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VLC media player

Home Page Release Notes Screen Shots License:
Open source; $0

Current Version: 1.0.5 (February 1, 2010) / 1.1.0 (June 22, 2010)

VLC media player, like MPlayer, is an incredibly useful video player that enables you to view files that are otherwise unviewable on your Mac. VLC plays most MPEG, AVI, OGG/OGM, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, FLV, RM, and many other formats. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, and DVD as well.

Version 1.0.5 - the latest version for PowerPC-based Macs - adds/changes the following:

  • SubRip extra styles improvements
  • Fix potential crashes in SSA and svg decoders
  • Improved support for the 2009 Apple Remote
  • Portuguese Brazilian, Lithunanian, Romanian, Ukranian, Japanese, Bengali, Walloon, Galician, Danish, Khmer, Polish, Slovenian, Vietnamese, Finnish Russian, Slovak translation updates
  • New Malayalam, Macedoninan, Nynorsk translations

Version 1.1.0 - the latest version for Intel-based Macs - adds/changes the following (among other things):

  • GPU decoding on Windows Vista and 7, using DxVA2 for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2
  • GPU decoding on GNU/Linux, using VAAPI for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2
  • DSP decoding using OpenMax IL, for compatible embedded devices
  • Improved support for MKV HD, including seeking fixes, and 7.1 channels codecs
  • Support for new codecs, like Blu-Ray subtitles, MPEG-4 lossless and VP8
  • Support for WebM decoding and encoding
  • Improved web plugins
  • Better streaming capabilities
  • Integrated playlist in the Qt4 interface
  • Multiple views (like album art) in the playlist in the Qt4 interface
  • Support for AMR-NB, Mpeg-4 ALS, Vorbis 6.1/7.1, FLAC 6.1/7.1 and WMAS
  • CDDB and CD-Text works now on the Windows port when listening to CD-Audio
  • Support for DVD-Audio files (.aob)
  • Improved meta-data and album-art support
  • Faster decoding, with up to 40% speed-ups, in HD resolutions
  • First part of the Video Output core rewrite
  • Removal or rewrite of dozens of modules, code simplification and tens of thousands of lines of code removed
  • Some functionalities that are less used are now moved to extensions
  • More assembly optimizatinons, especially SSSE3/SSE4 and ARM Neon
  • Fewer threads used

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Also See . . .

Can't find what you're looking for? Try a search:

Also, if you have an older Mac, be sure to check out the "Classic" applications page for more options.

Finally, take a look at ALEMIA if you think you know that name of an application, but aren't quite sure.

Also Consider . . .

These are applications that are newer and of potential interest, but which I haven't yet selected for permanent inclusion. Have a look, and let me know if you think they deserve to be part of the permanent collection!