VLC Media Player 0.8.4 is out

mctk writes "This new release features many improvements including a new VLC cone, new Mac OS X wizard and extend controls dialogs, tree playlist skins2 support, HTTP interface CGI handling, linux binary codecs loader, UPnP and Bonjour service discovery, shoutcast stream forwarding, new languages... Have a look here for the full list of changes. Binary packages and the source code are available on the VLC download page." Always been one of my favorites on any platform.

Comments

vlc - I like

[xiong.chiamiov]

I really like VLC. For the longest time, I used Winamp to play all my media files, but it is painfully slow. iTunes is okay, but still lacking. And WMP is out of the question (I try to run Windows as non-Microsoft as possible). Then, when trying to find something to run .ogm (Ogg Vorbis video files), I came across VLC, and haven't used anything since. And the fact that it's released under GNU doesn't hurt at all.

Re:vlc - I like

[alphakappa]

One of the greatest features of VLC is that it will let you save any media that it can read. So whether it is a movie file or a streaming movie, it will let you save it to a file (or broadcast it). That is pretty much how *most* applications in other areas work - if you can read a file, you can save it too, but no other mainstream media player will let you do this for media files.

Re:vlc - I like

[magefile]

I use VLC with srt files. Granted, I'm using a Mac, but I bet it works on Windows, too. Your video/audio file must have the same name as the srt file (except the extension, obviously), then while the video is playing, select the Video menu. The bottom option should be the "Subtitles Track" option - just pick the one you want.

Mac OS X wizard?

[pomo monster]

I'll reserve judgment 'til I've used it a bit more, but nine times out of ten, wizards are a usability disaster that are only marginally better than the abomination of an interface that necessitated them to begin with. (Those nine times are usually in Microsoft products.) You shouldn't need a wizard to set things up, or to create things--the options should be right there in front of you, and not require elaborate explanation. Wizards are kind of alien to the whole OS X experience, even though there are a few examples of decent, helpful wizards in the OS.

Also, I notice the new VLC still doesn't have a nice way to compensate for audio desynchronization. There should be a slider or something on the controller to scrub the audio sync back and forth in realtime. Add to that the totally awkward menu to select where to play fullscreen--why not just play it on whatever display the window's in right now?--and overall I'm disappointed in this update.

That said, it's still the best "free" player out there for OS X I've seen yet. Congratulations to the developers. It could be a great product, if only they'd pay a little more attention to usability and elegance.

Re:Mac OS X wizard?

[pomo monster]

It's a personal preference, I'm sure, but MPlayer makes VLC look like the fucking Chrysler building in terms of design. All things considered, VLC's not too bad--it's just that it could be much better, without (seemingly) much effort.

Re:Mac OS X wizard?

[Blakey Rat]

Are you joking?

The GUI to mplayer on OS X is SO BAD it took me over a half hour to figure out how to quit the program. You click the movie window to bring it to the front, hit Command-Q, nothing happens. That's weird. You scrub the menus. No Quit option. Hmm. Let's try making the window bigger... Command-0, nothing. Command-1, nothing. (In pretty much every media player, Command-1 is half-size, Command-2 is normal-size, Command-3 is double-size, and Command-0 is full-screen. VLC is a bit different, but not so much that it's too confusing.)

Of course since I don't keep my Dock open all the time, little did I know that mplayer isn't ONE program, it's TWO programs... and the program that actually plays the movie doesn't quit. At all. It can't quit. But if you quit the *other* program, then it automatically goes away. I guess the "designer" of the GUI didn't know you could hide the Dock. Of course, even if he didn't, there's no excuse for putting two icons on it, one of which doesn't (for all practical purposes) work when you could use one in the first place.

Whoever "designed" this interface obviously had never used a Mac before or, possibly, even a GUI before. It's terrible. It's horrible. It violates almost every rule of good GUI design, and, as a result, it's a pain in the ass to use. I'm sorry. It's an F in my book.

VLC might not have all the codecs or whatever, that mplayer has, but you know what? It has a GUI that wasn't designed by an alien from the planet Weebo who's never seen a computer before, so it gets my download every time.

Wake me when it plays WMV3 on the Mac

[Nova Express]

That, to my mind, is the huge, gaping hole in VLC. And the latest version doesn't solve the problem, as WMV3 isn't supported on any now-Windows platform. I would think that somebody would have reversed engineered the codec by now. It's hard to be the Swiss Army CanOpener of video formats when it doesn't open half of all the cans coming off the line...

Re:Wake me when it plays WMV3 on the Mac

[Teilo]

Try WMV Player if you want an alternative to WMP on OS X. It lets Quicktime Player play any WMV file. It's not Open Source. It's not free. But it actually works better than WMP on a Mac.

Simply one of the best

[quadra23]

Always been one of my favorites on any platform.

I agree from my own experience. In fact, I find files (or discs) that either work strange or not at all on other media players (such as Windows Media Player or WinAMP) run just (or very close to) perfect on VLC. The capability to play VCD, SVCD, DVD, DVD (with menues) was a feature that I also found make the player even more flexible.

Does anyone here have experience with VLC for running your own streaming server? Also, anyone know if they are going to add capability to play RealPlayer files? I find RealPlayer as a major bloatware and RealAlternative (no offense, just from my experience) looks too much like (and as featured limited as) the original media player in Windows 95/98. For a good reference here's a full table of all features available on all the various Operating Systems that VLC works with. Very good product and highly recommended!

Anime

[Parham]

A lot of people recommend this very player for anime playback. Anime tends to come in a lot of formats (avi, mpeg, mkv, ogm) with a lot of codec requirements, and this player seems to have become a favorite in the anime circles. This is one of my favorite players and it's completely replaced most of the other media players I used to use.

One of the bigger perks...

[(H)elix1]

One of the biggest perks for using VLC is it does *not* honor the 'thou shall not fast forward through the FBI warning and any damn previews/ads we applied the same flag to' setting. Skips right on by.

Re:One of the bigger perks...

[J. Random Luser]

is that it is Region 0 out of the box. Apple's DVD player allows you to set(change) a fixed region 4 times before resorting to some hack to start again. I assume if MS abides by the MPAA rule then WMP behaves similarly. Meanwhile VLC just plays any DVD I chuck at it, never asks what Region.

I believe it's not the matter of 'doable'

[wesley96]

There are at least two solutions to decoding WMV3 video stream in OS X. But you know the first one is a horrible Microsoft implementation and the other one is a licensed codec package from Flip4Mac that you have to pay. Currently, neither can't do what everyone wants... WMV3 video + MP3 audio in AVI container, which is the biting deficiency, and compounded by the fact that some anime file releases use exactly THAT format thanks to the existence of WMV9 VCM in Windows. Ugh.

As for VLC, it needs an OPEN-SOURCE decoder. Specifically, it'll be adapting something that ffmpeg guys are doing. That team has been tackling WMV3, a.k.a. VC-1 / VC-3 / WMV9 stuff for about a year now. They put preliminary support in, what, February? Apparently, peeps have so far gotten the key frame to decode, but it freezes there.

So what I'm saying is, it's nice to donate to VLC guys, but help ffmpeg guys first.

Re:Very Buggy for Me

[tholomyes]

From the README.MacOSX.rtf:

14. VLC does not start anymore or does strange things
Delete your preferences and try again. You can use the script "Delete Preferences.app" on the disk-image to do that. If you want to do it by hand, delete "org.videolan.vlc.plist" and a folder called "VLC" in ~/Library/Preferences (your personal preferences-folder inside the library of your HOME). If this does not help, see 13.

OSX coming leaps and bounds

[McCarrum]

In the changelog ..

Mac OS X port:
* New script to delete the preferences automatically

I see OSX is now getting standard Windows functionality ..

Re:Plugin

[jZnat]

Same plugin architecture (the Netscape plugin architecture that is), so it'll work in Mozilla, Netscape, Firefox, etc. Just copy it to your ~/.mozilla/plugins/ directory (%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Plugins\ in windows IIRC).

Ignores DVD Region Code

[Nice2Cats]

For those of us whose lives are lived between two or more of the infamous DVD regions (in my case, Europe and the U.S.), VLC is an absolute godsend. Every Mac user should get it: Apple's DVD Player wants me do pick one or the other RC, while VLC just plays the damn thing. Quicktime gives me nag entries in the menus -- like, I pay a four-digit sum for a computer and they won't throw in the $40 fee for the full fuctionality? Really clever, Jobs -- and so if I want to play around with the size and other stuff, I just use VLC for QT instead. VLC is one of the coolest pieces of software out there, free or corporate, and anybody who is not using it on whatever platform should be treated with suspicion -- they probably work for the RIAA or eat babies. Or both.

Thanks, guys, for all the great work. This and Firefox are some of the ones that make all the difference.

Re:Ignores DVD Region Code

[myspys]

It should be noted that the newer Powerbooks will ask you for a new region code and if you select Cancel it will automatically eject the DVD, thus rendering it impossible to even try with VLC :-/

Re:Ignores DVD Region Code

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't really true - you can still play all region dvds fine by turning off autoplay then using vlc.

Re:Once again, beaten by DIGG!

[Slashcrap]

Jealousy hurts, doesn't it?

Digg = 1 line stories followed by 50 x 1 line comments. A lot like yours in fact.

That's why you like Digg isn't it? You feel that you are among intellectual equals. And from what I've seen you're almost certainly correct.

One question - if Digg is so good, why are you on Slashdot?

I look forward to your reply of "you suck" or "your mom smells" with baited breath.

PS. Now that you've aroused my interest I think I'm going to go and start trolling on Digg. Does Digg have the same protections against trolls that Slashdot has? No? Oh, so sad.

Ironically, so much better on Windows...

[cardpuncher]

VLC manages to embody the essential dichotomy of the OSS vs Proprietary Software debate.

Get an installer for Windows or the Mac and you get a useful multi-purpose tool that has more flexibility and fewer restrictions than the equivalent commercial software.

Try to install it on Linux and you realise the advantages of a commercial platform onto which you simply install binary application packages. There are *some* packages available for VLC, provided you happen to have the right version of the right Linux distribution, but most have some important features configured out. Try to compile it yourself and get ready for a nightmare of dependencies on specific (sometimes elderly) versions of obscure libraries, header files that your Linux distribution didn't think to provide and a number of other little glitches that have you tearing your hair out. Or, more likely, giving up.

Now if only there were an open platform onto which you could simply copy an open application and just have it run...