Planet VideoLAN

Rémi Duraffort: Making VLC at home

Fri, 04 May 2012 21:23:00 +0000

In my previous article, I showed a way to setup and jump into a root file system in order to test a software in this environment.

Using PRoot, such task looks really easy and does not require any privileges. We will now finish this setup in order to build and test VLC media player in this new root file system.

Setting up the RootFS In the previous article we had downloaded and configured a Debian root file system ready to be used with PRoot. In order to build and test VLC media player in this environment, we must install VLC dependencies. For instance in a Debian system, I already explain the procedure in an article about the compilation for Linux... Read Making VLC at home

Felix Paul Kühne: Customizing VLC for Mac

Wed, 02 May 2012 14:16:00 +0000

In VLC 2.0, we introduced a brand new interface, which looks quite different to VLC 1.x. We basically did 2 things here:

clean up the code by striping out most of the accumulated hacks of a 10 year old code base
introduce a new interface design, which suits the look and feel of nowadays Mac applications

However, there are quite a few users, who want to customize the UI, which is easily possible. Let me show you how. For sakes of simplicity, I'll demonstrate the gray, default appearance only. However, it works exactly the same way if you prefer the dark style.

Let me start by showing the default view:

So, if you don't want to use the newly introduced sidebar, you can easily get rid of it. Just grab the devider between drop zone and sidebar. Drag it to the left. The sidebar will remain hidden and all you get is this plain window:

Once you started adding items to the playlist, it will look like this:

Please note that in rare occasions, the sidebar will be restored when restarting VLC 2.0.1. This issue is resolved in VLC 2.0.2, which will be available shortly.

Next, there are people who wondered about the "newly introduced playlist". Well, in fact, it was added to VLC 0.5.0 almost 9 years ago. However, it could be easily hidden in the past. Starting with VLC 2.0.1, you can hide it, too:

How to do that? just click on the playlist button while no video is playing. Once you started video playback, the window will expand to make room for the video. Once the playback stopped, it will resize again to show the controller only.

Finally, well, can I see both the playlist and the video output at the same time like it used to be the case all the last 10 years ago? Of course you can:

Additionally, as shown above, you can also hide the playlist while displaying the video in a separate window, so you'll get the following appearance:

So, where can I set that? Go to Preferences, which you can find in the VLC menu, select the "Interface" category and disable "Show video within the main window":

We hope that you enjoy using VLC 2.0 as much as we do.

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Rémi Duraffort: PRoot sorcery

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:43:00 +0000

A good practice for software developer is to provide a test suite while developing a software. When developing for Linux, it's also a good practice to compile the software and run the test suite on many distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, ArchLinux, Centos, Slackware and for both i386 and x86_64.

Usually, softwares are compiled and tested on only one distribution because setting up the right environment is long and painful. Most of the time root privileges are also required to setup such environment.

In this article and the following one, I will show that using PRoot, such testing is quite handy and can be done by any users.

Getting PRoot up and running In order to test PRoot, you can download the latest version on the official website and compile it. You can also grab a package for your distribution on the Open Build Service. If you choose to compile PRoot, that's just a matter of: #!/bin/sh git clone git://github.com/cedric-vincent/PRoot.git cd PRoot/src make... Read PRoot sorcery

Felix Paul Kühne: Improved media key support

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:00:00 +0000

VLC 2.0.2 will include improved support for the media keys on keyboards produced by companies other than Apple, notably the brand Cherry.

VLC uses a piece of code called SPMediaKeyTap developed by Spotify AB to provide this functionality. The fix was contributed back, so all the other client applications will benefit as well once they are updated.

This would not have been possible without the generous and enormously fast donation by ZF Friedrichshafen AG / Cherry, who delived the boards less than a week after our initial contact.

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Rémi Duraffort: Born to be PRoot

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:01:00 +0000

It's been a long time since my last post on thit blog. To start again in a good shape I will seize the opportunity of a new version of PRoot to present this open source software in a cycle of articles.

What's PRoot about ? PRoot is a user-space implementation of: chroot mount --bind binfmt_misc This mean that PRoot allows you to: Change the root filesystem of a process. Bind some files to another location in the file system. Transparently execute binaries built for another CPU architecture through QEmu. PRoot is based on the... Read Born to be PRoot

Felix Paul Kühne: VDA decoder support

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:15:00 +0000

VLC's next major release will include support for the VDA decoder API on Mac OS X thanks to Sébastien Zwickert, who added the needed code both to VLC and libav.

So, what's the use? This adds hardware acceleration to H.264 video decoding on Mac OS X 10.6.3 and later! This way, VLC's CPU load is reduced by up to 40 per cent on supported devices! These include Mac models equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M, GeForce GT 330M, ATI HD Radeon GFX, Intel HD Graphics and others.

More technical information is available on Sébastien's github page.

You can find an initial pre-release build here, based upon VLC's current development branch. Please note that this build is not made for production environments, could hurt your kittens and could do all the other bad stuff pre-alpha software is known for to your Mac and its surroundings.

Note that VDA decoding isn't enabled by default. To enable it, go to Preferences (VLC menu), click on "Show all" on the bottom left, choose "Input/Codecs" -> "Video codecs" -> "FFmpeg" on the left hand side and scroll down on the right until you see the checkbox labelled "Hardware decoding". Check it. That's it. Make sure to restart the playback, if applicable.

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Felix Paul Kühne: VLC 2.0.1 Q&A (updated)

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:33:00 +0000

Following the previous Q&A post, here's a new one about VLC 2.0.1. It should explain the most common problems.

As usual, feel free to add new questions to the comments since this a living document.

When doing snapshots, I get an error message about some encoder issue. What's wrong?

Due to a bug in the underlying libavcodec library, saving snapshots in the JPEG format doesn't work in this release (#6415). Saving as PNG works correctly. To change the file format, go to the "Video" category of VLC's preferences (which you can find in the VLC menu).

This issue affects the binaries both on Mac OS X and MS Windows. It will be fixed in the 2.0.2 release through a codec update.

Make sure to restart VLC after changing this option!

VLC doesn't open in fullscreen mode anymore on launch. Can I do something to solve this?

This issue will be fixed in VLC 2.0.2 (#6464). As a work-around, you can enable the native fullscreen mode of OS X Lion if you run this version of Mac OS X or get a nightly build.

This issue does only affect the Mac OS X platform.

Make sure to restart VLC after changing this option!

Some Asian subtitles are displayed as a thick white line instead of characters... What to do?

As a work-around, press command-1 after starting the video playback (#6427). This will slightly resize the window and will allow the text renderer to draw these characters correctly. Only a small number of subtitles included in MP4 container files is affected.

This issue does only affect the Mac OS X platform and will be fixed in VLC 2.0.2.

There are colored lines and stripes across the video when running VLC on MS Windows XP, but previous versions ran nicely. Is there a fix?

VLC 2.0 includes a new video output module on MS Windows, which is not compatible with a certain number of graphics card drivers on MS Windows XP (#6501, #6469). You can re-enable the previous output module in VLC's preferences (Tools menu): in the "Video Settings", you'll find a switch for the "output module", which you want to set to "DirectX".

This issue does only affect the MS Windows platform and will be resolved in VLC 2.0.2.

Make sure to restart VLC after changing this option!

The playback control buttons don't seem to work on my Mac. What to do?

On a small number of VLC installations on Mac OS X, the preferences corrupted during the upgrade to VLC 2 leading to the mentioned result. To fix this, go to the preferences dialog (VLC menu), click on "Show All", select "Interface" -> "Main Interfaces" on the left hand side and disable "Mac OS X Interface" in the "Extra interface modules" list on the right.

This issue does only affect the Mac OS X platform and will be resolved in VLC 2.0.2.

Make sure to restart VLC after changing this option!

Can I follow the progress of VLC 2.0.2?

Sure. Have a look at our bug tracker.

My issue isn't listed here. Can I report it somewhere?

Sure. Open a ticket in our bug tracker. Note that you don't need to register to do so. Any OpenID account including your Google login will work.

Update: VLC 2.0.2 will be out shortly!

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Rémi Denis-Courmont: AVC-encoding camera with VLC and Video4Linux

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:37:00 +0000

VLC media player version 2.0.2 for Linux will gain support for AVC-encoding (a.k.a. ITU-T H.264 a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 10) video cameras. This include the -currently- higher-end standard USB Video Class webcams boasting H.264.

At this time, those devices are a bit expensive, with prices starting at about a 100€. But they can encode high-definition video in real-time at acceptable quality.

With adequate Video4Linux device drivers found in kernel version 3.1 or later, you can capture H.264 video with the magic VLC media location, e.g.: v4l2://:chroma=h264 (video device number 0) or v4l2:///dev/video1:chroma=h264 (device number 1).

Felix Paul Kühne: VLC 2.0.1 out now

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:19:19 +0000

VLC 2.0.1 is now available on videolan.org and pushed directly to your Mac through VLC's internal updater.

Here are the most important improvements for VLC for the Mac:

fixed delay when changing the volume
added a way to minimize the playlist
- option-click on the playlist button, if the video is played within the main window
- click normally on the playlist button, if the video is played in a detached window or no video is playing at all
provided a way to hide the sidebar
added playback controls to the detached video window
added OSD feedback when changing the volume
added accessibility support to the black UI mode
resolved fullscreen playback issues on Lion and Snow Leopard
the forward / backward buttons are way less sensitive now, so you can skip the movie much more slowly (the speed matches iTunes now)
disabled the native fullscreen mode on OS X Lion by default
fixed issues with the track synchronization panel
fixed playback of multicast UDP / RTP streams on certain setups
fixed SAP service discovery on certain setups
fixed crop functionality in the main menu and the video effects panel
fixed issues with the aspect ratio and subtitles menu items
fixed various crashes and minor ui issues
- progress bar flickering, video window getting larger than the actual screen size, re-appearing "Updating font cache" dialogs, etc.

This update includes the following security content:

Updated libpng to 1.5.9 (CVE-2011-3026)
Updated freetype to 2.4.9 (CVE-2012-1126 up to CVE-2012-1144)
Fixed MMS stack overflow (VideoLAN-SA-1201)
Fixed RealRTSP heap overflow (VideoLAN-SA-1202)

Additionally, VLC 2.0.1 includes the following cross-platform improvements:

Access:
- fixed and improved the CDDB information retrieval
- fixed the samba module compilation
- improved HTTP Live Streaming support
- multiple fixes for HLS support, notably on Windows and for encryption
- multiple fixes for Bluray discs playback
- improved DVD playback on some RPC-I drives
Codecs:
- Support for MXPEG files
- limited auto-detected threads to 4 in avcodec module
- fixed the use of QuickTime audio codecs in RTSP streams
Muxers:
- FIxed OGM header creation
Demuxers:
- Fixed multi-file splitted RAR archive support
- Fixed a crash when seeking in mka
- Improved MKV multi-video tracks support
Audio filters:
- limited spatializer filter distortions
- Use the fastest SinC algorithm for the samplerate module
Web interface:
- fixed mobile display for remote control mode
- support for .drc and .3ga extensions
Service discovery:
- fixed SAP discovery, where an item was added multiple times
- Updated Jamendo selections

Furthermore, VLC 2.0.1 includes these improvements for Windows and Linux:

Audio output:
- Fixed S/PDIF passthrough with ALSA
- Removed flawed ALSA channels autodetection.
  - The available ALSA channels MUST be configured now (stereo by default)
Video filters:
- Fixed gradfun unloading on Windows
Qt interface:
- allow a native seek slider instead of the blue one
- fixes in the playlist, the addons dialog, the menus, the main toolbar, the open dialogs and preferences
- fix for the fontconfig cache dialog when rebuilding ASS fonts
Skins interface:
- fixed menu display
- Addition of $R to display the current playback speed
- documentation update
Miscellaneous:
- Fixed DBus crash
- Fixed build issues on BSD, Linux/PPC and Linux/SPARC
- Fixed a crash on VLM close

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Felix Paul Kühne: VLC 2.0 Q&A

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:09:00 +0000

This is a living document. Feel free to add further questions to the comments and I'll add them here.

Fullscreen mode doesn't work on my 2nd monitor anymore... is there a way to fix this?

Yes, this is due to the way the fullscreen mode was implemented by Apple for OS X Lion. To get VLC's own mode back as well as working output on your 2nd screen, disable "Use the native fullscreen mode on OS X Lion" in the Interface category of VLC's preferences. You can find the preferences in the "VLC" menu next to the "Quit" item.

Please note that you need to restart VLC after changing this setting!

Is there a way to see the both playlist and video at the same time?

Yes, disable the "Show video within the main window" option in the Interface category of VLC's preferences. You can find the preferences in the "VLC" menu next to the "Quit" item.

Please note that you should stop the current video playback prior to changing this setting!

Can I disable the media library?

No, you can't. However, if you decide not to use it, it's just a small entry in the sidebar, which takes no processing power and a few kilobytes of memory only.

You introduced a new playlist... can I disable it?

Actually, the playlist was introduced in VLC 0.5.0 nine years ago. Every single file you watched with VLC since then was added to the playlist for playback. Possibly you didn't notice. That's due to the fact the playlist is emptied on quit. On the next run, there is no way to find out what you played (except for the "Recent files.." menu, which can be optionally disabled).

The time line slider looks weird or draws incorrectly. What to do?

This is a minor bug in VLC 2.0, which is already fixed for VLC 2.0.1.

The crop menu does strange stuff. It definitely doesn't crop. What to do?

This is a major bug, which wasn't reported prior to our final release of VLC 2.0. In the current version, both the aspect ratio menu and the crop menu perform the same action. It will be fixed in VLC 2.0.1.

Why is there this annoying "creating font cache" dialog?

When using VLC 2.0 for the first time, we need to check your installed fonts to display subtitles and other On-screen graphics. The short re-appearance of this panel when starting a 2nd clip is already fixed for VLC 2.0.1.

Your main window is really big now. How can I make it as small as it used to be?

In VLC 2.0, you can't. We will include a fix for that in VLC 2.0.1.

It seems like I cannot use my accessibility tools with VLC 2.0. What can I do?

Use the gray interface style instead of the black. In fact, the gray style is enabled by default and fully supports common accessibility tools. We added support for these tools to the black interface style in VLC 2.0.1.

I've got a problem with a tool called Handbrake. What to do?

Please check the vendor's website. They got a new version of their software as well as documentation on how to solve your issues.

So, when will VLC 2.0.1 be out, since it seems to fix all the issues I got?

Probably within the next 8 to 10 days from now (monday, Feb 20).

Update: we had to delay the release slightly. It should be available in week 10, probably friday night.

Is there a way to track the progress on VLC 2.0.1?

Sure! Have a look at the 2.0.1 milestone in our bug tracker!

I noticed a bug which is NOT mentioned here. What to do?

Have a look at the 2.0.1 milestone in our bug tracker. If your problem isn't listed there, create a ticket please. To do so, you can log in using any OpenID account including your Google account, so there is no need to register. Please describe your problem as detailed as possible and feel free to attach screenshots or testing material if appropriate. Thank you for your support!

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Felix Paul Kühne: VLC 2.0 Twoflower released

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:56:00 +0000

Our new major release was published today. Get it from videolan.org.

VLC 2.0 includes the following Mac OS X specific changes:

Completely re-written single window interface
2 interface styles: Lion gray and QTX-like black
Full access to VLC's video and audio filters
- new Audio Effects panel adding Compressor and Spatializer filters
- new Video Effects panel for color and geometry adjustments, and more
A new panel to synchronize audio or subtitle tracks with the video
Re-written Open Disc functionality with automatic media detection
Native fullscreen support on OS X Lion (can be disabled if desired)
enhanced AppleScript support
support for VLC's lua-based extensions, which which allow you to get info about the current movie from Allociné, post to Twitter, fetch subtitles automatically, etc.

On all desktop platforms, VLC 2.0 includes these major enhancements:

multi-threaded video decoding based upon ffmpeg-mt
greatly enhanced Matroska / MKV playback
updated codecs including 10bit support
re-written video output with major speed improvements
enhanced subtitle display
and much much more

VLC 2.0 for Mac requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. We provide separate packages for PowerPC-based Macs. For Intel-based Macs, there are 3 packages available: separate 32bit and 64bit packages plus a Universal Binary including both variants. Note that the 64bit binary requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later.

Get it here!

Edit: I've just published a Q&A article answering the most questions regarding this new version. Click here!

Here a few more screenshots:

There are even more screenshots available on flickr.

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Felix Paul Kühne: Updated EyeTV plugin

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:43:31 +0000

While preparing VLC's 2.0 release, I silently updated VLC's plugin for EyeTV. The new version fixes playback issues with HD content received via DVB through the EyeTV application.

The plugin is available for download now and also compatible with earlier releases of VLC.

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Felix Paul Kühne: Final design of VLC 2.0 for Mac

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:13:00 +0000

Since the release of VLC 2.0 is approaching, I thought it was time to publish its final interface design by Damien Erambert.

Jean-Baptiste Kempf and me started to collect ideas for this interface in the summer of 2008. After slightly chaotic approaches and a few near death experiences for VLC's Mac OS X port, we're really proud of the result.

The interface of VLC for Mac as you know it dated back to the 0.7.0 days with various additions until the 0.8.6 release (in 2008!). Since then, it was more or less unchanged with minor optimisations here and there. A re-write called Lunettes appeared in late 2009 and finally converged in VLC for iOS.

VLC 2.0's interface for Mac is dramatically different from its previous revision, both technically and usage-wise. Playlist and video output share the same window, service discovery modules can be easily accessed through a sidebar and various audio + video filters are available through the respective panels. Besides that, the interface is noticeably faster and easily expandable. Speaking of that, we also added support for VLC's lua-based extensions, which allow you to get info about the current movie from Allociné, post to Twitter, fetch subtitles automatically, etc.

For the main window, you'll have the choice between a gray and a black window style.

VLC 2.0 will be available later this week on videolan.org. Enjoy!

NB: Development of the interface wouldn't have been possible without a stipend from Google Inc. as part of Google Summer of Code 2011, which allowed me to work on it fulltime without worries.

VLC 2.0 on Lion:

VLC 2.0 on Snow Leopard and Leopard:

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Jean-Baptiste Kempf: It's over 20,000!

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:19:00 +0000

I did over 20,000 posts on the Videolan Forums to answer questions...

You can check my profile.

Of course, I am far under VLC_help, who is at 23,700+ posts, but still, it's not too bad...

A lot of trolls and misunderstanding are there too, because many people still do not understand the concepts of volunteer, open source and free. But well, haters gonna hate.