Software Update: VLC Media Player 2.1.0 RC 1

The first release candidate of version 2.1.0 of VLC Media Player has appeared. This open source and cross-platform media player can play a variety of audio, video and streaming formats without the need to install the appropriate codec. There is also a version for Windows. The source code should also make the program usable for operating systems such as Linux, BSD and Solaris. A version for Android is in development.

In version 2.1.0, which with RinceWind was named after a character from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books like the previous version, work has been done to improve the sound reproduction and the playback of new and old non-standard file formats, among other things. . We also see the return of the iOS version and the program will also appear for WindowsRT. The beta is currently only available for Windows and OS X to download.

Highlights:

• Port of the VLC engine to Mobile OS, including Android, iOS (again), WinRT. This denotes new audio and video outputs, OpenGL ES improvements, including shaders; but also work on the hardware decoding for mobile.
• A new audio core, including rewrite of most audio output modules. This improves the stability, reactivity (no more volume change lag), volume control (logarithmic), performance, precision (up to 384kHz).
• An important work on correct playback of new formats and old non-standard files, fixing most of the small regressions on rare formats that we’ve seen in the 2.0.x branch. New codecs have been added, including G2M4, MSS1/2, SCTE-27, Real Lossless or Ulead DV Audio
• New protocols and input support have been added like Smooth Streaming, improved MPEG-DASH, improved Blu-Ray; but also a new VNC support and an AVCapture module for OSX.
• Hardware decoders (Mac OS X, Android) and encoders (Intel QuickSync Video) were also added in this release, to focus on performance.
• The OS X interface has seen a lot of polishing and fixes, which finishes the work started in 2.0.0 to renew the interface.
• For developers, libVLC and most libVLC modules are now licensed under the LGPL, a copyleft license that should allow more flexibility for application developers.
• For web developers, the webplugin has been partially rewritten and now support windowless, allowing CSS transform like 3D and overlaying objects above the video, like Flash does.