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VLC 0.8.6 Released
h2g2bob writes "VideoLAN yesterday released a new version of VLC media player. A shout out goes to ffmpeg for many of the codec improvements." From the blurb: "Building on feedback from the 29 million downloads of VLC media player 0.8.5, we bring you version 0.8.6 with many bugfixes, as well as a couple of new features we think you will truly enjoy. Most prominent are probably Windows Media Video 9 and Flash Video. Other important changes are improved H.264 decoding, better Windows Unicode support, a Fullscreen controller, and Apple Remote support for Mac OS X."
http://nightlies.videolan.org/ is still online
FFMPEG now contains an open-source WMV9 decoder.
No. It would be illegal (in some countries) to use Windows files - they got its own license and it wold be sloppy. Instead VLC uses ffmpeg codecs which implement (partially) WMV9 decoding (but no DRM and no encoding *FIXME*). Ffmpeg codecs are another implementation (than Windows DLLs) achieved through reverse-engeenering (which also may be illegal to use in some countries).
:)
As for now from ffmpeg documentation:
http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC23
WMV8 and WMV9 are "not completely working". But I think they may work well for 90% of media files out there.
So kudos for VLC team for another great release.
- VideoLAN primary mirror - France - Download (HTTP)
- VIA Centrale Reseaux, École Centrale Paris - France - Download (HTTP)
- Twente University - Netherlands - Download (HTTP)
- IRCAM - France - Download (HTTP)
- Université de Strasbourg - France - Download (FTP)
- Cr@ns, ENS Cachan - France - Download (FTP)
- Providence University - Taiwan - Download (FTP)
- Endpoint Corporation - Sweden - Download (FTP)
- Optralan - USA - Download (HTTP)
- Brno University of Technology - Czech Republic - Download (HTTP)
- Brno University of Technology - Czech Republic - Download (FTP)
- Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná - Brazil - Download (FTP)
(These are all Windows downloads. Remove the filename and last directory from the path to explore other download options.)This flies in the face of science.
I have a PPC mac and it is great to have a native working WMV9/VC-1 codec. While I haven't tried it in VLC, I have used it in the recent MPlayer dev builds, and it is much better than flip4mac.
I use VLC player for playing all my videos under Linux, both standalone and as a firefox plugin (in conjunction with the MediaPlayerConnectivity Firefox addon extension).
The only downside I find is that actions are a bit laggy compared to frame-based players. For example, if I hit pause, it doesn't pause instantaneously.
Also, and I'm not sure if it's a limitation of being a packet-based player, but I wish it wouldn't close the video right after it's done playing. I prefer the last frame to stay on the screen.
P.S. For those using VLC under XGL and get a weird green-tinted bar at the top of your videos, change the Video output module to "X11 video output". You'll need to toggle the Advanced Settings checkbox.