Filed under: Audio, Multimedia, Software, Video, Internet Tools
VLC 0.8.5 released with Intel Mac, Growl support, many improvements
The most excellent jack-of-many-formats VLC media player has just reached version 0.8.5, and boy does it pack a whallop - just check out the release notes. The biggest new additions to write home about are Universal Binary support, Growl notifications, a statistics system, new skin support including skins from Winamp 2 (for those who just can't let go), new video filters, support for downloading updates (possibly due to Sparkle?) and a whole lot more.
VLC is a feature-packed media player with support for a boatload of media formats, and is available free for many OSs from VideoLAN.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Max v W said 12:13PM on 5-07-2006
you failed to mention the new HTTP interface that is based on AJAX technology (well, JavaScript that is.) I've been running it since it got out (and nightly builds before that which are also universal) and still love using VLC, and now that i know how to use it with my AppleRemote on the MBP i love it even more :)
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R. Tyler Ballance said 12:36PM on 5-07-2006
Finally! I've been trying out the nightly builds constantly for intels, and have had varied success. I hope with this release the codec for WMV finally _works_
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Chris said 12:56PM on 5-07-2006
Can anyboday shed some light on how to install a skin on VLC? I've been going through the documentation they provide but can't make head or tail of it, and the latest info on the forums still says its not possible on OS X...??
Thanks for any help!
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lOUDsCREAMEr said 1:13PM on 5-07-2006
any tryed the VLC safari/mozilla plugin? doesnt seem to work for me (iBook G4 12" the Ultimate revision, Mac OS 10.4.6)
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Wheels said 1:58PM on 5-07-2006
I maybe wrong here, but it seems to me that Video LAN isn't really doing an universal release. Instead they're releasing separate packages for PPCs and Mactels. If it were a true universal binary, then both platforms could be handled in one package. Either way, I must say that VLC is getting better with each release.
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Wojtek said 2:09PM on 5-07-2006
I had to download twice. Can anyone explain why one would compile two separate versions versus an universal binary.
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Christopher said 3:24PM on 5-07-2006
Great news, thanks. I've been wating for a VLC update for a while now.
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Jay said 3:25PM on 5-07-2006
To compile universal binaries they need to use gcc 4.0 which did not become available until 10.3.9. Panther users who haven't downloaded all their point upgrades and all jaguar, puma and cheeetah users cannot run universal binaries becuase their machines only support code compiled with gcc 3.3. To maintain some backwards compatibilty some programmers are choosing to compile intel builds with 4.0 but stay with 3.3 for ppc. This is why it took firefox so long to release an intel version, they were trying to fit 4.0 code and 3.3 code into the same universal binary. I don't know if they ever got it or what solution they used.
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nate said 3:56PM on 5-07-2006
Don't use the mozilla/safari plugin -- playing streams still very buggy. Stick to QuickTime augmented with divx/xvid/wmv3 support.
VLC is not a universal binary because that would require a move to Xcode. VLC currently has a very flaky cross-platform build system -- so flaky because it's so portable. http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=16725
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pygmalion said 4:56PM on 5-07-2006
Sorry, no skins support on Mac OS X.
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Tomm said 5:48PM on 5-07-2006
When o when is VLC going to have
a) WMV support - I hate playing videos in non-fullscreen mode, and I'm too tight to splash out on Quicktime Pro. Also, it'd be much better to have one program for all videos. If anyone knows how to get WMVs to work, please let me know!
b) On-screen controls - You know, when you're in fullscreen mode, to rewind or whatever without exiting fullscreen.
That is all :)
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Jack Beckman said 5:51PM on 5-07-2006
"Can anyone explain why one would compile two separate versions versus an universal binary."
Maybe they aren't using XCode, and can't generate one.
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Daniel said 6:05PM on 5-07-2006
As far as WMV - they cant do it because there is not a free codec for Mac that they can incoporate. That is what they have claimed on their site for a while anyway.
They would have to use the Flip 4 Mac one.
Although, since it is a Quicktime component, why the hell cant they call from within VLC for playback?
Either way, VLC completely rocks.
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Andy Matuschak said 7:09PM on 5-07-2006
Nah, they didn't use Sparkle. A shame, too, since their update solution freezes the program when I try to use it. o_O
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joe said 9:34PM on 5-07-2006
the reason is because the binary is 15MB of the 35MB download. a universal binary would raise the download size to 50MB.
also, xcode or not, anyone can make universal binaries. there are command line tools to assemble and reassemble them. its called "lipo"
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John D said 10:11PM on 5-07-2006
post processing doesnt seem to work anymore. choosing it will freeze the movie screen.
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