VLC 1.0 Released
When searching on the internet, or even in real life, we come across many different ways to play audio and video. There are DVDs, MPGs, MPEGs, AVIs, DIVXs, WMAs, REALs, and many more too numerous to mention. The built-in features of the Apple operating system can handle a significant number of these, but usually require extra programs like Perian or Flip4Mac in order to do so. Proprietary files need proprietary programs to view them. But for a while now, there has been a program that has been able to handle all of these formats and more. On July 7th, the VideoLAN project released version 1.0 of said application. That program is VLC.
VLC can play almost any type of media file you can throw at it—video, audio, streaming, even recording. It is a cross-platform application, and even proprietary filetypes such as Real, Quicktime, or Windows Media pose no problem at all. It can play DVDs from any region of the world, without having to use up one of the five times you are allowed to switch the region of the DVD Player application.
The newly official release of VLC 1.0 brings with it many new and updated features from the program’s past. There is increased support for skins. The display can be made to look like pretty much anything you can dream of, and there are many skins already uploaded at the VLC site to peruse and download. If you want it to look like Quicktime, or Winamp, or even the computer screens from Star Trek, you can. This allows the program to suitably fit with whatever your desktop background or system set-up happens to be at the time.
The new version also allows you to customize the interface on a more basic level. If there is a button you need, you can add it. If you never use rewind, you can take it out of the controller. The goal of the application is to be a perfect tool for you, the viewer, and it does everything it can to be one.
VLC 1.0 also has sophisticated recording technology, both from internal sources as well as the external microphone and camera built in to most Macs. It also improves upon playback, with better control of fast-forward and rewind, instant pausing, and new compatibility with HD formats, other applications’ playlists, streaming audio, and so on.
VLC can be downloaded for free from its website. Try it out. You may never go back to Quicktime.
Too bad you cannot use skins on Mac OS X…only on Windows or Linux/Unix. Love VLC though.