VLC 2.0 Q&A

Update: VLC 2.0.1 is out! Please make sure that you updated.
A 2.0.1 Q&A is available 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!

 

Update: VLC 2.0.1 is out! Please make sure that you updated. 
A 2.0.1 Q&A is available here.

41 thoughts on “VLC 2.0 Q&A”

  1. Felix,

    Thanks for all the work you and the others put into VLC 2.0. I’ve always wondered if those crash reports that VLC offers to send actually get looked at and carry some weight when deciding to fix issues? If not, i’ll make sure to enter it into the videolan trac instead of relying on the crash reports.

  2. Every single one of these crash reports eventually ends up in my mail account. This allows me and a few others to get a tendency to see where the most important (read: most frequent) crashes are.

    However, for specifically reproducible crashes, it is more efficient to file a ticket on trac. So, go ahead!

  3. I know it says bluray is in beta, but I’ve tried playing several BDMV folders and the player went nuts, reporting dozens of errors or blinking and such. None would play. I would love for this feature to work 🙂

  4. @ Dennis: yes, they pretty much hacked VLC in the past to support DVDs. They will include a fix in their forthcoming release. For the meantime, you can download and install the required library manually.

    @ shaun: thanks for the response. i’ll clarify the answer given above.

  5. After clicking on full screen, pressing ESC doesn’t return the screen to previous setting. How do I get out of FULL SCREEN?

  6. Which version of Mac OS X are you using? If you use OS X Lion, do you use the native fullscreen mode or not? (you can easily tell the latter by having a look at the window’s title bar. If the fullscreen button is there, you’re using the native mode.)

  7. yah the full-screen on my Snow Leopard doesn’t go away with Esc either– one needs to re-enter cmd+f or double click the screen to exit.

    what’s more, if a video ends in full screen, it just sits there, instead of returning to a window. even more strange, if the primary window is closed at any time and a new video is opened via file double-click, the file starts playing without showing video on top… one hears the audio but the video is nowhere to be seen.

    longtime promoter of VLC- looking forward to 2.1 🙂

  8. @shaun: yeah, we are aware of these issues and will fix them for VLC 2.0.1, which is on schedule at the moment.

    Thanks for your feedback and keep promoting VLC!

  9. The problem I am having with 2.0 relates to some mp4 files. I either get a green screen or jerky playback.

    If I use another player the same mp4 plays fine.

  10. @ califrag: interesting, this is the first report on this kind of problems. Which kind of Mac do you use? Is there a chance to get a sample file?

  11. It’s probably not worth it at this point, but if there was a clear way to trying / using 1.x and 2.x at the same time, without committing to full blown changeover file associations, etc. from 1.x to 2.x., then we could try it without the danger of problems.

  12. Alan, you can easily install VLC 2.0 and previous releases side by side. Just rename the application bundle to be able to store more than one copy in your Applications folder. Note that the Finder’s default behavior is to use the latest version to open given files, but you can easily change that.

  13. Hi, Can you advise what else is required to be installed fro VLC 2.0 (Ubuntu) to run using vdpau, I understand vainfo needs to run before vdpau can be used, but its not clear what is actually required. Much obliged to you.

  14. @Rich: that’s a function of the Finder. Show View Options in the Finder and select Show icon preview.

  15. @Rich: I’m thinking also that you may need Perian and Flip4mac installed so QuickTime can generate the icon previews for the Finder.

  16. @ Ron: that depends on your use case. For me, it does. Note that it isn’t advisable to try to uninstall QuickTime on a Mac, since it is required by iTunes and a bunch of other applications.

  17. Thank you – Quick Time was running in the systems tray.  In maximizing computer speed I removed if from Start and since I have VLC loaded thought I would remove it completely from my Windows 7 computers.  VLC is highly rated by Kim Komando. Again – thank you for your rapid response. Point of interest:  I have a netbook that I use for internet and email access when I travel.  I switched from Windows Live Mail and Internet Explorer to Thunderbird and Chrome.  They are much faster – the only think I miss with Thunderbird is the grouping of emails by date.  Support from the Thunderbird volunteers is amazing – usually tales about 6 hours to get an answer. Ron 

  18. when I click the ‘stop playback button’ on the old version the image shrinked to minimum. now it blows to full page or even more.

  19. “Felix Kühne responded: less than a minute ago
    this is fixed in VLC 2.0.1, which be out shortly. ”

    Oh com’on. It was supossed for VLC 2.0.1 to be released a week ago.

  20. How do I disable the various pictures that seem to display randomly on my otherwise blank VLC skin? One of them is really hideous. Others are random pictures that look like record jacket photos and have nothing to do with what MP-3 is playing.

    If I can’t get rid of this visual nonsense, I’ll delete the VLC program form my computer.

  21. @ B Baron: VLC is solely developed by volunteers. Regrettably, you can schedule their spare time as much as you can do with the working hours of ordinary contributors.

    @ matthew caulfield: This sounds like a Windows or Linux problem, while this blog targets the Mac port only, which can’t exhibit the described behavior. Anyway, in the interface category of VLC’s preferences, you can disable the automatic download of cover artwork, which will probably solve your issue. If not, please post it on our forum at http://forum.videolan.org

  22. I use VLC, just downloaded it a month ago, with no similar problem.  I wonder if your download site may have added the pictures. Ron

  23. Don’t know. Another reply said that it is possible to stop cover art from being downloaded when running VLC, by some setting in Preferences. But I couldn’t find any such setting.

  24. Hi: Please comment on the following – I want to understand. I would be glad to unsubscribe your email from my site, however, I don’t know what you are talking about?  I asked VLC a question regarding the use of VLC as my default player in lieu of other players and now I get a couple of emails a day from Posterous.  Most of them seem meaningless to me.  I too would like to unsubscribe but don’t have a clue how to.  Perhaps you have the answer? The other option is a filter diverting Posterous to the trash bin.  This is easy to do. It may also be a solution for you? Thank you, Ron Bauer

  25. @ Ron Bauer: To unsubscribe from the emails notifying you about new comments, click on the orange link labelled “Unsubscribe from this comment thread” in the last line of the notification mail.
    Regrettably, Posterous doesn’t allow me to unsubscribe you directly.

  26. @Felix: The emails for this thread don’t seem to have the unsubscribe link.

    The emails for the previous “VLC 2.0-RC1 for Mac” thread do, but none the “VLC 2.0 Q&A” thread emails don’t. Weird. Are there different setting between the 2 threads when they were created?

  27. That’s why it’s weird. I have the unsubscribe link on all of the previous thread’s emails, but not of me emails for this thread have the unsubscribe link, which may be the case for some of the complainers as well.

  28. I was using VLC 2.0 Convert / Save. No problems. Then I upgraded to 2.0.1. Now Convert / Save fails. Immediately. The converted file has 44 bytes. The message file has nothing useful that I can see. I switched back to 2.0. It works as it did before the upgrade to 2.0.1. VLC seems to have a VERY long history of problems with Convert / Save. Is this a known problem with 2.0.1? What can you do to make this feature more failure resistant? Please email me if you need more info.

  29. Best program for play many formats ! Using it from early betas. Thanks.

    There are many files exists what recorded as TS (DVB 188 bytes) but only video and audio PIDs presenting. It could be pre-processed by a program like TS-Doctor which will add PAT, but I think you guys could easy make phantom PAT inside of VLC run.
    If you will need samples – send email to me with such request.

  30. I was using 1.1.12.
    I just tried 2.0.1 and noticed slight increases in CPU usage (18% vs 12%) and real memory usage (78MB vs 55MB), but I fell back to 1.1.12 mostly because running 2.0.1 (but idle) seemed to affect FireFox (3.6.28) negatively – if that’s even possible. FireFox appeared to be sluggish, and clicking in the address bar caused the whole length of the bar and not just the URL text to flash in color blue. I immediately restored 1.1.12.

    Felix mentioned above that 2 versions of VLC could co-exist – which I’d like to try. Do I not need to be concerned with anything else such as the VLC files in /Application Support/ and /Preferences/ ?

  31. @ John: VLC can’t actually interfere with Firefox. Strange to hear that. Anyway, you’re welcome to try 2.0.2, which will be out in a few days including further refinements. And yes, you can install VLC 2 and VLC 1.1 side by side without having to worry about the stuff in ~/Library. There are no incompatibilities between these release series.

  32. I am using VLC 2.0.1 on Mac OS Lion. I am having 2 problems and wanted to know if you can give me some advice.

    I am using a second screen. I drag the video onto the 2nd screen, go into full screen mode and all works ok. If I press Stop, the video comes back to the first screen and I have to drag it back to the 2nd screen again. I never had this problem with the old version of VLC.

    Also, the when playing videos in a playlist, when one video finishes, the next video starts automatically. Is there a way to make it so the next video does not play automatically?

    Thanks!
    RIck

  33. @ Rick: I’ll try to reproduce your video output problem later today. This should be easy to fix 🙂 Regarding your playlist question: yes, there is an option for that. Go to Preferences, click on “Show All” on the bottom left and click on “Playlist” in the table on the left hand side. After that, check “Play and stop” on the right.

  34. Hello there, I’m just starting to explore the VLC program and so my question may seem somewhat inane. I thank you for your forbearance, in advance.
    At this Google link , there is an image showing a “Basic tab”. At that “Basic tab” screen, basic colour adjustments such as Hue, Contrast, Brightness, Gamma, etc. can be made.
    I’m using VLC 2.1.4 on Mac OS X 10.9.3 and I cannot work out how to locate/open a “Basic tab”. Could someone please help with this? I thank you.

Comments are closed.