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!

• Enabled Indeo 2/3 decodecs
• Added external idx/sub (VobSub) support
• Added support for H.264 and H.263 in FLV containers
• Apple's decoder now handles Baseline/Main Profile H.264
• Fix inconsistent importing for multi-channel audio
• Reduced memory usage for packed streams
• Added sanity checks on all preferences
• Enabled hack to show subtitles in Front Row
• Fixed negative values in SSA \frz tag
• Fixed VSFilter bug-compatibility for \an

• Fixed update checker never running - this version requires a manual install
• Enabled frame-dropping on AppleTV
• Fixed some frames being lost in AVCHD/.mp4 with newer versions of QuickTime
• Fixed another ffmpeg crash on G3s

Perian

• H.264 in AVI fixed
• Some anamorphic AVI files are now supported
• Performance problems due to PIC fixed with Xcode 3.1
• Incorrect frame skipping on H.264 intra frames fixed
• Better character set detection
• The update checker is now much more polite
• Several parsing and rendering bugs with subtitles fixed
• Player freezing while loading subtitles with embedded fonts fixed
• Audio fixed for some older MKV files with AAC/FLAC
• Strange values in MKV chapters or video sizes are handled better
• Initial support for SAMI subtitles added
• Worked around a QuickTime bug (#5770288) causing frames to be lost during export
• New codecs: DosBox ZMBV, VP6+Alpha, Nellymoser ASAO
FFmpeg:
• Crashing on PPC G3 fixed
• Fraps decoding artifacts fixed

• Major performance improvements
• TrueAudio, MP1, and DTS audio support
• Slice-based multithreaded decoding for MPEG-1/2/H.264
• Apple H.264 now handles AVCHD/interlaced video
• Compatibility fixes for QuickTime 7.4 and Leopard
• Objective-C GC compatibility
• Fixed a crash in Toast
• Better subtitle rendering
• Subtitles play during MKV loading
• Snow support
• Miscellaneous bug fixes

Psst. Perian is about to enter a private beta for version 1.1. If you recall, last time Perian went into beta mode the software leaked. This was generally a bad thing as a buggy and unstable version made the rounds, hitting Mac Update at one point, before the team was ready for it to go public. This time, they're reacting by limiting the beta list to users who have made donations and help support development. If you've donated to Perian, keep your eyes open for an invitation email.

Unfortunately, it looks like Perian 1.0 has not been released and that its appearance at MacUpdate was in error. Chris Forsythe, whom I mention below, has identified himself as the Perian Project Manager.

Perian, the swiss army knife of QuickTime codecs finally hit version 1.0. But don't run over to the Perian Home Page right away. It hasn't been updated yet. Instead, as TUAW reader Jason P tipped us off, point your web browser to this MacUpdate page instead.

The new version of Perian installs in a new way. It's a Preferences pane that you double-click (versus a QuickTime component that you drag to /Library/QuickTime--the new codec installs to ~/Library/QuickTime instead). You can remove it, check for updates or set your Audio options from this panel.

New features include integrated A52 Dolby Digital support, subtitles, a bunch of bug fixes and many new codecs. The full list of 1.0 changes follows after the jump

Thanks Jason P

Update: TUAW reader Chris Forsythe wrote in reporting that he found Perian 1.0 buggy and that it's crashing on him. So far it's working fine for me but I have only tested it with Xvid and streaming MPEG-4 (the keynote). Let us know your results in the comments.

Update 2: readers are reporting that the file seems to have disappeared from MacUpdate. "I get to the Perian 1.0 page, but if you click the download link you get a file not found error."

Update 3: TUAW reader Yuvi writes that the MacUpdate link was not meant to be released.