Filed under: Software
VLC 0.8.6 released
VideoLan Client version 0.8.6 just went live over at videolan.org. The new update includes support for Windows Media Video 9 and Flash Video, improved H.264 decoding, better Windows Unicode support, a Fullscreen controller, and support for the Apple Remote.
Other improvements include "vastly improved" playlist support, with Shoutcast TV listings, last.fm/Audioscrobbler support, and "live search"--which I'm going to have to play with to figure out what that means. The interface has been updated bigtime and the Linux and Windows UIs are brand new. The OS X interface uses custom artwork by Simon Damkjar Andersen. New hotkeys for crop and zoom are included as well as snapshot support.
You'll find lots of new video effects including "Adjust", "Invert", "Distort" (such as Wave, Ripple and Gradient) filters and a "puzzle video output" filter, which sounds cool but not very useful.
More details to follow as we get a chance to download and play with the new software. YAY!
Thanks Andrew Eller
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris said 12:16PM on 12-10-2006
Does anyone know if VLC still changes its own volume instead of system volume, when you change the volume with the Apple remote? It showed this behaviour in the beta, which I found higly annoying...
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wako said 12:20PM on 12-10-2006
Thats awesome! Finally some full screen controls! VLC FTW!
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Giga said 12:22PM on 12-10-2006
Anyone else having problems with just opening VLC? Mounting/Installing went fine but once I tried opening it, it bounced in my dock a for a second and then closed.
Using macbook.
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Kevin S. said 12:31PM on 12-10-2006
WM9 VIDEO SUPPORT FINALLY
Flip4Mac doesn't even play these.
Stupid Microsoft with its crappy codecs...
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Blair said 1:02PM on 12-10-2006
Giga:
Same problem here. Instantaneous crash, not even a bounce. The Universal binary version works fine though, so give that a shot.
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Julian B said 1:18PM on 12-10-2006
#3 That happened to me when I downloaded the Intel installer, but when I subsequently downloaded the Universal binary, all was well ;-)
Julian
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Arses McGee said 1:28PM on 12-10-2006
They screwed up the i386 package - It's missing a library... Use the universal release, though it's a larger file.
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tony said 1:53PM on 12-10-2006
Intel version doesn't work on my iMac C2D.
Seems to be missing a library.
:-(
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tony said 1:57PM on 12-10-2006
It's fixed. Just download the intel file again (you'll notice it weighs in a bit heaver now).
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Giga said 2:24PM on 12-10-2006
DJ fixed the Intel broken build. Works now. :D
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Vincent said 3:12PM on 12-10-2006
To all users who have VLC crashing at startup, consider deleting all previous VLC preferences.
It fixed the problem for me.
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NKHK said 8:11PM on 12-10-2006
Nice - VLC is a great little app.
A question - with WMV9 supported, does this mean that DRM protected WMV9 movies will play on the latest version of VLC? I use mediazone.com to watch rugby out here in Hong Kong, and can only watch it on my fiance's PC (which is a bit old and painful to use).
I'm not entirely sure how the WMV9 + License thing works though - is Mac OS still DRM incompatible? Would I have to somehow transfer over the licenses from the PC?
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henrrrik said 8:25PM on 12-10-2006
@NKHK
No, that won't work.
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Peter Payne said 8:29PM on 12-10-2006
I wonder if these open source dweeb programmers will realize that it's NOT cool for a video program to throw up errors when there's an encoding problem or other problem with the media...that enjoying a movie with errors messages that CANNOT (as of the last version) be permanently turned off is just no fun.
Seriously, I am all over MPlayer OS X and only use this VLC occasionally. The "arrow keys fast forward/rewing 10 seconds" function is fabulous and it plays everything.
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Eric J said 11:24PM on 12-10-2006
big improvement... VLC was choppy on my MBPro when I played vids at fullscreen on the prior release
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mike said 11:49PM on 12-10-2006
wat??? APPLE REMOTE SUPPORT? Awesome! This app is amazing
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Dexter said 2:27AM on 12-11-2006
Peter, I completely agree - those error messages are a total pain in the ass. If you care about this stuff, just open the frickin Messages window.
I cannot seem to find the last.fm support - am I the only one?
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marc cardwell said 8:23AM on 12-11-2006
does any one know if the mac version supports skins? all i see on the skin DL page are directions for windows and linux.
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Andrew said 2:16PM on 12-15-2006
No, Dexter, you're not the only one still looking for the last.fm support. According to a thread on the VLC forums, it may or may not be listed in the control interfaces of the preferences in version 0.9.0:
http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?p=88283
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