feepk@videolan

VLC 2.0 Q&A

This is a living document. Feel free to add further questions to the comments and I'll add them here.

Fullscreen mode doesn't work on my 2nd monitor anymore... is there a way to fix this?

Yes, this is due to the way the fullscreen mode was implemented by Apple for OS X Lion. To get VLC's own mode back as well as working output on your 2nd screen, disable "Use the native fullscreen mode on OS X Lion" in the Interface category of VLC's preferences. You can find the preferences in the "VLC" menu next to the "Quit" item.

Please note that you need to restart VLC after changing this setting!

Is there a way to see the both playlist and video at the same time?

Yes, disable the "Show video within the main window" option in the Interface category of VLC's preferences. You can find the preferences in the "VLC" menu next to the "Quit" item.

Please note that you should stop the current video playback prior to changing this setting!

Can I disable the media library?

No, you can't. However, if you decide not to use it, it's just a small entry in the sidebar, which takes no processing power and a few kilobytes of memory only.

You introduced a new playlist... can I disable it?

Actually, the playlist was introduced in VLC 0.5.0 nine years ago. Every single file you watched with VLC since then was added to the playlist for playback. Possibly you didn't notice. That's due to the fact the playlist is emptied on quit. On the next run, there is no way to find out what you played (except for the "Recent files.." menu, which can be optionally disabled).

The time line slider looks weird or draws incorrectly. What to do?

This is a minor bug in VLC 2.0, which is already fixed for VLC 2.0.1.

The crop menu does strange stuff. It definitely doesn't crop. What to do?

This is a major bug, which wasn't reported prior to our final release of VLC 2.0. In the current version, both the aspect ratio menu and the crop menu perform the same action. It will be fixed in VLC 2.0.1.

Why is there this annoying "creating font cache" dialog?

When using VLC 2.0 for the first time, we need to check your installed fonts to display subtitles and other On-screen graphics. The short re-appearance of this panel when starting a 2nd clip is already fixed for VLC 2.0.1.

Your main window is really big now. How can I make it as small as it used to be?

In VLC 2.0, you can't. We will include a fix for that in VLC 2.0.1.

It seems like I cannot use my accessibility tools with VLC 2.0. What can I do?

Use the gray interface style instead of the black. In fact, the gray style is enabled by default and fully supports common accessibility tools. We added support for these tools to the black interface style in VLC 2.0.1.

So, when will VLC 2.0.1 be out, since it seems to fix all the issues I got?

Probably within the next 8 to 10 days from now (monday, Feb 20).

Is there a way to track the progress on VLC 2.0.1?

Sure! Have a look at the 2.0.1 milestone in our bug tracker!

I noticed a bug which is NOT mentioned here. What to do?

Have a look at the 2.0.1 milestone in our bug tracker. If your problem isn't listed there, create a ticket please. To do so, you can log in using any OpenID account including your Google account, so there is no need to register. Please describe your problem as detailed as possible and feel free to attach screenshots or testing material if appropriate. Thank you for your support!

VLC 2.0 Twoflower released

Our new major release was published today. Get it from videolan.org.

VLC 2.0 includes the following Mac OS X specific changes:

• Completely re-written single window interface
• 2 interface styles: Lion gray and QTX-like black
• Full access to VLC's video and audio filters
  • new Audio Effects panel adding Compressor and Spatializer filters
  • new Video Effects panel for color and geometry adjustments, and more
• A new panel to synchronize audio or subtitle tracks with the video
• Re-written Open Disc functionality with automatic media detection
• Native fullscreen support on OS X Lion (can be disabled if desired)
• enhanced AppleScript support
• support for VLC's lua-based extensions, which which allow you to get info about the current movie from Allociné, post to Twitter, fetch subtitles automatically, etc.

On all desktop platforms, VLC 2.0 includes these major enhancements:

• multi-threaded video decoding based upon ffmpeg-mt
• greatly enhanced Matroska / MKV playback
• updated codecs including 10bit support
• re-written video output with major speed improvements
• enhanced subtitle display
• and much much more

VLC 2.0 for Mac requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. We provide separate packages for PowerPC-based Macs. For Intel-based Macs, there are 3 packages available: separate 32bit and 64bit packages plus a Universal Binary including both variants. Note that the 64bit binary requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later.

Get it here!

Edit: I've just published a Q&A article answering the most questions regarding this new version. Click here!

Here a few more screenshots:

There are even more screenshots available on flickr.

Updated EyeTV plugin

While preparing VLC's 2.0 release, I silently updated VLC's plugin for EyeTV. The new version fixes playback issues with HD content received via DVB through the EyeTV application.

The plugin is available for download now and also compatible with earlier releases of VLC.

Final design of VLC 2.0 for Mac

Since the release of VLC 2.0 is approaching, I thought it was time to publish its final interface design by Damien Erambert.

Jean-Baptiste Kempf and me started to collect ideas for this interface in the summer of 2008. After slightly chaotic approaches and a few near death experiences for VLC's Mac OS X port, we're really proud of the result.

The interface of VLC for Mac as you know it dated back to the 0.7.0 days with various additions until the 0.8.6 release (in 2008!). Since then, it was more or less unchanged with minor optimisations here and there. A re-write called Lunettes appeared in late 2009 and finally converged in VLC for iOS.

VLC 2.0's interface for Mac is dramatically different from its previous revision, both technically and usage-wise. Playlist and video output share the same window, service discovery modules can be easily accessed through a sidebar and various audio + video filters are available through the respective panels. Besides that, the interface is noticeably faster and easily expandable. Speaking of that, we also added support for VLC's lua-based extensions, which allow you to get info about the current movie from Allociné, post to Twitter, fetch subtitles automatically, etc.

For the main window, you'll have the choice between a gray and a black window style.

VLC 2.0 will be available later this week on videolan.org. Enjoy!

NB: Development of the interface wouldn't have been possible without a stipend from Google Inc. as part of Google Summer of Code 2011, which allowed me to work on it fulltime without worries.

VLC 2.0 on Lion:

VLC 2.0 on Snow Leopard and Leopard:

Updated VLC 2.0-RC1 builds for Mac

Due to packaging errors, the builds for Intel did not perform as described in the last post. They do so now. Thus, the crashes on Snow Leopard when using the 64bit build and on Leopard when using the 32bit build are gone.

The downloads are still located at the same place. (link withdrawn due to actual release)

Happy testing!

VLC 2.0-RC1 for Mac

VLC 2.0 reached the Release Candidate milestone. RC1 builds for Mac are available here (links withdrawn due to actual release).

Please note the following:

You use Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7 on a Core2Duo, Xeon or Intel i3/i5/i7? Get the "intel64" binary.

You still use Mac OS X 10.5 on Intel or a CoreDuo CPU (first Intel-based machines introduced by Apple a few years ago)? Get the "intel32" binary.

You want to use VLC on a PowerPC-based Mac? Get the "powerpc" binary.

The "intel32" binary will also run on Mac OS X 10.7, but you'll miss a few features, so be sure to get the "intel64" package.

Of course, the actual release will handle this selection automatically for the non-tech savvy users.

To have a look at the changes and new features, check this list!

Please also note that the execution of VLC 2.0 on so-called Hackintosh devices and within virtualized Mac OS X installations will likely fail due the lack of hardware graphics acceleration (called "Quartz Extreme").

Enjoy this preview release and feel free to file bugs or regressions in the comments or on our bug tracker. There are a few known issues left. Prior to reporting, please check this list.

VideoLAN at SCALE 10x

VideoLAN will have a booth at SCALE 10x, the Southern California Linux Expo, at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport Hotel this week. The event takes place next week-end from January 20-22.

The booth (#74) will be manned by Rémi Denis-Courmont and me. Feel free to drop by and have a look at our forthcoming 2.0 release of VLC media player!

VLC 1.1.12

VLC 1.1.12 is now available from videolan.org and through the internal updater. As said in the previous news item, this release fixes the optical audio output broken in the last update as well as on OS X Lion.

Additionally, the update includes a fix for a security issue in the included HTTP server (which is admittedly rarely used by most folks) as well as a few other minor improvements, e.g. a crash in the About panel when using the Japanese locale.

For more information on the security content included in this update, see VideoLAN Security Advisory 1107.

VLC 1.1.12 (coming soon)

VLC 1.1.12 will be released within the next week. Most importantly, it includes a fix for the optical audio output (S/PDIF) on OS X Lion, so you can enjoy your multi-channel movies again in a proper way. Additionally, VLC no longer crashes when using the Japanese locale.

To give it a try, feel free to fetch a pre-release build from nightlies.videolan.org. Please note that these pre-release builds require Mac OS X 10.6 or later. The actual release still supports OS X 10.5 Leopard of course.

Sidebar

Similar to the playlist view on Windows and Linux, VLC for Mac will get a sidebar in version 1.2. This way, you can easily access your media folders and media shared on the local network and the internet. Future versions will evolve to a full media library.

That's what it looks like so far:

More media aggregators will be added until the release. As you would expect, of course you can hide this sidebar if you just need a playlist without any clutter.