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Major update to VLC for Mac adds 4K support, improved MKV support, interface improvements and more

Screen Shot 2013-09-26 at 14.05.30

VideoLAN has released version 2.1 of its popular open source video player, VLC. The update — codenamed “Ricewind” — brings new audio processing to the app, to improve both processing performance and audio fidelity. There is full support for surround sound outputs in addition to new effects and many new supported metadata formats for audio.

On the video side, the app has ported the OpenGL output to OpenGL ES, making ports to iOS and Android much easier. Notably, VideoLAN says that VLC is now ready for Ultra-HD content (otherwise known as 4K). The app update has also focused heavily on improving MKV compatibility, including better seek performance and subtitle metadata support.

The OS X version of the app has some significant advances in UI, as well. The playback menu is now customisable, with the ability to toggle all of the transport controls (such as next, previous, shuffle, repeat).  Amusingly, videos can now also be played as a desktop background. Subtitle options are now exposed in the main player window. There is also wider support for accessibility and VoiceOver, such as in playback windows and full screen mode.

Although the new version is currently only available on the Mac, an update to the iOS app is imminent.

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Comments

  1. Still only one instance? The windows version has had that for years. Come on already.

    • David Rogoff - 11 years ago

      Yes, this is a very annoying “feature” of all OSX apps. However, it’s really simple to get around. Just go to your /Applications folder and duplicate vlc.app. Name it whatever you want. Now you can run that one for a second instance. Repeat as necessary.

    • Use terminal…
      open -n -a VLC
      You can open as many instances as you want.

  2. It’s still *really* slow playing mkv’s from a samba share compared to the instant access you get in MplayerX. :| Otherwise it’s spiffy.

    • standardpull - 11 years ago

      Slow via a samba share? You need to look at your Samba server or your LAN. Disk IO is just that. A slow samba share impacting performance means something outside of your Mac is slow; you’re likely dropping a large number of UDP packets resulting in a lot of retries resulting in lousy performance.

  3. The version name is “Rincewind” after the Terry Pratchett character; not “Ricewind”, which may or may not be a Sumo passing gas.

  4. Matt Miller - 11 years ago

    When will we see previews scrubbing like all other media players on the web

  5. Keith Hecht - 10 years ago

    Thanks, A very useful information .

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.