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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."
I realize Flip4Mac exists for this, but does the new VLC implement Windows WMV9 DLLs for the Intel OS X version?
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
This program is cross-platform and this build has Windows- and OSX-specific features. Why is this under Linux? Just because it's open source?
Scorta futuere amo!
> "a Fullscreen controller"
Woohoo! I've been a tad frustrated with the lack of control while in fullscreen. I suppose I could memorize all of the keyboard shortcuts, but I use several different viewers between the Mac, Linux and Windoze...it just gets too confusing. I can't wait to try this out!
Since it's using ffmpeg to decode WMV9 instead of using Windows DLLs, both PPC and Intel Macs enjoy native decoding of the codec in question. No wrapper, no drag.
Incidentally, it looks like the new version is finally available in Universal Binary as well as Intel- and PPC-specific builds. And it seems to load subtitle texts automatically from the get-go without mingling with the preferences settings (yes, I confirmed this by trashing the existing preferences file). I say job well done for the VLC developers.
Serving time in Aristotelean prison for violating laws of physics
Is there an official torrent of the releases hosted somewhere reachable?
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
You may find it surprising, but when I saw the title of the article I literally almost fell out of my chair I was so excited. It could have been because I was sitting all the way back in my 135 degree angle but out of the 10ish media players I use, VLC is by far the simplest of most comprehensive one I have ever used and because of how long it has been since it was last updated and because of how many new features makes this big news. Also, consider the fact that I, along with many others who use it a lot, probably would not have realized that it was updated because the regular news outlets don't cover geek news... that is what /. is here for. Also, unlike these other services you are mentioning, VLC chooses not to spam you every time you open it with the option to upgrade which I think also deserves recognition.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
I think that a lot of open source projects avoid going to 1.0 because they lose the whole "it's a beta, it's supposed to have problems" crutch. The fact of the matter is, people in general understand that all applications, regardless of version number, have flaws.
.zip files.
When you call it 1.0, there is no going back. It's kind of scary for some projects. Look at the difference in press in a project like firefox. When it hit 1.0 it started getting flack for a poor upgrade mechanism and such, while before that no one cared much if it only came in
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I'm just stopping by to point out that the new FFMPEG codecs included with VLC are dreamy. Fullscreen video looks twice as good as it used to. And having Apple remote support in fullscreen mode is fab. Truly an excellent release.