Skip to Content

VLC 1.0.0 released

by Robert Palmer Jul 7th 2009 at 1:30PM

While being a useful tool for several years now, VLC has finally reached that first pinnacle of software development: 1.0.

VLC is an alternative media player for Mac, Windows and Linux that handles a wide variety of media file formats without requiring additional software (like Perian) to be installed on your system. It can also be used as a server to stream video on higher-bandwidth networks.

Personally, I think it's handy for things like making still frame images of DVDs, or capturing video from your EyeTV tuner. Anytime I have to send QuickTime or MP4 video to PC or Linux users, I recommend they download and install VLC to watch it.

The software isn't for everyone: If you're already familiar with VLC, the upgrade is a solid one. Performance is good, and the feature list is tough to beat. If you've never used VLC and you're happy with QuickTime Player (thank you very much), then feel free to pass this one by.

Binaries for VLC 1.0 are available for Intel-based Macs running Mac OS X Leopard (and developer previews of Snow Leopard). Source code and other, older packages for PowerPC and earlier versions of Mac OS X are also available.

Thanks, Chris!



View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Multimedia Software Video

While being a useful tool for several years now, VLC has finally reached that first pinnacle of software development: 1.0. VLC is an...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

16 Comments

Filter by:
bangler

"VLC is an alternative media player for Mac, Windows and Linux that handles a wide variety of media file formats without requiring additional software" - without requiring 'additional software?' VLC -is- 'additional software.' Really baffled by that statement, especially since using a plugin like Perian -feels- less like 'additional software,' more transparent to the user.

That said, I keep VLC around for when I need it, but these days it's pretty rare.

July 10 2009 at 11:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
TeMc

I've got VLC aswell installed since one of the early versions and use it for a lot of reasons.

However, QuickTime (Pro) + Perian is still my personal favorite and set as default.

Whenever there's a rare codec, or when I'm exporting/encoding a video in QuickTime Pro I pick VLC as a good second option.
Only situation I also prefer VLC is when having a video in a wrong aspect ratio (VLC's Video-menu == awesome !)

On Windows though VLC is the default for me with no doubt.

July 10 2009 at 9:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SAPO!!

what about movist? http://code.google.com/p/movist/

seems good enough so far.

July 08 2009 at 7:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jeffedsell

Why/how do you use VLC with EyeTV? I'm intrigued. Do you use it instead of the EyeTV software?

July 07 2009 at 7:55 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
SpyBoyCH

On their site, they says it has HD codecs including Blu-ray. Does this mean it will be able to play blu-ray discs naively, or do i have to rip them and play that way? not exactly sure what the difference in method would have to do with it, but he real question is: Can i finally play Blu-ray on my mac without a boot-camp partition?

July 07 2009 at 2:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
edgar wong

quicktime takes forever to open wmv files. sometimes a minute or two for large hd vids. VLC plays them instantly and looks great.

Must have software :)

July 07 2009 at 2:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jaroslav

Apparently VLC 1.0 has Airtunes support as a feature. Has anybody tried this yet? Does it sync audio with video?

July 07 2009 at 2:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Jaroslav's comment
Marcos

I will try this the minute I get home.

July 07 2009 at 2:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Marcos

I couldn't figure it out, and the forum+wiki are disabled for the moment.

July 07 2009 at 11:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hansning

Robert,

You mentioned that it's useful for streaming, but when I compare QT to VLC, I still prefer QT whenever I can use it. My preferance isn't scientific by any means, but VLC often stops to buffer(?) but not QT.

July 07 2009 at 2:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to hansning's comment
Tyler R.

I've had similar experiences with VLC and streaming. Even over my 802.11n network at home, VLC with stutter and stop streaming much more often than Quicktime does. I'm hoping this is something that the 1.0 release addresses, because I prefer VLC.

July 07 2009 at 2:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hansning

very glad to know it's not just me.

On the other hand, I was wondering if there was a optimal way to stream media. I basically just open a network folder, and open the chosen file.

July 07 2009 at 2:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lancelott

Actually, there is NO reason for a Mac user NOT to have VLC. It's free and supports every major (and most obscure) formats.

Even those ugly .wmv files your friends send you in those "funny" e-mails.

If you don't want it to be the default player (I don' use it as default) then that's fine... but more than optional it's needed.

July 07 2009 at 1:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to lancelott's comment
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.