
_delirium
Not precisely an answer to your question, but it looks like there's a third-
party library working on support for the Broadcom Crystal HD, which currently
builds as a xine plugin:
[http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/archvdr/browser/branches/li...](http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/archvdr/browser/branches/libcrystalhd)

~~~
pyre
I know that the XBMC crew have already integrated support for it. There is a
github repo for the drivers too.

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houseabsolute
Wondering what the technical problems with the ATI drivers were.

~~~
jbk
Well, those are pretty simple. For many reasons (that are debatable, but maybe
this isn't the right place?), VLC can decode on the GPU and then gets the data
back from the GPU to filter/restream/reencode to finally display it. Even if
this isn't the fastest way, there are good reasons for it (I can explain if
needed...)

On ATI drivers, the data back path is slow, and you need a special GUID that
ATI doesn't want/cannot to communicate. Adobe uses it, we cannot yet. I
believe this will be fixed in the future.

~~~
Zev
_(I can explain if needed...)_

I'd personally be very interested in hearing some details about this, if you
have a few moments to write something up (or even paste a few links to some
mailing list posts or the like, somewhere that I can do some reading).

~~~
jbk
Well, yes.

First, remember that VLC is not a media player. It is a framework, like
GStreamer, QT or DS. It works in the same way, with modules/plug-ins/objects
that are loaded when needed.

For the matter of GPU/DSP decoding, you have two choices: either you do a
codec module abstracted and independent from the rest of the modules or you
plug a special codec module to a special renderer module (and violates your
clean separation, but well...) The second is faster, of course. But...

But, then you cannot control anything: depending on the GPU/DSP vendor, you
will have different filters (deinterlacing, noise, gradient...) that you
cannot control, you have different color tones, etc... So depending on the
GPU/DSP, you will not have the same experience...

Also, you cannot use that method for restreaming and converting.

Then, you need some hardware specific code, which, of course we want to
avoid...

And finally, for each 'API' we need a special renderer, and not use the normal
ones. Which makes more code to maintain, and VLC's core team is hardly 5
persons.

~~~
Zev
Ouch, it sounds like GPUs are a royal pain to work with. (Also: this little
bit of perspective makes what you guys do seem even more awesome). Thanks for
the details!

------
Thoreandan
jbk - Thank you (and the rest of your team members!)

Does anyone have links to who I should talk to to volunteer as an Intel gfx hw
tester? Netflix+Silverlight+Win7 is using GPU acceleration for video on my
netbook, it would be great to have VLC take advantage of the same.

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mkramlich
big thank you to the VLC team for keeping this great free video player going!

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unwantedLetters
I've wanted this feature for a while: to be able to just drag a subtitles file
while VLC is playing a video and have VLC immediately start displaying
subtitles from the new file.

It's a great piece of software anyway! Congratulations on the latest release.

~~~
jbk
This is exactly how it works on Windows and Linux interface of VLC.

~~~
unwantedLetters
Heh, I suppose this tells you what OS I use. Any plans of bringing that
feature over to OS X?

~~~
jbk
Did you try Lunettes?

~~~
unwantedLetters
Hey, no I haven't tried Lunettes, but I will try it as soon as I get the
opportunity.

Thanks for the tip though, it looks very interesting.

