VLC Player 2.0 released

Just weeks after the first release candidate, the VideoLAN developers have officially released version 2.0 of the VLC media player for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. VLC media player 2.0, code-named "Twoflower", is a major reworking of the VLC application, bringing playback improvements and experimental support for playing Blu-ray discs, albeit without menus.

Internally, VLC 2.0 contains numerous enhancements, including a complete rewrite of the video core, reworked output functions to allow for blending with the GPU, and a new rendering pipeline for higher quality subtitles. These improvements should also give faster decoding on multi-core, GPU-supported or mobile hardware. The changes should also improve MKV file playback and H.264 decoding.

Among the more user-visible changes in VLC 2.0 is the ability to display subtitles anywhere on the screen and resize them, the addition of new filters for removing banding, grain, noise and flicker, and a new deinterlacing filter. Support for professional users has been improved with video in ProRes 422, ProRes 4444 and AVC/Intra file formats added, SDI and HD-SDI cards supported under Linux, and a new, faster, Dirac/VC-2 encoder. Audio has also been improved with new audio resamplers, dynamic range compressors and karaoke filters, and a simplified audio core for faster processing.

The Mac OS X version has a completely new UI which also supports Lion's full screen mode and can, if required, open up in its own full screen space. Under Windows and Linux, by contrast, the look is largely unchanged.

VLC 2.0 brings a new UI to Mac OS X

The underlying libraries, libVLC and libVLCcore, have also been updated to run on Android and iOS systems. The licence for the libraries has also been changed from the GPL (General Public License) to the LGPL (Lesser General Public License) which will allow developers to make use of the libraries in non-GPL open source and proprietary software.

The WIndows version of VLC is available to download and requires Windows XP (SP2) or later. VLC for Mac OS X can be also be downloaded with versions for Mac OS X 10.6 and later on Intel, and 10.5 on Intel and PowerPC. The developers refer Linux users to their distribution packager to get the application updated and included. Source code for VLC 2.0.0 is also available to download.

(djwm)