VLC 2.0 has been released. “With faster decoding on multi-core, GPU, and mobile hardware and the ability to open more formats, notably professional, HD and 10bits codecs, 2.0 is a major upgrade for VLC. Twoflower has a new rendering pipeline for video, with higher quality subtitles, and new video filters to enhance your videos. It supports many new devices and BluRay Discs (experimental). Completely reworked Mac and Web interfaces and improvements in the other interfaces make VLC easier than ever to use. Twoflower fixes several hundreds of bugs, in more than 7000 commits from 160 volunteers.”
Awesome! Yet I still cannot play/pause by clicking LMB on the picture which makes it almost completely useless… pity!
LOL, because hitting space is next to impossible.
Edit: Before I forget: Congrats, great improvements. Great free software.
Edited 2012-02-19 12:27 UTC
I don’t know about you but I don’t have a few meters long arms to reach to my keyboard while sitting comfortably in my armchair…
And you do have a few metres long arms to reach for your mouse?
A remote control is only a few euros. Much better option.
lemme think: I already have wireless mouse, I only need to start/pause playback. Why should I waste money when I already can do that in almost every other video player? To answer your subsequent question – so why I’m /trolling/ about vlc? because it is great software and i would love that it’s even better.
Why do you have a wireless mouse but no wireless keyboard?
Seriously, labeling it completely useless due to this is a bit arrogant.
because I don’t need such, and also if I had such, it would be highly inconvenient to use it, as opposed to mouse (handy during presentations, easier to manipulate when you don’t have cord – those do not apply to wireless keyboard…)
Obviously you do, so you can press the space bar when pausing in VLC…
Or, one can use any other video player, as every other video player support click-to-pause.
Haven’t used VLC in many years (Dragon works so much nicer on Linux than VLC). Does it popup an OSD of controls when you move the mouse? Or does it still separate the controls and the video into separate windows?
Can Dragon still not load external subtitle files?
I have a few wireless mice but no wireless keyboards.
1) I often use a wireless mouse with my laptop but am happy with the built-in keyboard.
2) I find the mouse cord catches on things easily (which is annoying) since it is so mobile. My desktop/server keyboards are relatively stationary and do not have the same issue.
3) Like the original poster, I find there are a few apps the you can interact nicely with using only the ‘click’ functionality of my nice, small, portable mouse. Carting a keyboard around the room is less fun.
That said “totally useless” is typical Internet high-drama hyperbole.
The better question would be “Why does he NEED to buy a remote for such basic functionality?” because lets be honest folks, he’s not asking for some incredibly complex uberrare function here, just a simple ‘click the movie and the movie stops” which frankly ever other MP I’ve seen does.
I know that when I’m working on multiple PCs (which is quite often) its a heck of a lot easier to just click the mouse instead of reaching over for the keyboard. this is a problem I’ve noticed with a lot of freeware, some developer decides he don’t like feature X or would rather be working for new thing Y and simply ignores basic usability.
Hey, why don’t you do what I did and buy a $8 IR remote control?? It identifies itself as a keyboard & mouse to Linux/Windows/Haiku and works just fine.
You setup a few key bindings in VLC and then you have full control with a nice remote control (pause, play, fast forward, rewind, volume, etc…).
–The loon
PS: I *HATE* the idea of the video playing/stopping with the LMB.
I already have a wireless trackball. Why would I buy a useless gadget (remote) when I can do everything I want with a mouse?
Just a note (also notice that Youtube and all the well-behaved Flash players allow play/pause through left click).
This behavior annoys me.
I tend to left-click prior to right-click. But the worst part is when trying to bring the window back to the forefront. I tend to click on the content area of a window to bring it to the front (particularly true of my multi-monitor setup) – I become quite annoyed when the video pauses (or plays) due to this simple action.
However, I do believe it should be a configurable option. Triggering an even on LMB_DOWN isn’t exactly complex or resource intensive…
–The loon
You can just right click to get to the context menu. then left click on pause/play.
I don’t believe that extra click makes the whole program useless.
Excelent! No do that several meters from the screen
If you can’t manage that then clearly the fault here is that you’re inappropriately using a mouse.
It’s also worth mentioning that you really should be using a media centre rather than a media player. Perhaps something like XBMC would be better suited for your needs.
it’s easy to bitch about how “useless” technology is when you deliberately use it in the most retarded way imaginable.
Media centre apps (like XBMC, Boxee, WMC, etc) are nice if you have the hardware to run them. Most (all?) of the media centre apps out there require skookum 3D graphics cards with working OpenGL/DirectX, meaning you can’t grab old (5+ years) PCs and convert them into media centres. But, those same PCs run VLC, Dragon, and other video players without issues, and can be used as HTPCs without issues.
For example, my 2.8 GHz P4 Celeron laptop with an onboard Ati RADEON 7000 graphics chipset cannot run XBMC, Boxee, and similar as it doesn’t support OpenGL 1.4+. But, it can decode and play XviD without issues using Dragon Player in KDE4. And all it needs is a wireless mouse.
First of all, media centres can run on older hardware fine. If XBMC can run on a 256MB 700MHz AMD board then it can bloody well run on a 2.8GHz x86 too. In fact for months I ran Boxee on a desktop with half your spec and it ran perfectly fine (thus further proving how meaningless anecdotal evidence is). This was also using a crappy onboard GFX chip too. Plus of my other current XBMC boxes, one is an soft-modded Xbox Original, one is a 4 year old laptop running from an SD card (it was a freebe as the previous owner shattered the LCD and HDD), and the last is powered from an old ATI board I paid ~$20 for a few years ago and which I don’t have any hardware acceleration on (I’m running it using open source Linux drivers). Yet all of them (bar the Xbox original – for obvious reasons) plays full 1080p without a single stutter.
However if you’re really struggling to get XBMC -or derivatives- playing ball, then just run Elisa, GeeXboX or one of any number of other lightweight media centres. You don’t need a fully programmable Python environment to play movies. So Elisa would be more than capable and a lot more usable on a TV than VLC (in fact for a while, I even preferred Elisa to XBMC).
Finally, slapping VLC on a Windows box doesn’t make it a HTPC. A HTPC is supposed to be a complete “set top” style solution (like a Sky or Cable DVR). So please don’t use the ‘HTPC’ term to describe any old laptop you hook up to a TV.
Edited 2012-02-21 15:06 UTC
I call bullshit. The XBMC docs call bullshit. And the XBMC forums are full of threads that call bullshit.
If you do not have OpenGL 1.4+ support in your graphics hardware (meaning an Ati Radeon 9600 or newer or an nVidia GeForce 6000 or newer), you will not be able to run XBMC 10+. Period. Doesn’t matter what CPU you have in the box, nor which OS you are running.
Maybe older versions of XBMC worked in the past. But 10 onward require working 3D acceleration. Even just for accessing the menus/GUI.
It’s actually 1.3, not 1.4 and that’s likely only something introduced in the last ~18/24 months. (IIRC XBMC underwent a massive overhaul recently). But that’s neither here nor there as pretty much every graphics chipset of the last 10 years supports OpenGL 1.3. It’s hardly a high level of entry.
Going back to my ~$20 card, maybe those Linux drivers do have some OpenGL libraries then. All I know is any 3D rendering done on that system falls back to software mode so I just assumed i couldn’t do any acceleration what so ever. I guess that just goes to show how shoddy graphics drivers are on Linux yet how well XBMC is that it plays ball even when everything else fails.
All of the hardware specs were 100% accurate though – I have no reason to lie nor bullshit you (plus the proof about the ARM board is well publicised). And my point still stands about other media centres available. so even taking the OpenGL 1.3 argument into account, you’re still making unbalanced comparisons about the footprint of media centres. so perhaps you should try something other than the latest XBMC-derived code before casting judgement on the entire genre.
Edited 2012-02-21 21:15 UTC
It’s actually 1.3, not 1.4 and that’s likely only something introduced in the last ~18/24 months. (IIRC XBMC underwent a massive overhaul recently). But that’s neither here nor there as pretty much every graphics chipset of the last 10 years supports OpenGL 1.3. It’s hardly a high level of entry.[/quote]
Nope. You need an Ati RADEON 9600 or newer (I have a 9550, and XBMC 10+ does not run), or an nVidia GeForce 6 or newer (I have a GeForce FX 5500, and XBMC 10+ does not run). It took a long time to find an AGP card that would work in my HTPC (using old PC parts) and allow me to run XBMC 10+ (now running 11-beta3 on an Ati RADEON All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro).
Obviously your timeline was off, though.
You weren’t running XBMC 10+ on any of those boxes.
Nope. I can run KDE 4.6 (Kubuntu 10.10 or 11.04, don’t remember which) with Dragon Player, connecting via NFS or Samba (used both) to a media server, playing XviD videos across 54 Mbps wireless on my ancient P4 Celeron system with an Ati RADEON 7000 and only 512 MB of RAM … but I can’t run XBMC 10 on that box. Nor can I run Boxee (don’t remember the version, was 6 months or so ago I was doing this). And there was one other media centre app for Linux I tried, that also didn’t run. The graphics stack won’t support them.
And none of the Linux graphics drivers for the AiW 9800
would power the component video out.
Yet Windows XP (a more than 10 year old OS) runs XBMC 11 just fine on that hardware.
It all comes down to graphics stacks. Media centre apps need more support than just outputting video to the screen.
If I can run a recent version of KDE on the hardware, but not a recent version of XBMC, Boxee, and some other one I don’t recall the name of, why not disparage the genre? That’s a big chunk of the genre.
My timeline was 100% accurate and I never said I ran XBMC 10 on everyone of those boxes. XBMC 10 isn’t even available for the Xbox original for Christ sake.
So don’t start arguing that I’m bullshitting you because you chose to invent whole statements I never made.
Nope. I can run KDE 4.6 (Kubuntu 10.10 or 11.04, don’t remember which) with Dragon Player, connecting via NFS or Samba (used both) to a media server, playing XviD videos across 54 Mbps wireless on my ancient P4 Celeron system with an Ati RADEON 7000 and only 512 MB of RAM … but I can’t run XBMC 10 on that box. Nor can I run Boxee (don’t remember the version, was 6 months or so ago I was doing this). And there was one other media centre app for Linux I tried, that also didn’t run. The graphics stack won’t support them.
[/q]
Boxee uses XBMC source code. It’s a fork – and a recent one at that. So I repeat, your comparisons are deeply flawed.
Try using a media centre not based off XBMC code and then moan about the state of media centres. Until then, my point stands.
Why on Earth are you now comparing a beta release (which v11 is) with a release build?
Well obviously. but as I said before, you’ve tried one media centre and are now making hugely generalised claims.
Give the other media centres I suggested a try, then comment.
No it’s not. It’s just 1 code base of the genre.
I mean seriously, you’re whole argument is like saying every single motor vehicle on Earth is rubbish because you happened to buy 1 clapped out banger. It’s just insane the stance your taking when you’ve barely tried any competing products.
but then the internet seems full of keyboard warriors who spend more time ignorantly arguing “facts” on subjects they know little about. Harsh? yes, but you said yourself you’ve only used XBMC derived code and are generating an opinion of the whole genre based off that.
Also, nice job getting an alias to mod me down in rage.
That is more an admission of PEBKAC or such, really, than any other kind of problems – Radeon 9550 and 9600 should be virtually identical, as far as software support goes (9500 was even more powerful, also within the same generation; not sure how 9550 is placed).
Perhaps similar with Nvidia 5 & 6-series: while the latter does support slightly higher DX level, 5-series is what’s ~contemporary in this regard to Radeon 9600.
edit: Ah, from the most straightforward place to check ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R300 ) it turns out that Radeon 9550 is identical to 9600 – merely clocked lower (which shouldn’t make any difference here)
Edited 2012-02-22 22:59 UTC
hmm, upon further reading, I see the confusion.
You’re listing of Windows requirements and I’m listing Linux requirements. It seems they differ.
I’ve tried both Linux and Windows versions of XBMC 10, the requirements are the same.
And you cannot run XBMC 10 on a RADEON 7000, as it does not support enough OpenGL for XBMC to run. You get corrupted cursors, corrupted graphics, videos won’t play or just show a black screen.
Yet KDE 4.6 with Dragon Player can play the same videos just fine on that hardware.
Media centre apps have much higher requirements than plain video players. Not everyone needs a fancy media centre. Sometimes a standard desktop with a wireless mouse is enough. And that will work on much older hardware.
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMC_for_Linux_specific_FAQ#XB…
Clearly states OpenGL1.3
Have you tried forcing software mode in the rendering options rather than leaving it at the default “autodetect”?
For crying out loud, you’ve tried **ONE** media centre and the one which is the largest media centre on the market. You’re comparison is flawed.
Give http://www.geexbox.org/ a try then comment. However until then, your whole argument is just as retarded as saying that all text editors are bloated after trying a heavy duty programmers editor and then refusing to give vi / nano a go.
What you’ve done is taken the heaviest media centre on the market, and then assumed that every single product is identical and subsequently launched into a rant proclaiming your jarred vision as “fact” and arguing that everyone else is full of shit. I suggest you seriously take a look at the other examples provided because they’re as different to XBMC as night is to day.
At the end of the day, all a media centre is, is a media player with a menu system that launches in full screen. As such, there’s plenty of media centres with equivalent footprints to a media players. I mean, you do realise that set top boxes / DVRs run on pathetic hardware yet have perfect playback? these things work because they are hardcoded to only include the bare minimum. Well that’s how many other media centres work as well. Not every single media centre is a fully Python programmable dynamic environment. Some are just basic minimal linux distros with a menu item for ‘pictures’, ‘music’ and ‘videos’; some are less sophisticated than the OS on your Sky+ box.
So don’t give me this crap that every media centre is an XBMC clone (in terms of hardware requirements) because, unlike you, I /have/ tried a great number of media centres and I did so because -and just like you- it took me a long time to find anything that I liked (probably about 5 years of testing different media centres, I’d estimate. Possibly longer. But I know I was experimenting with them before XP media centre edition was released)
[edit] just checked wikipedia for XP MC Edition release date, and that was 2005 so that means I’ve been pratting about with MC’s for ~7yrs. Christ I feel old now lol. But that’s also why I’m getting a bit wound up that you’ve used 1 release of XBMC source (plus a beta, for some odd reason) and used that to cast judgement on an entire genre of IT – and thus drawn invalid conclusions (re “no such thing as a low footprint media centre”)
Edited 2012-02-22 12:34 UTC
Just an after thought – have you tried running “fake fullscreen mode” as that’s known to fix a number of rendering glitches.
I’m not saying the latest builds of XBMC is perfect on older hardware, but it is very configurable.
Failing that, just pull an older edition. this whole “must run the latest software” mentality is great when you have internet-facing systems with potential security holes, but this is just a graphical front end to your multimedia. So who cares if it’s v10 or not.
However, you could always try something not based on XBMC source – like I repeatedly suggest. :p
vlc has support for mouse gestures.
I know, but I had hard time getting it to work but it finally worked, thanks! 😮
FYI, some of us actually prefer it not to do that.
Awesome news, the VLC project could be back on iOS too with the relicensing to LGPLv2 then, good!
I was thinking the license is less an issue to the codecs maybe.
Good work here. I have never used vlc to convert a disk, so this should be faster.
Edited 2012-02-19 17:40 UTC
VLC goes multithreaded. Ffmpeg-mt took a rather long time… 8 solid years (P4 Hyperthreaded arrived in 2004) Now how about XBMC getting multithread support?
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On my 10.5.8 Powerbook 1.67Mhz VLC 1.12 plays a .Mov file with 45% CPU, with VLC 2, 100% with skipping of sound.
Just sayin’.
Either way, that’s still some impressive optimisation, for a CPU clocked not even 2x higher than the MOS 6510 in my Commodore 64
I tried today the new VLC 2.0, but I do not particularly like the new interface: it simple gets to much in the way, the playlist cannot be hidden and at the end of the video the player does not resize back to its original dimension.
It might be just my personal taste, but I really do not understand the rationale behind the new interface and/or why developers do not allow VLC 2.0 to have a similar interface as the 1.x.
I’m always thankful to free software developers, but this is another great project which has taken a GUI approach that I really do not understand and that is not adding any real value to the use of the software (gnome 2.x vs 3.0 is another sad example).
my two eurocents
The playlist can be hidden. Try again…
I tried all possible ways (resizing window, playlist button, looking in menus and preferences), but on the mac there is no way to have the 2.0 player behave like the 1.x. In windows 7 the playlist can be easily hidden, but on the mac you have to have it shown.
bye
Yeah, someone on Slashdot pointed that out. I’m honestly surprised that they would do that. I’m glad they didn’t do that on Windows or Linux, thankfully.
I don’t quite see what is so flashy about this release that they want to call it 2.0 after so many years, but apparently they have hurt neither the ability to play video nor the traffic cone so I’m okay with it
I love it, it’s been my #1 player for years on all platforms.
I do have one gripe with it though – it keeps resizing the playback window. So if I want to view all videos on my camera, I have to resize the window for every single file – even when I drag a video file into an existing window. That gets annoying, but all in all VLC’s video support is great.
Playis well even on my ancient system E8200 C2D, NVidia 9600GT passive, 2GB RAM, Win Vista,
One of my systems would like a word with you about calling your system ancient. 🙂
circa 1998 Powerbook G3, 233mhz, 128mb RAM, 10Gb hard drive. According to Apple, it only officially supports Mac OS X 10.2, though 10.4 (and maybe 10.5) is possible with XPostFacto, and PowerPC Linux is increasingly attractive.
Nothing with a Core2Duo, an ATI or NVIDIA video card with a four digit model number (e.g. 9600), or 1 or more Gigabytes of RAM is ancient in my book, merely deliberately obsoleted by companies with upgrade treadmills!
“On my 10.5.8 Powerbook 1.67Mhz VLC 1.12 plays a .Mov file with 45% CPU, with VLC 2, 100% with skipping of sound.”
What are you waiting for? File a bug on trac.videolan.org/vlc immediately so that you catch 2.0.1
“I do have one gripe with it though -it keeps resizing the playback window. So if I want to view all videos on my camera, I have to resize the window for every single file -even when I drag a video file into an existing window. ”
Does this happen with the Window maximized too? Please reply if you read this.
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Hopefully they have fixed the fact that the graphic EQ doesn’t save between closing the program and re-opening it again… Very annoying.
I tried both the 32 and 64bit version on my iMac running 10.7.3, the cpu usage is 3x higher compared to the older version.
Looking a the comments on Macupdate.com, this problem has been consistent with all the Mac users. I wonder if the Linux and Windows users are having the same issue.
I am getting much more responsiveness from this than I have from the previous version. In the previous version it would take almost 30 seconds to load a movie. Now it is instant.
On the other hand *I* get a huge delay between the volume UI and volume change !
Other than that, I quite like this version.
Edited 2012-02-20 18:23 UTC
Mac version?
Handbrake does not like version 2, so if you use handbrake a lot, be warned, the update breaks handbrake functionality.
I didn’t quite understand the changes pertaining to SDI.
Is it something that affects Linux users too? I have the impressions that SDI is a wire format and interface for capture cards but it is not visible to users as such.
I found also that it is a paid-for standard with different SDKs.
Any enlightenment?
Still waiting for the Android version to come out.