
Open Source VLC media player 2.0.0 is out - jbk
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/2.0.0.html
======
jerrell
Wow. I cannot believe the pettiness of comments here. VLC is a fantastic media
player, and I'm quite appalled to see the conversation here dominated by such
little gripes. VLC plays media more reliably than any other program I've
tried, on Windows, Linux or Mac OS X. And whether or not you consider it
perfect, reaching the 2.0 milestone is something to be lauded, not bitched
about.

~~~
jbk
Geeks and video geeks love to tweak at the best their media players. VLC is
not the best tool for that, compared to selecting your own renderer, own codec
pack+configuration and own subtitles codecs. This is normal.

However, since VLC is getting too mainstream, I see more and more of hate that
is unjustified. When asked why, they cannot explain why. This is a bit
annoying to be honest.

Finally, VLC being Cross-Platform cannot be the best on all platforms. We do
our best, but we cannot be 100% perfect, especially with so little time. We
need to do a company, but what Business Model?

~~~
hello_moto
Don't listen to the haters. We (me, my wife, my family) are all using VLC and
don't care about anything else.

It can open all media files we care until today.

It displays subtitles correctly.

It enhances the sound of some media files that would otherwise have lower
volume level when played on Windows Media Player.

It is cross-platform: we use it on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Did I tell you that people around me are happy users (regardless the UI
tweak?) because it just works with minimum effort to install?

Keep the very good work.

~~~
sorbits
While praising this player let me add that I absolutely love the ability for
increased playback speed!

This is a great timesaver for keynotes, lectures, and shows which move too
slowly ;)

~~~
tripzilch
This is absolutely true. Some keynote speakers just speak rather slowly, or
repeat themselves and you can easily get away with 1.3x speed. Even though it
sounds funny.

I really wish there would be some sort of plugin that could select an even
higher speed for silent/quiet parts.

I figured "how hard could it be" (having some experience writing tiny
softsynths in the past I wouldn't even mind writing a low quality pitch-
preserving resample filter) but digging into it, coding a plugin for VLC is
pretty arcane. At least, I couldn't figure it out without having to dig into
all sorts of audio/video decoding issues I didn't really want to get in to.

If anyone has any tips it would be greatly appreciated. I cannot promise I'll
manage to code that particular filter but at least I can have some fun writing
crazy VLC filter effects :)

------
dmix
Still doesn't have an option to remember playback position. Users have been
asking for this on the forums for years.

Most of us use VLC to watch movies and not all of us finish them in one
sitting. I hate having to find where I left off...

~~~
w1ntermute
This is why I use SMPlayer. It has all the features of VLC and is less
resource-intensive, to boot.

Edit: also displays subtitles a lot better.

~~~
jbk
Display subtitles better? You did not test 2.0.0. This is exactly what was
fixed in this version.

You might need to use the OpenGL output on Linux, though.

~~~
w1ntermute
Just updated to 2.0.0 on Arch x64, and things subtitle-wise are not much
better. They still look much less grainy on SMPlayer, though I may be able to
mitigate that at least partially by fiddling with the settings (though ideally
this wouldn't be necessary).

But trying VLC out reminded me of a few more issues:

* Activating the controls while in full-screen mode (by hitting the bottom of the screen) is temperamental

* There's a lag after unpausing the video before audio starts playing again. Not functionally relevant, but it drives me nuts.

~~~
jbk
Did you try the OpenGL output?

------
babebridou
Anyone else having issues with the delay in volume control? I'm used to the
volume changing instantly whenever I change it with the mouse wheel, but in
2.00 there seems to be an annoying delay of about a second for each change, at
least on my PC.

~~~
skymt
This appears to be the relevant bug:
<https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/5654>

~~~
babebridou
Thanks for the link. It certainly looks like it.

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chrisballinger
Does the move to LGPLv2.1+ for libVLC, libVLCcore and libcompat allow for
Applidium's VLC iPhone port (<http://applidium.com/en/applications/vlc>) to be
resubmitted to the App Store after some minor changes?

~~~
jbk
Yes/No.

We also need to move many VLC modules to LGPL, since VLC/iOS needs static
linking on this platform.

But, I am working on it. It takes a lot of time, and I am already doing much
on my free time.

------
mitchty
Ok, so first thing it did upon starting a movie in OSX was decide to rebuild
the font cache.

Wasn't this a problem on windows that was fixed?

~~~
avirambm
Same here. I also find the "Use the native fullscreen mode on OS X Lion"
option terribly slow.

~~~
tolmasky
I can't believe this option is enabled by default, native fullscreen mode is
by all accounts a bug marketed as a feature in Lion, _especially_ for a video
player. It provides zero functionality over "non-native" (??) fullscreen, and
actually severely degrades the experience in many situations. Namely, if you
have two monitors, native fullscreen is completely broken as it:

1\. Forces you to full screen on the main monitor regardless of which monitor
the window is currently in. So if you click it on your left hand monitor it
jumps to your right hand monitor.

2\. Forces you to look at linen (!!!) in the other monitor. It doesn't even do
the slightly less broken behavior of giving you black on the other monitor, it
literally fills it up with that ridiculous linen repeated pattern so that it
can optimally annoy you as you are watching the movie. Not to mention that you
_should_ have the option of actually using your other monitor for actual work.

This is why I just can't use iTunes or Quicktime for watching video content
anymore. Because someone literally went in and deleted working code. Quicktime
used to have nice options for blacking the other screens or not, etc. and they
were _taken out_. Were people demanding this feature in VLC or something?

~~~
alixmartineau
> I can't believe this option is enabled by default

Because it's the platform default. That's how it should be.

> It provides zero functionality over "non-native" (??) fullscreen

Wrong. It puts you in another "Space".

You can argue that you like OS X's fullscreen feature, but VLC implements it
just how it sould be.

~~~
jbk
> Because it's the platform default. That's how it should be.

Yep, this is the exact reason. None of the developer like it much, but using
the default option on a platform improve the integration.

------
krig
I had to go in and delete the old version of VLC (1.12) that I had installed,
and also delete the old preferences before the new version would work properly
for me.

The new graphical look in OSX (perhaps other systems as well, I don't know
about them) has gotten some critique, but I think it looks great.

~~~
joejohnson
There was a script provided with the OS X .dmg (at Goodies/Delete VLC
Preferences)

------
pwelch
I love VLC. Just today I was playing around with the streaming feature which I
had not realized was so awesome. Plus the fact that it plays anything I have
asked it to. Glad to see this open source project going strong! Keep up the
good work VLC devs!

------
adrianscott
First off, VLC is awesome, and VLC team are heroes, imho.

I ended up having to go back to 1.11, as it ended up choking on the 1080p60
files my vidcam produces, though at first, for a minute or two, it worked
better than 1.11 win32 (where i have to slow it down to 67% speed to get
smooth playback).

The u.i. changes (removal of slow down and speed back, and see playback speed)
threw me for a moment, but then I saw I could customize the u.i. really
easily, which was great.

Can't wait til the day it can tap into my Nvidia GPU (460), but i know that's
a non-trivial problem.

Anyhow, overall, congrats to the team, and I look forward to some additional
upgrades so I can tap into the new features.

-a

~~~
jbk
They are not removed, just hidden by default. The view menu and the customize
menus are your friends.

------
thewordis
I'm curious why no one ever brings up the legal status of VLC. It's an
incredibly popular program, and is likely illegal in the US. Their FAQ
(<http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html>) used to make this explicit,
mentioning who and where you'd have to send payment for patent royalties and
that decoding DVDs is against the DMCA, whereas now any mention is relegated
to the legal section (<http://www.videolan.org/legal.html>), where they
encourage you to make your own judgment.

Wayback machine:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20091201230711/http://www.videola...](http://web.archive.org/web/20091201230711/http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html)

~~~
rmc
The USA is not the world. Many US software is illegal in other countries, that
doesn't mean we need to keep telling everyone that (say) some software is
illegal in China everytime it comes up.

------
nixle
Loving everything about this!

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moonchrome
>New video outputs for Windows 7, Android, iOS and OS/2.

OS/2 ? Why ?

~~~
jlarocco
Why not?

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that a few guys with old OS/2 machines
thought it would be cool, so added it. Highly unlikely they devoted mainline
VLC devs to it.

~~~
moonchrome
I just thought there's some secret OS/2 using club (outside of legacy
industrial machines :))

~~~
guard-of-terra
There totally are. People still use OS/2 because they think it's the best
desktop OS ever created, they are tiny in numbers but are more than capable of
serving themselves' needs.

<http://www.ecomstation.com/> \- they even have this.

------
nixle
What do they mean with "New video outputs for Windows 7, Android, iOS and
OS/2." ? It's not the "android" or "ios" version they are talking about, since
those are still in development, right?

~~~
jbk
Android nightly build works fine. We need to finish the UI.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I'm still using the old 0.9.9 version because that's the last version that has
the old Slow Motion = Deep Pitch sound effect when you slow down the music. I
actually like my music to sound deeper when I slow it down. So I've refused to
upgrade for years.

~~~
morsch
Preferences - Audio - Uncheck _Enable Time-Stretching audio_

I did need to restart VLC for that to take effect. This is VLC 1.x (whatever
the latest in the Ubuntu repos is). I suspect the option is still available in
VLC 2.

------
tcas
Interesting new look. I was excited about getting HTTP Live Streaming support
in VLC, however, it seems to be broken for sliding playlists, which is
surprising since I thought it hooks into libav* for a lot of that stuff, which
does have support.

~~~
jbk
VLC HLS support is not using libav, for many reasons.

Can you file a bugreport for a sample?

~~~
tcas
I'll see what I can do, unfortunately generating a sample sliding window
playlist isn't the easiest thing in the world to do (I can't post the feed I'm
testing it with). Looking at access logs it appears to have something to do
with reloading the playlist, as the access intervals don't look like
Quicktime's or an iPhone's.

------
gala8y
Made me think how much effort goes into the stuff so I can say "I was just
watching a video on the second monitor using VLC."

Seems like version 1.1 does not pick it up for update via 'Help / Check for
updates'. Dont know if its by design or a little, tiny bug.

------
saintfiends
Does anybody have a link to the source? It's giving a 404 from the website
right now.

~~~
jbk
OOps. Just fixed it.

------
chj
Love VLC! Good to know it is moving to LGPL, if it means we can have VLC on
iOS.

------
ajays
Any pointers to Ubuntu (10.04) packages for this version of VLC?

~~~
morsch
10.04? No. But this PPA seems to have the up-to-date package for 11.10:
<https://launchpad.net/~n-muench/+archive/vlc>

------
prophetjohn
Windows and OS X only?

~~~
jbk
Source is done and packagers for Linux are doing builds now.

------
hoag
I love VLC but my buddy swears by Media Player Classic (at least on Windows).
Anybody else?

~~~
salemh
When all else fails, VLC always works. Media Player Classic (on windows) does
a fair job, but breaks a lot as well. VLC doesn't break for pretty much any
medium :) Love it.

------
meetcause
Thank you guys. I prefer VLC on all the platforms I use. It gives me what I
need for free.

------
tnuc
And I still can't use the multimedia keys on my keyboard to control it while
minimized.

------
zak_mc_kracken
I can't find any indication that this new release supports 3D, did I miss
something?

~~~
jbk
Nope, only a fork does.

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pibefision
Does it consumes more CPU than 1.12?

~~~
agumonkey
on my core duo, intel crap gpu, winxp it did consume much more.

    
    
      test : old, low quality 480p divx
    
      version     |  cpu usage  |  comm.
      vlc 2.0.0f  |  ~ 15%      | half of it being system calls.
      vlc 1.1.11  |  > 1%       | smaller than one pixel in proc.exp graph
    

sad since vlc was usually the lightest ( sometimes trading quality for
fluidity )

~~~
jbk
This is a bug then. Can you file a bugreport or mail me?

~~~
agumonkey
mail sent at gmail.

Sorry for not having filed anything, I'm still don't have this reflex...

------
DavidSJ
How is it acceptable that SourceForge download links are HTTP and not HTTPS?

~~~
DavidSJ
Is there a reason this comment was modded down?

~~~
alexchamberlain
I didn't vote down, but why would open source downloads need to go over HTTPS?
It's very expensive to encrypt such large files for each download.
Furthermore, many of the advantages can be gained by checking the MD5.

~~~
legality
VLC is probably illegal in some countries due to the patents applying to a lot
of video and audio codecs. If Sourceforge downloads were over an encrypted
connection, one could avoid monitoring.

~~~
astrange
That illegality applies to the developers of VLC, not to people downloading
it.

------
Cyph0n
On OS X: MPlayerX - On Windows: MPC and/or KMPlayer

Until VLC becomes more "native" on OS X and improves its interface, I don't
think I'll be using it. In any case, I've downloaded it on my PC, so I'm
keeping an open mind towards it.

~~~
Terretta
MplayerX and Movist are both in Mac App Store and both are playing one
upsmanship on releases since getting there. It's great for video loving users.

I normally use Plex Client (playing from Plex Media Server) but some sources
crash Plex if the type of digital audio changes midstream, so I'll play that
source in one of these, depending on whether I need the subtitles or am
watching a whole series at once.

