VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. (business web hosting).
Release: VLC media player 0.8.5 (2006-05-066 May 2006) This new Release features many improvements, including MacIntel support, a statistic system, the support of DV inputs on Linux, improvements in the Audio CD playback (CDDB), many new and improved video filters, a new AJAX HTTP interface, Winamp 2 Skins support, a Mozilla plugin on Mac OS X (PowerPC only), a new default skin..

Changes between 0.8.4a and 0.8.5

Core support:

  • Statistics collection (bitrates, packets, connections, …)
  • Support for downloading updates
  • Updated strings

Input:

  • Initial support for RTSP-over-HTTP (to allow NAT traversal)
  • Linux DV (Digital Video – Firewire) input
  • Improvements to the Audio CD input
  • – Separate playlist entries for the tracks
  • – Support for CDDB
  • Support for more DVB (satellite) encryption modules
  • Improved subtitles encoding support
  • Improved support for playing MP4 files from the Web

Decoders:

  • Cook (Real audio) support

Playlist / Services discovery:

  • XSPF playlist support
  • Podcast support
  • Updated Shoutcast to use new listing

Audio output:

  • New JACK audio output

Video output:

  • New video filters:
  • – magnify: allows you to zoom on part of the image
  • – gradient and edge detection: “cartoon-like” effect
  • – bluescreen: overlay parts of a video transparently on another one
  • Logo video filter: can now loop through multiple images
  • RSS video filter: display feed images. Support for Atom feeds.
  • Improvements to the subtitles rendering

Stream output:

  • Initial support for throttling users on VOD streams

Interfaces:

  • System to inform the user and request information
  • – HTTP authentication
  • – Fatal errors
  • – …
  • wxWidgets
  • – VLM (VideoLAN Media Manager) control panel
  • – Improved media information panel (shows statistics, metadata, …)
  • – Drag & Drop support in the playlist
  • Skins2
  • – New default skin
  • – Support for Winamp 2 skins
  • – Improved playlist handling
  • – Support for popup menus, animated bitmaps, equalizer, …
  • OS X
  • – Embedded Video output
  • – new Go-To-Specific-Time feature
  • – Video cropping and aspect ratio changing while playing
  • – Improved media information panel (shows statistics, metadata, …)
  • – support for processing multiple items with the wizard in a single run
  • – option to save selections in the wizard for a session (default enabled)
  • HTTP
  • – New default interface pages for VLC and VLM (including a mosaic wizard)
  • – A bunch of new RPN functions

Windows Port:

  • MSN messenger “Now playing” support

OS X Port:

  • Mac-Intel compatibility
  • Enhanced support of various audio output devices
  • Growl “Now playing” support

*Nix port:

  • Ability to log to syslog
  • Root wrapper to avoid running VLC as root

Developers:

  • New libvlc API (not finished yet)
  • Java bindings
  • A bit more automatic testing

Get it here.