VLC 2.1 released

VideoLAN has announced the release of the free video player VLC 2.1 (Rincewind), the first major release of VLC in a long time.

The list of changes is significant: a port to mobile platforms has been implemented, many new formats, devices, metadata are supported, even more improvements in the reproduction of old formats, preparations have begun to support new codecs. About a thousand bugs were fixed, more than 7000 commits from 140 volunteer developers were accepted into the main branch.

1. Rewritten audio processing engine and audio modules: better sound and sound device management, correct support for multi-channel 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 formats, new audio output options in Vista, Android, iOS, OpenBSD and OSSv4, several new sound filters / effects, increased sampling frequency, accuracy, real-time configuration in the audio engine, many new supported audio formats with metadata.



2. New codecs and hardware decoding : support for G2M4, MSS1, MSS2, TSCC2, CDXL, Ut, VBLE video codecs, Ulead DV audio codecs, Indeo Audio Coder, RealAudio Lossless, SCTE-27 and EIA-608 subtitles, hardware decoding via QuickSyncVideo for Windows , through VDPAU under GNU / Linux, through MediaCodec under Android, through VDADecoder under OS X.



3. New video subsystem: OpenGL output via OpenGL ES, support for shaders for converting colors to glsl for Android and iOS, support for deinterlacing for greater color depth in the XYZ color space, a new anaglyph filter for 3D, support for 4K.

4. Support for new formats : fragmented MP4, Wave / RF64, improved support for metadata tags and covers for Ogg, AVI, MP4 and MKV, support for audio FLAC, Atrac, ADPCM, DV Type 1, 12-bit DV in AVI containers, extended support for AVI, MKV and MJPEG streams, the best recording in AVI and MKV formats, audio fingerprinting in AcoustID format.



5. For anime fans: new downmixer from MKV / Flac 6.1 to 5.1 format, correct YUV-> RGB color matrix in OpenGL shaders, improved search support and improved speed in MKV, editorial support in MKV, better support for subtitles and metadata in MKV, various subtitle improvements ASS.



6. New input devices : from the screen in OS X Lion and later, support for Microsoft Smooth Streaming, a new RTMP module using libavformat, support for VNC / rfb and Remote Desktop in viewing mode, significant improvements in playback methods with Blu-Ray, Dash, v4l2 and HTTP.

7. For mobile devices: port on Android from 2.1 to 4.3, on ARMv6, ARMv7, x86 and MIPS, a new port on iOS from 5 to 7, on all iPad and iPhone after 3GS, a partial port on WinRT, for Windows 8, 8.1 and WP8, optimized output through OpenGL ES, improvements in decoders, encoders and OpenMAX IL rendering, new formats and interfaces for audio and video output for mobile devices.

8. For developers : libVLC and most modules are now distributed under LGPLv2.1 +.



The libVLC media framework can be used in most applications, libVLC SDKs, improved libVLC APIs, and VLC web plugins now support windowless playback.

Download VLC for Windows , Mac OS X , sources ,changelog .