VideoLAN's popular cross-platform open source media player VLC 1.0.2 is now available with an important security update. The rest of the release notes are rather terse and nerdy:

"BEWARE: this release is not compatible with Tiger. This version introduces many fixes, notably for SSA decoding, v4l2, MacOS interface, ogg/theora, x264 modules and security issues. It also introduces the port to 64bits for Mac OS platform and 2 new languages (Kazakh and Croatian)."

I'm not sure what "Mac OS interface" fixes were included (the app looks the same to me, but perhaps it refers to minor fixes rather than major changes), but two things probably jumped out to you: the first is that the app is not compatible with Tiger, although this is not new with 1.0.2 (downloads for older versions of Mac OS X are still available).

The second is the "big" news: VLC is now 64-bit. Again, this is not a change that end-users are likely to notice, but if you have been following news about Snow Leopard you know that 64-bit has gotten a lot of emphasis, and it's great to see VLC is keeping up.

Someone recently asked why I would use VLC on the Mac when I had QuickTime Player or Apple's built-in DVD app. My answer was two-fold and simple: I use it because when I want to watch DVDs I can press command+D (to open the DVD), press enter, and VLC automatically takes me to the main menu of the DVD, skipping all the ads and previews and other nonsense that the movie companies try to force you to watch every single time you put in a DVD. The other big reason I use VLC is because is has an option (under the "Video" menu item) called "Float on Top" which, as you would expect, keeps the video window above other windows. I was disappointed to see that even QuickTime Player X does not offer a similar feature.

VLC may not be beautiful to look at, and its advanced preferences are enough to make a normal person go cross-eyed with confusion, but it is a video playback workhorse, especially when paired with the US$3 iPhone remote control app (iTunes link).

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!

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]

See, that didn't take long! VideoLAN's VLC media player has been revised to version 0.8.6a, which closes the vulnerability noted by Month of Apple Bugs and also makes improvements to Full Screen Mode.

If you aren't already using VLC for its incredible powers of playback and streaming, now would be an ideal time to start.

[via Versiontracker]

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

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.