9 ms·

We just released VLC 1.1.0

166 points by jbk 16y ago

ericd 16y ago
I'm seriously impressed with how far VLC has come in the span of a few years. Crud files go in, perfection comes out. I wish more software was this robust.
a2tech 16y ago
In very sad news they've removed the Shoutcast integration inside of VLC. This was one of the great 'hidden' features of VLC-you could view essentially any type of video or audio through a very slick integrated menu. Darn AOL for strong arming them into removing the feature.
- jbk 16y ago
  I promise that you will have a surprise quite soon :D And the lua extension framework already let's you get it back.
  - catch23 16y ago
    hopefully soon! It's the main thing (shoutcast streaming music) I use VLC for.
    - jbk 16y ago
      In the next days...
csytan 16y ago
VLC was my preferred player in Windows, and still remains my default in OS X. There is nary a format which the orange pylon cannot handle. Thanks to the VLC and FFMPEG guys for all the hard work!
- baddox 16y ago
  Last I checked something with their .flv support was bad. It might have been the splitter or something. With a lot of .flv's you couldn't seek to anywhere in the file.
  - jjs 16y ago
    IIRC, .flv files have an index that is used for seeking (including seeking into a stream, in cooperation with the server). Some encoders might not create the index properly, and some players might have tricks to seek (offline?) even without one. To repair these files, see: http://muzso.hu/2008/12/18/fixing-flash-videos-flv-for-use-with-adobe-flash-media-server-fms http://muzso.hu/2008/12/18/fixing-flash-videos-flv-for-use-w...
  - jbk 16y ago
    It is fixed in late 1.0.x versions and in 1.1.0
- randallsquared 16y ago
  As of 1.0.5 there were still some codecs missing, causing the annoying error message which ends in "There is nothing you can do about this" or something similar. It's not clear to me that this is something that can be fixed with code, though, sadly.
houseabsolute 16y ago
Wondering what the technical problems with the ATI drivers were.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  From my reading, it seems that the complaint is that ATI doesn't support hardware video decoding properly.
  - jbk 16y ago
    No, it is doing it fine. The irony is that if you have an Intel SSE4.1 chip, you can use a special trick to work-around this "bug".
    - ComputerGuru 16y ago
      Where's the "irony" in that? Or did you perhaps mean something else?
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - jbk 16y ago
        Because to make it work better with AMD/ATI GPUs, you need some Intel CPUs, because AMD CPUs don't have SSE4.1
      - vetinari 16y ago
        Irony is, that it works with competitor's chips (Intel), but not with their own (AMD).
- jbk 16y ago
  Well, those are pretty simple. For many reasons (that are debatable, but maybe this isn't the right place?), VLC can decode on the GPU and then gets the data back from the GPU to filter/restream/reencode to finally display it. Even if this isn't the fastest way, there are good reasons for it (I can explain if needed...) On ATI drivers, the data back path is slow, and you need a special GUID that ATI doesn't want/cannot to communicate. Adobe uses it, we cannot yet. I believe this will be fixed in the future.
philwelch 16y ago
The Mac OS X version is 64 bit, which means it'll work with 64-bit HandBrake. Previously you had to use an odd prerelease build. This is what I was waiting for!
- nroach 16y ago
  cool! but still no hardware acceleration for OpenCL it looks like.
  - astrange 16y ago
    Video hardware acceleration has nothing to do with, and can't be helped by, OpenCL. I'm just warning you in case you try to write it and fail.
neurotech1 16y ago
I've used VLC player for a while, for playing both DVDs and downloaded videos. It's a very versatile package. It does not have the sound bug that causes Windows Media Player(with codec) to make the background loud, and the main track soft.
PatrickTulskie 16y ago
You really should use Sparkle for the OS X release. VLC is one of the few apps that doesn't use it and the built in updating mechanism in VLC never works anyway.
- Zev 16y ago
  VLC uses Sparkle for updates now. I think it was just added in 1.1.0.
- jbk 16y ago
  And this is exactly what it does...
- l0nwlf 16y ago
  Yes. I wonder why the built-in update never works. It gave me the message while updating 1.0.5 that it is the latest version.
  - jbk 16y ago
    Because we want our server to not die... So, first release, then, when calm is back, make the built-in update.
mkramlich 16y ago
big thank you to the VLC team for keeping this great free video player going!
pyre 16y ago
I don't see added support for the Broadcom HD decoder that Asus is shipping in some of their newer model Eee PCs (1005PR). Anyone know if there plans to add this? It would really help out HD decoding on the low-end platforms (esp since the cards aren't integrated, so they can be bought as add-ons as long as your low-end machine has a slot).
- _delirium 16y ago
  Not precisely an answer to your question, but it looks like there's a third-party library working on support for the Broadcom Crystal HD, which currently builds as a xine plugin: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/archvdr/browser/branches/libcrystalhd http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/archvdr/browser/branches/li...
  - pyre 16y ago
    I know that the XBMC crew have already integrated support for it. There is a github repo for the drivers too.
- jbk 16y ago
  Well, simply because Broadcom doesn't use the standard APIs, which means one need to do a special plugin for it.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Couldn't an adapter/driver for VAAPI be written? Their kernel module is open-source and now community (I think it's currently a 'community of one') maintained.
BoppreH 16y ago
I'm still waiting for an "auto-search subtitle" feature like the one in Media Player Classic.
- jbk 16y ago
  The new extension framework was designed for such features. Here you go: http://ale5000.altervista.org/vlc/extensions/subtitles-mod.lua http://ale5000.altervista.org/vlc/extensions/subtitles-mod.l...
philjackson 16y ago
You could write to a text file, in broken English, a vague description of a song and I bet VLC could still play it. Great piece of software, thanks to the devs.
ajtaylor 16y ago
Wow! On my old iMac (Core Duo 1.83GHz, RadeonX1600) the new VLC plays back a 720p mkv using 25-33% less CPU. Way to go VLC guys, you rock! Keep up the awesome work. VLC has been the default media player on my Mac for years because it plays EVERYTHING.
baskinghobo 16y ago
No disrespect to VLC but I just did a side by side comparison with MPC HC and VLC player and the MPC HC player looked much more clear - http://i.imgur.com/Mc2oS.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Mc2oS.jpg. Any reason behind this?
- d_c 16y ago
  I've noticed a difference in quality also. I compared mplayer and vlc, mplayer looked definitely better.
  - jbk 16y ago
    Very unlikely. Here MPC-HC, uses shaders and special renderers, technologies that VLC doesn't use on Windows. But Mplayer and VLC use the same technologies, same decoders, and same output modules technology (xv, x11 and plain d3d)
- jbk 16y ago
  nVidia driver?
- brandong 16y ago
  I use both VLC and MPC-HC on my machines. On the lower end computers I've noticed a large performance difference between the two: MPC-HC can crank out 720P on my 5year old laptops without hiccup, but VLC stutters all over the place. I've heard some recommendations on how to configure VLC to be more responsive, but the fact remains MPC-HC performs better "out-of-the-box" than VLC. I still keep VLC around for anything MPC-HC has trouble playing, however, as VLC truly does play just about anything if it is playable at all.
  - jbk 16y ago
    Of course, MPC-HC uses GPU while VLC didn't until this version.
- ja27 16y ago
  Do you have any of the sharpening shaders turned on in MPC? I'm not sure VLC has anything like that yet.
unwantedLetters 16y ago
I've wanted this feature for a while: to be able to just drag a subtitles file while VLC is playing a video and have VLC immediately start displaying subtitles from the new file. It's a great piece of software anyway! Congratulations on the latest release.
- jbk 16y ago
  This is exactly how it works on Windows and Linux interface of VLC.
  - unwantedLetters 16y ago
    Heh, I suppose this tells you what OS I use. Any plans of bringing that feature over to OS X?
    - jbk 16y ago
      Did you try Lunettes?
      - unwantedLetters 16y ago
        Hey, no I haven't tried Lunettes, but I will try it as soon as I get the opportunity. Thanks for the tip though, it looks very interesting.
pragmatic 16y ago
> so far, on Windows, VideoLAN is quite sad to be forced to recommend nVidia® GPU, until ATI® fixes their drivers on Windows I noticed that MPC-HC uses much less CPU (using the GPU I assume. Are there any tweaks to get VLC to do the same? Or is this quote above an indication that this just doesn't work well in ATI cards? BTW, I'm using ATI hardware and I find CPU usage around 10-20% in MPC-HC vs ~50% in VLC. In spite all VLC's other awesome features, The CPU useage and resultant fan noise are a bummer. I love the skins and plug in feature, btw. Good work.
- jbk 16y ago
  Well, until ATI fixes its driver, you cannot do much. Or until we found a work-around. But we are not really Windows developers...
Thoreandan 16y ago
jbk - Thank you (and the rest of your team members!) Does anyone have links to who I should talk to to volunteer as an Intel gfx hw tester? Netflix+Silverlight+Win7 is using GPU acceleration for video on my netbook, it would be great to have VLC take advantage of the same.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Drazick 16y ago
This is great. This Player is amazing. I hope ATI will contact you to overcome the limitation you encountered. By the way, Will the hardware acceleration work the Portable Version (Made by Portable Apps)? Moreover, someone mentioned a workaround to enable the Hardware Acceleration if I have SSE 4.1 enabled CPU. Could you say how?

166 points by jbk 16y ago

ericd 16y ago

I'm seriously impressed with how far VLC has come in the span of a few years. Crud files go in, perfection comes out. I wish more software was this robust.

a2tech 16y ago

In very sad news they've removed the Shoutcast integration inside of VLC. This was one of the great 'hidden' features of VLC-you could view essentially any type of video or audio through a very slick integrated menu. Darn AOL for strong arming them into removing the feature.

jbk 16y ago
I promise that you will have a surprise quite soon :D And the lua extension framework already let's you get it back.
- catch23 16y ago
  hopefully soon! It's the main thing (shoutcast streaming music) I use VLC for.
  - jbk 16y ago
    In the next days...

csytan 16y ago

VLC was my preferred player in Windows, and still remains my default in OS X. There is nary a format which the orange pylon cannot handle. Thanks to the VLC and FFMPEG guys for all the hard work!

baddox 16y ago
Last I checked something with their .flv support was bad. It might have been the splitter or something. With a lot of .flv's you couldn't seek to anywhere in the file.
- jjs 16y ago
  IIRC, .flv files have an index that is used for seeking (including seeking into a stream, in cooperation with the server). Some encoders might not create the index properly, and some players might have tricks to seek (offline?) even without one. To repair these files, see: http://muzso.hu/2008/12/18/fixing-flash-videos-flv-for-use-with-adobe-flash-media-server-fms http://muzso.hu/2008/12/18/fixing-flash-videos-flv-for-use-w...
- jbk 16y ago
  It is fixed in late 1.0.x versions and in 1.1.0
randallsquared 16y ago
As of 1.0.5 there were still some codecs missing, causing the annoying error message which ends in "There is nothing you can do about this" or something similar. It's not clear to me that this is something that can be fixed with code, though, sadly.

houseabsolute 16y ago

Wondering what the technical problems with the ATI drivers were.

cookiecaper 16y ago
From my reading, it seems that the complaint is that ATI doesn't support hardware video decoding properly.
- jbk 16y ago
  No, it is doing it fine. The irony is that if you have an Intel SSE4.1 chip, you can use a special trick to work-around this "bug".
  - ComputerGuru 16y ago
    Where's the "irony" in that? Or did you perhaps mean something else?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - jbk 16y ago
      Because to make it work better with AMD/ATI GPUs, you need some Intel CPUs, because AMD CPUs don't have SSE4.1
    - vetinari 16y ago
      Irony is, that it works with competitor's chips (Intel), but not with their own (AMD).
jbk 16y ago
Well, those are pretty simple. For many reasons (that are debatable, but maybe this isn't the right place?), VLC can decode on the GPU and then gets the data back from the GPU to filter/restream/reencode to finally display it. Even if this isn't the fastest way, there are good reasons for it (I can explain if needed...) On ATI drivers, the data back path is slow, and you need a special GUID that ATI doesn't want/cannot to communicate. Adobe uses it, we cannot yet. I believe this will be fixed in the future.

philwelch 16y ago

The Mac OS X version is 64 bit, which means it'll work with 64-bit HandBrake. Previously you had to use an odd prerelease build. This is what I was waiting for!

nroach 16y ago
cool! but still no hardware acceleration for OpenCL it looks like.
- astrange 16y ago
  Video hardware acceleration has nothing to do with, and can't be helped by, OpenCL. I'm just warning you in case you try to write it and fail.

neurotech1 16y ago

I've used VLC player for a while, for playing both DVDs and downloaded videos. It's a very versatile package. It does not have the sound bug that causes Windows Media Player(with codec) to make the background loud, and the main track soft.

PatrickTulskie 16y ago

You really should use Sparkle for the OS X release. VLC is one of the few apps that doesn't use it and the built in updating mechanism in VLC never works anyway.

Zev 16y ago
VLC uses Sparkle for updates now. I think it was just added in 1.1.0.
jbk 16y ago
And this is exactly what it does...
l0nwlf 16y ago
Yes. I wonder why the built-in update never works. It gave me the message while updating 1.0.5 that it is the latest version.
- jbk 16y ago
  Because we want our server to not die... So, first release, then, when calm is back, make the built-in update.

mkramlich 16y ago

big thank you to the VLC team for keeping this great free video player going!

pyre 16y ago

I don't see added support for the Broadcom HD decoder that Asus is shipping in some of their newer model Eee PCs (1005PR). Anyone know if there plans to add this? It would really help out HD decoding on the low-end platforms (esp since the cards aren't integrated, so they can be bought as add-ons as long as your low-end machine has a slot).

_delirium 16y ago
Not precisely an answer to your question, but it looks like there's a third-party library working on support for the Broadcom Crystal HD, which currently builds as a xine plugin: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/archvdr/browser/branches/libcrystalhd http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/archvdr/browser/branches/li...
- pyre 16y ago
  I know that the XBMC crew have already integrated support for it. There is a github repo for the drivers too.
jbk 16y ago
Well, simply because Broadcom doesn't use the standard APIs, which means one need to do a special plugin for it.
- pyre 16y ago
  Couldn't an adapter/driver for VAAPI be written? Their kernel module is open-source and now community (I think it's currently a 'community of one') maintained.

BoppreH 16y ago

I'm still waiting for an "auto-search subtitle" feature like the one in Media Player Classic.

jbk 16y ago
The new extension framework was designed for such features. Here you go: http://ale5000.altervista.org/vlc/extensions/subtitles-mod.lua http://ale5000.altervista.org/vlc/extensions/subtitles-mod.l...

philjackson 16y ago

You could write to a text file, in broken English, a vague description of a song and I bet VLC could still play it. Great piece of software, thanks to the devs.

ajtaylor 16y ago

Wow! On my old iMac (Core Duo 1.83GHz, RadeonX1600) the new VLC plays back a 720p mkv using 25-33% less CPU. Way to go VLC guys, you rock! Keep up the awesome work. VLC has been the default media player on my Mac for years because it plays EVERYTHING.

baskinghobo 16y ago

No disrespect to VLC but I just did a side by side comparison with MPC HC and VLC player and the MPC HC player looked much more clear - http://i.imgur.com/Mc2oS.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Mc2oS.jpg. Any reason behind this?

d_c 16y ago
I've noticed a difference in quality also. I compared mplayer and vlc, mplayer looked definitely better.
- jbk 16y ago
  Very unlikely. Here MPC-HC, uses shaders and special renderers, technologies that VLC doesn't use on Windows. But Mplayer and VLC use the same technologies, same decoders, and same output modules technology (xv, x11 and plain d3d)
jbk 16y ago
nVidia driver?
brandong 16y ago
I use both VLC and MPC-HC on my machines. On the lower end computers I've noticed a large performance difference between the two: MPC-HC can crank out 720P on my 5year old laptops without hiccup, but VLC stutters all over the place. I've heard some recommendations on how to configure VLC to be more responsive, but the fact remains MPC-HC performs better "out-of-the-box" than VLC. I still keep VLC around for anything MPC-HC has trouble playing, however, as VLC truly does play just about anything if it is playable at all.
- jbk 16y ago
  Of course, MPC-HC uses GPU while VLC didn't until this version.
ja27 16y ago
Do you have any of the sharpening shaders turned on in MPC? I'm not sure VLC has anything like that yet.

unwantedLetters 16y ago

I've wanted this feature for a while: to be able to just drag a subtitles file while VLC is playing a video and have VLC immediately start displaying subtitles from the new file. It's a great piece of software anyway! Congratulations on the latest release.

jbk 16y ago
This is exactly how it works on Windows and Linux interface of VLC.
- unwantedLetters 16y ago
  Heh, I suppose this tells you what OS I use. Any plans of bringing that feature over to OS X?
  - jbk 16y ago
    Did you try Lunettes?
    - unwantedLetters 16y ago
      Hey, no I haven't tried Lunettes, but I will try it as soon as I get the opportunity. Thanks for the tip though, it looks very interesting.

pragmatic 16y ago

> so far, on Windows, VideoLAN is quite sad to be forced to recommend nVidia® GPU, until ATI® fixes their drivers on Windows I noticed that MPC-HC uses much less CPU (using the GPU I assume. Are there any tweaks to get VLC to do the same? Or is this quote above an indication that this just doesn't work well in ATI cards? BTW, I'm using ATI hardware and I find CPU usage around 10-20% in MPC-HC vs ~50% in VLC. In spite all VLC's other awesome features, The CPU useage and resultant fan noise are a bummer. I love the skins and plug in feature, btw. Good work.

jbk 16y ago
Well, until ATI fixes its driver, you cannot do much. Or until we found a work-around. But we are not really Windows developers...

Thoreandan 16y ago

jbk - Thank you (and the rest of your team members!) Does anyone have links to who I should talk to to volunteer as an Intel gfx hw tester? Netflix+Silverlight+Win7 is using GPU acceleration for video on my netbook, it would be great to have VLC take advantage of the same.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Drazick 16y ago

This is great. This Player is amazing. I hope ATI will contact you to overcome the limitation you encountered. By the way, Will the hardware acceleration work the Portable Version (Made by Portable Apps)? Moreover, someone mentioned a workaround to enable the Hardware Acceleration if I have SSE 4.1 enabled CPU. Could you say how?