The VideoLan has announced the release of VLC 3.0 Vetinary, latest major release world's most popular open source, cross platform supported media player. This release brigs various advanced features like 4K and 8K playback with default hardware decoding, support for 10bits and HDR, 360 Video playback, 3D audio support ..etc.
The VLC 3.0 release is immediately made available for various platforms like Windows, macOS, most varieties of GNU/Linux, and also mobile platforms like Android and iOS. It can be installed either from the official package manager of the platform or from the project website. The project is also available in snap format, a cross platform supported format for various GNU/Linux distributions.
The major highlights in VLC 3.0 can be summarized as follows:
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| A preview of VLC 3.0 Vetinary streaming videos |
The VLC 3.0 release is immediately made available for various platforms like Windows, macOS, most varieties of GNU/Linux, and also mobile platforms like Android and iOS. It can be installed either from the official package manager of the platform or from the project website. The project is also available in snap format, a cross platform supported format for various GNU/Linux distributions.
The major highlights in VLC 3.0 can be summarized as follows:
Other changes in various VLC components includes:
- VLC 3.0 activates hardware decoding by default, to get 4K and 8K playback!
- It supports 10bits and HDR
- VLC supports 360 video and 3D audio, up to Ambisoncics 3rd order
- Allows audio passthrough for HD audio codecs
- Can stream to Chromecast devices, even in formats not supported natively
- Can play Blu-Ray Java menus: BD-J
- VLC supports browsing of local network drives and NAS
For more details, see VLC 3.0 release notes published in VideoLan website. You can also read a detailed changelog in projects website.CORE
- Network browsing for distant filesystems (SMB, FTP, SFTP, NFS...)
- HDMI passthrough for Audio HD codecs, like E-AC3, TrueHD or DTS-HD
- 12bits codec and extended colorspaces (HDR)
- Stream to distant renderers, like Chromecast
- 360 video and 3D audio playback with viewpoint change
- Support for Ambisonics audio and more than 8 audio channels
- Subtitles size modification live
ACCELERATION
- Hardware decoding and display on all platforms
- HEVC hardware decoding on Windows, using DxVA2 and D3D11
- HEVC hardware decoding using OMX and MediaCodec (Android)
- MPEG-2, VC1/WMV3 hardware decoding on Android
- Important improvements for the MMAL decoder and output for rPI and rPI2
- New hardware accelerated decoder for OS X and and iOS based on Video Toolbox
- New VA-API decoder and rendering for Linux
CODECS
- BD-Java menus and overlay in Blu-Ray
- Experimental AV1 video and Daala video decoders
- OggSpots video decoder
- New MPEG-1 & 2 audio layer I, II, III + MPEG 2.5 decoder based on libmpg123
- New BPG decoder based on libbpg
- TDSC, Canopus HQX, Cineform, SpeedHQ, Pixlet, QDMC and FMVC decoders
- TTML subtitles support
- Rewrite of webVTT subtitles support, including CSS style support
- BluRay text subtitles (HDMV) deocoder
CONTAINERS
- Rework of the MP4 demuxer
- Rework of the TS demuxer
- HD-DVD .evo support
- Rework of the PS demuxer
- Improvements on MKV
VIDEO OUTPUTS AND FILTERS
- OpenGL as Linux/BSD default video output
- Improvements in OpenGL output: direct displaying and HDR tonemapping
- Rework of the Android video outputs
- New Direct3D11 video output supporting both Windows desktop and WinRT modes
- HDR10 support in Direct3D11 with Windows 10 Fall Creator Update
- Hardware deinterlacing on the rPI, using MMAL
- Video filter to convert between fps rates
- Hardware accelerated deinterlacing/adjust/sharpen/chroma with VA-API
- Hardware accelerated adjust/invert/posterize/sepia/sharpen with CoreImage
- Hardware accelerated deinterlacing/adjust/chroma with D3D9 and D3D11
AUDIO OUTPUTS AND FILTERS
- Complete rewrite of the AudioTrack Android output
- New Tizen audio output
- HDMI/SPDIF pass-through support for WASAPI (AC3/DTS/DTSHD/EAC3/TRUEHD)
- Support EAC3 and TRUEHD pass-through for PulseAudio
- Rework of the AudioUnit modules to share more code between iOS and macOS
- SoX Resampler library audio filter module (converter and resampler)
- Ambisonics audio renderer, supporting up to 3rd order
- Binauralizer audio filter, working with Ambisonics or 5.1/7.1 streams
- Pitch shifting module
ANDROID SPECIFIC
- Chromecast support from your phone
- HEVC hardware decoding using MediaCodec
- Android Auto with voice actions
- Available on all Android TV, Chromebooks & DeX
- Support for Picture-in-Picture
- Playlist files detection