VideoLAN Player v0.8.5 released

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