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VLC Acquiring Lots of New Features

Posted by Soulskill on from the onward-and-upward dept.

jones_supa writes: Two weekends ago an update for VLC media player was shared during a presentation in Brussels at FOSDEM. Lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf covered VLC's continued vibrant development, as well as features that are coming for VLC 2.2 and VLC 3.0. VLC 2.2.0 will feature automatic, GPU-accelerated video rotation support, extension improvements, resume handling, support for new codecs/formats and rewrites to some of the existing formats, VDPAU GPU zero-copy support, x265 encoder support, etc. Further out is VLC 3.0.0, which is planned to have Wayland support, GPU zero-copy support for OpenMAX IL, ARIB subtitle support, HEVC / VP9 hardware decoding on Android, a rework of the MP4 and TS demuxers, and browsing improvements. The VLC FOSDEM 2015 presentation is available in PDF form. The VLC Git shortlog can be used to follow the development of the project.

10 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. GPU/HW accell :D by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    VLC has always performed pretty badly compared to other media players, but whatever file I throw at it, it Just Works

    Well maybe subtitle support could be better too.

    1. Re:GPU/HW accell :D by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 3, Insightful
      TFS

      VLC Acquiring Lots of New Features

      Fine. But the essential features we do need all the time, like acceleration, streaming: buffering during 'pause', random access to a position while keeping in memory the part that was loaded 30 seconds before [algo], general ergonomics and intuitiveness - are they finally working well? (On Linux at least, that's far from working well)

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  2. Chromecast? by lillgud · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No news about supporting Google Chromecast? The discussion on the forum[1] has been dead quite some time. I can see in the git repo that there actually *is* code present (cast.cpp) and I would guess that this would be a really appreciated feature.

    [1]: https://forum.videolan.org/vie...

    1. Re:Chromecast? by nonsequitor · · Score: 4, Informative

      You CAN use VLC with Chromecast already though. It's not supported in the desktop application yet, but the VLC plugin for the Chrome browser already meets this need. It's fairly easy to make work:
      1) Install VLC plugin for Chrome
      2) Enter URL for video on your filesystem file://path/media.file
      3) Hit the cast button on your browser

      I think official support is on hold until Google releases a Chromecast SDK for desktop applications, otherwise it'll be a hack and could break at any time if Google changes stuff. As far as I know, Google has only released an API for web based services.

  3. Re:Tech Features Yay by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Funny

    Also make a minimalistic website with the only VLC cone logo with a drop shadow, along with a text "Simple. Beautiful. Elegant. Media the way you want it." Then just a big download button.

  4. Frame-interpolation. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Personally, I would like to see them add frame-interpolation to VLC. There is Smooth Video Project that can be used with several other players and you could use it even with XBMC, though I don't know if it works with Kodi anymore, but SVP doesn't work with VLC. I really do enjoy watching videos in 60 fps, it's like a night and day compared to the usual 23.976 or 25 fps, even if it's just interpolated.

  5. Re:VLC implements this one new trick in their... by kosmosik · · Score: 4, Informative

    > My personal foible: I stop and start videos a lot, and hunting with the slider to find out where I left off is a royal pain

    In the PDF linked from this post there is a slide (on 20th page) showing just that functionality so I guess they wish to add it.

  6. Re:VLC preferences by hackertourist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While I agree that the prefs interface could use improvement, please don't suggest they reduce the number of preferences. I use VLC because it's configurable to my tastes.

  7. UPnP/DLNA by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wish they would implement the ability to stream to UPnP devices like a TV over ethernet/wireless. I can't watch movies without the audio compressor plugin. The music and movie sound engineers need to trade places. Going from whispers to ear blasting volumes does not make movies any better. And before you ask no I don't have a surround setup, only left and right Infinity Qe speakers. Surround sound is a cheap gimmick.

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  8. Re:Just me? by Narishma · · Score: 3

    Anything with a battery (which is the vast majority of things nowadays) will benefit hugely from hardware acceleration.

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