As part of my Google Summer of Code project, I had a look at VLC’s open panel on Mac OS X. After simplying and re-arranging the file tab and adding new options to the Capture tab (used to access webcams and other video input devices), I re-wrote the disk tab which allows you to open DVDs, etc.
Starting with the current nightly builds, VLC can autodetect your inserted media as DVD, Audio CD, VCD or SVCD, and well, yes, as Bluray disk. There is no longer a need to select the type of disk, while all previously available features are still there if you need them.
With these changes, VLC’s “advanced” open dialog should be more appealing and quite a bit more obvious to use. To see what it looks like, click here.