VLC 0.8.6d improves Leopard compatibility

Since upgrading to Leopard some folks have been having trouble with the popular open-source video player VLC from VideoLAN. Fortunately, the project has just released 0.8.6d substantially improving Leopard compatibility. The changes include video output improvements as well as support for the Apple Remote and various bug fixes. If you're running VLC under Leopard you'll want to upgrade.

VLC is a free download from VideoLAN. It's available in both Universal and Intel only builds.

[via Accelerate Your Mac]

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Source: http://www.videolan.org/

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Video Open Source Leopard Beta Beat

Since upgrading to Leopard some folks have been having trouble with the popular open-source video player VLC from VideoLAN. Fortunately,...

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M@rc

Very pleased with this new version. 1080p mkv playback is much smoother now!

December 02 2007 at 7:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Well, VLC has worked fine on Leopard. Perian crashes for me almost every time I watch an XVID video, within 5 or 10 minutes - through quicktime or frontrow...

December 01 2007 at 9:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Quagga

Hmm, odd. I've never had a problem with VLC. Anyway, thanks for letting us know about the update!

December 01 2007 at 8:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Luigi193

When I have to figure out whats wrong with a file or disk, I use VLC, or if i have some strange file i need to open, VLC can normally open it...BUT besides that i never use it. I use perian instead, what an awesome pluggin!!! That and the flash quickview pluggin are awesome.

December 01 2007 at 7:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Adrian

MPlayer?
Works with the same base library as VLC (ffmpeg's libavcodec) but is a much more mature product. It's more a command-line player but there's a good GUI for OSX.
As far as I know, MPlayer is the only option on OSX to display MKVs with h264, aac and ass soft subtitles correctly.

Unfortunately, the binary on the official homepage is very out of date. Get yourself a current build here:
http://www.haque.net/software/mplayer/mplayerosx/builds/

December 01 2007 at 6:35 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Adrian's comment

Big John

VLC handles H.264 (x264) files just fine, subtitles and the lot. I use it daily for that.

December 01 2007 at 6:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Adrian

VLC's subtitle support is very basic and barley usable sometimes. It's becoming more common to include ASS subtitles in MKV files. ASS subtitles are very powerful, allowing many font-, color- and placement options and even complex scripted animations. VLC strips away all the formatting and makes subtitles that also translate signs and on-screen text almost unusable.

AFAIK, MPlayer is the only player on OSX that can handle ASS.

And the command-line is really very robust and versatile. The combo of MPlayer and MEncoder can get you very far from ripping RTSP streams to converting exotic formats to easily ripping the audio track from a movie. VLC is very powerful too but very shaky in anything it does. It has gotten much more stable but is still far from good.

December 01 2007 at 6:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Big John

I keep having to drop back to this. I have a lot of HD (720p, 1080p) stuff that QuickTime chokes on. The MKV support is nice, too.

I've had the nightly builds for a while and this is a solid little upgrade.

December 01 2007 at 6:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Stephan Tual

Sorry - it's just not that great. Crashes a lot more than it does on Windows, obscure error messages, dubious UI, indecipherable menu options, etc. It's the application you fall in love with the first time you try it then slowly start to hate.
Alternatives? I'm only aware of Perian, which has the added nicety of integrating with frontrow by definition, and therefore solves a lot other problems VLC has (lack of support for remote, and so on).

December 01 2007 at 5:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

lowfi

No 512px icons. And still buggy as ever... ;)

December 01 2007 at 4:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply