VLC for iOS, version 2.6.0

Today, we will release version 2.6.0 of VLC for iOS adding support for Apple Watch. With Apple Watch, you can fully control VLC on iPhone, browse the library and retrieve info about stored or playing media items.

Since playback control using Apple Watch allows you to start playback while the app is in background, we took the occasion to completely rework the playback process which culminated in the introduction of a mini player. This way, you can finally browse the media library or network services without interrupting playback.

Further, we added the ability to loop playlists and access to PLEX shares requiring authentication. Finally, thumbnails displayed in the local media library now reflect playback progress and will show the last played frame.

Version 2.6.0 of VLC for iOS includes the largest number of bug fixes and improvements we ever shipped in a single update for this platform. They are affecting virtually all parts of the app and will lead to a greatly improved user experience. Please scroll down if you are curious about the details.

One last thing: since VLC for iOS includes a large amount of white artwork which is virtually invisible in Xcode, Tobias developed a fix for that.

This major update is the result of 3 months of work and I would like to thank Tobias, Carola and Pierre for their dedication to make this possible.


Full change log:

  • Added support for Apple Watch – control VLC from your watch!
    • playback control
    • media info
    • library browsing
  • Added mini-player to browse the library during playback (#13367)
  • Added support for looping playlists
  • New ingest mechanism for audio files
  • Improved remote command support
  • Improved thumbnail generation
  • Improved thumbnail and web interface performance on devices with A5 CPU and above
  • Fixed crash when playing media from a folder or music album on iPad (#14394, #14706)
  • Fixed crash when app goes to background while a video is playing (#14643)
  • Fixed privacy leak when using a passcode to protect the library (#14159, #14615)
  • Removed stray popup announcing VLC’s crash all the time while it actually
    didn’t crash before, but was terminated by the user (#13194)
  • Added support for the PLEX Web API
  • Thumbnails displayed in the media library are updated to the last playback position (#14462)
  • Improved reliability when sharing media library on the local network
  • Improved media library search delivering more accurate results (#14593)
  • Fixed ‘crop to fill screen’ on iPad (#14575)
  • Fixed issue which prevented downloading of a few files via UPnP (#11123)
  • Fixed crash when screen is being locked during playback (#14610)
  • A large number of bug fixes affecting most parts of the app (#13194, #14056#14270, #14284, #14355, #14477, #14588, #14589, #14609, #14623, #14624#14628, #14629, #14635, #14638, #14641, #14642, #14654, #14663, #14687#14688, #14713, #14715, #14716, #14733, #14736, #14795, #14800, #14801, #14829)

VLC for iOS 2.5.0

Today, we released version 2.5.0 of VLC for iOS with a strong focus on cloud integration. We added support for iCloud Drive, box.com and OneDrive. As part of iCloud Drive, you can have access to any cloud storage enabled app on iOS 8 and later. For box.com and OneDrive, we added native support, which allows us direct streaming from the cloud without having the user download a media first.

Furthermore, we cleaned-up the playback experience matching recent changes in VLC for Android and added the full 10-band equalizer known from VLC’s desktop ports. While reworking playback, we also integrated support for titles and chapters included in a few Matroska / MKV and MP4 files. Due to popular request, you can also lock the UI and rotation during playback.

One last thing: you can share your media library between multiple devices on the same local network now! If you enable WiFi sharing and keep VLC active, it will appear in the “Local Network” tab of all iOS devices running VLC supporting both device to device streaming as well as downloads.

Finally, we added a couple of new translations to Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Khmer, Faroese, Belarusian, Serbian (Latin), Tamil and Afrikaans along with the usual set of bug fixes and minor improvements.

We hope you like this new version as much as we do.

VLC for iOS 2.4.0 & 2.4.1

After a 5 month hiatus and a couple of delays in between, we are very happy to release version 2.4.1 of VLC for iOS to the general public today. Please see our press release for cross-platform information.

As an introductory remark, make sure to get the legitimate version of VLC. There are a number of clones on the iOS App Store right now, which violate both our copyright and our trademarks, include advertisement and usually charge $1 to $5 per download. We sent 39 DMCA take down notices against 48 apps over the cause of the last 12 months and in the end, we always succeeded. However, this can take up to 3 months, even for seemingly obvious violations.

As a consequence to those continued violations, VLC for iOS’s source code repository will no longer be publicly accessible, but archives of the stable releases only.

So, what’s new in VLC for iOS?

  • Support for iPhone 6 and 6+
  • Native support for Plex using their custom protocol
  • File Sharing with third party apps
  • Media library search
  • Custom URL scheme based on x-callback-url
  • Greatly improved UPnP support
  • In addition to uploading media via WiFi, you can also download all the media stored within VLC using a simple web browser
  • Streaming and folder support for Google Drive
  • Flat folder synchronization via iTunes
  • Options for default playback speed and FTP text encoding
  • On-the-fly audio and subtitles track synchronization
  • And a large number of small features, improvements and bug fixes as well as a new translation to Traditional Chinese.

This release removes support for Dolby Digital (AC-3), Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) and Dolby TrueHD (MLP) for the foreseeable future due to a content dispute with Dolby Laboratories, which could not be resolved in a different way.

We are very happy with this major version of VLC for iOS and hope that you’ll like it as much as we do. Further, we are excited about the things we have in our pipeline for the forthcoming releases. A first beta of version 2.5 will be released to our testers today.

VLC media player for Mac OS X 2.2.0

Today, we will also a major new version of VLC for Mac OS X. For cross-platform changes, please have a look at the release notes and our press release.

What’s new in VLC for Mac?

  • Support for OS X Yosemite
  • Completely re-written web plugin for Chrome, Safari and Firefox is back!
    Improved fullscreen behavior
  • Continue playback where you left off
  • Improved playlist adding a file size column and an option to increase the font size
  • In addition to iTunes, Spotify can be paused on playback start
  • New encryption and decryption modules for SSL based on OS X’s SecureTransport library for FTP and HTTP connections. This greatly improves speed and security.
  • A lot of improvements in VLCKit for use in third party applications, notably
    • Switched the code base to ARC and added support for Swift projects
    • Support for HLS and HTTPS playback on iOS
    • Improved thumbnailing
    • Various new APIs for playlist handling, the equalizer, thumbnailing and meta data handling

We are excited about this major update of VLC for Mac and hope that you’ll like it as much as we do.

VLC media player for Mac OS X, versions 2.1.4 and 2.0.10


Today, we released 2 versions of VLC media player for Mac OS X targeting different client systems.

Version 2.1.4

This is a small bug fix release, which improves an important regression regarding DVD playback and improves compatibility with HUffYUV contents by upgrading the respective decoder library. Additionally, a rare issue with some specifically crafted wmv files was fixed and a misleading error message no longer appears during video playback on OS X Mavericks.
Grab a copy here or trigger the internal updater if it doesn’t prompt you right away.

Version 2.0.10

More than 3 months after the last update to VLC’s 2.0 release series, this minor update includes security updates for third party libraries, stability improvements and increased battery life when using a Mac with more than one graphics card.
While we generally recommend anyone using a Mac with OS X 10.6 or later on a 64bit-capable device to deploy version 2.1.4 linked above, VLC 2.0.10 is a great thing to enjoy your media if you decided to stay on OS X 10.5 or if you are using a PowerPC or 32bit Intel-based Mac.
Fetch the PowerPC binary here or grab the Intel variant there. The update is also appearing in VLC’s internal updater.

VLC for iOS, version 2.2.1

Today, we released a small update of VLC for iOS. It solves the most important regressions in last week’s 2.2 major release, but also includes a major improvement: full initial support of 64bit aka AArch64 aka arm64 on late 2013’s iPhone and iPad thanks to a close collaboration with the libav team.

Additionally, we added enhanced support for a broader set of UPnP servers, notably Twonky 7, Serviio 1.4 and XMBC 12, and resolved an inconvenient memory management issue in the underlying upnp library, which lead to the weird behavior that from a full folder only a single file would actually be played over and over again.

Regarding VLC for iOS’ networking capabilities, the option to manipulate the caching level was implemented in the same way as known from its desktop counterparts. Furthermore, ftp streams respect non-ASCII file encodings and URLs with spaces correctly now. Streaming from Dropbox is more reliable, too.

Finally, we increased the readability of metadata displayed on iPad (iOS 7), solved stability regressions on iOS 6 and implemented a more intelligent thumbnailing mechanism.

Oh, and your TV show episodes disappeared with the last update? That’s solved, too. Sorry for the confusion and the trouble this database edge-case caused.

VLC for iOS, version 2.2

Today, we published version 2.2 of VLC for iOS on the App Store. It features a re-designed interface for iOS 7, which we demonstrated in early November last year.

Since then, we took the time for further improvements, polishing and most importantly adding features in addition a plain restyling.

Notably, we added the following:

  • Google Drive integration and Dropbox streaming,
  • New multitouch gestures,
  • Improved library for TV Shows and Audio,
  • Better UPnP integration, with downloading support,
  • A startup tutorial,
  • New streaming formats and protocols supported,
  • Rewritten WiFi upload,
  • Improved privacy when using Passcode Lock

Additionally, we performed a lot of tweaks and minor improvements on the interface, which are also reflected in the legacy iOS 6 UI (yes, we still fully support it!):

  • Improved feedback for media download progress including data bitrate, procentual progress and estimated remaining download time
  • Opening network streams no longer leads to a collapsed file system hierarchy on the remote system. After playback, you can continue where you left off.
  • Added bookmarks for FTP servers
  • Previously removed episodes and tracks no longer show up in the respective group listings (#9705)
  • Improved privacy by requesting the passcode immediately after leaving the app and by obfuscating playback metadata if passcode lock is enabled
  • Added support to endlessly repeat the currently playing item (#9793)
  • Added option to disable file name display optimizations (#10050)
  • TV Shows are sorted by Season number / Episode number and Music Albums respectively by track number
  • Added ability to rename any media item in the library view
  • Added deletion of multiple media items in one step
  • Improved TV Show handling for shows with more than 100 episodes
  • If your media was recognized as part of a music album, the next track will automatically start playing afterwards
  • New translations to Czech, Malay, Persian, Spanish (Mexico)

Furthermore, we worked on details of all kinds of network interaction supported by VLC for iOS:

  • Improved UPnP stability and new support for downloading files from supported servers
  • Added cover-art and duration to UPnP server item lists
  • Fixed displayed size for files stored on UPnP multimedia servers larger than 2147.48 MB (#9641)
  • Dramatically improved WiFi upload reliability during concurrent or repeated sessions
  • Added support for HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) (#9174)
  • Added support for https playback
  • Added support for system-wide HTTP proxy settings
  • Added support for m3u streams
  • Improved vlc:// custom protocol handling (#9542)

We hope that you with love this new version as much as we do. You can find detailed usage documentation on the VideoLAN wiki.

VLC for iOS is fully developed by volunteers in their spare time. If you would like to contribute in one way or another, please check VideoLAN.org.

In case you are interested in embedding our underlying technology as a simple framework to your own iOS or OS X app, have a look at the VLCKit wiki page and get in touch.

 

VLC 2.1

Today, we published VLC media player 2.1.1 for all major desktop operating systems. If you used VLC for Android or for iOS in the last couple of months, you already got in touch with VLC’s 2.1 code base.

VLC media player 2.1 was initially published on September 26. However, we didn’t enable VLC’s internal updater since then. Why? We spent extra time on polishing the release, added support for the upcoming major video codec HEVC aka H.265 in MKV and MP4 containers as well as raw files, and lastly improved compatibility with both OS X 10.6 and 10.9.


2.1 is a major release for us, something we worked on since September 2011. We took the time to entirely re-write VLC’s audio output structure resolving architectural issues, improving lip synchronization, enhanced efficiency and improved device management. On the Mac, this upgrade also adds full support for external audio output devices and 6.1 / 7.1 / 8.1 / 10.2 multi-channel layouts.

On OS X, we finally added support for hardware-accelerated H.264 video decoding with further improvements including support for MPEG 2 and H263 scheduled for this winter season. Furthermore, video capturing using AVFoundation is supported on OS X 10.7 and later as well as recording the current screen contents, a feature previously supported on 10.5 and 10.6 only.

VLC 2.1 completes the transition to our re-written Mac interface introduced in version 2.0 with various major improvements, further customization options including additional playlist columns, support for cloned and split video output windows, as well as customizable presets for video filters, audio filters, and the equalizer. A new “Subtitles” menu embraces VLC advanced compatibility with any textual or bitmapped format and allows the user to customize text styles and size on-the-fly during playback. An all-new “Convert/Stream” panel simplifies media to file conversations as well as setup of streams on the local network or the internet. The media library and playlist view gains full Podcast support known from our ports to Windows and Linux.

Those major improvements have a drawback though: VLC 2.1 no longer supports any 32bit Intel-based Macs and any PowerPC-based Macs. It requires OS X 10.6 or later. For the older  Macs, we published another bug fix release last week, 2.0.9, fixing various annoyances and resolving all known security issues. Macs compatible with VLC 2.1 will be offered the update automatically while the others will remain on 2.0.9 with the potential option for a future 2.0.10 release, should it be needed.

We have great news for developers: VLC’s underlying work-horse, libVLC, as well as most of its modules were relicensed to LGPLv2.1+. This allows any interested party to deploy our proven code their own apps and solutions. As showcase apps, we developed VLC for Android and VLC for iOS demonstrating libVLC’s features. While libVLC is a C library, an all-Objective-C framework named VLCKit is available for Apple platforms. Native Java bindings are available for Android, too.

We hope you enjoy VLC 2.1 as much as we do and we are looking forward to further releases in our pipeline on track for release this winter.

VLC for iOS 7, preview

Over the last weeks, I worked closely with Damien Erambert on VLC’s user interface on iOS, rethinking it for iOS 7.

I would like to share a small preview today with further iterations pending. Version 2.2 of VLC for iOS will also include various new features and refinements. More on that, at a later point.

Any feedback and remarks are strongly welcome.

VLC for iOS, version 2.1

About 8 weeks passed since the initial re-release of VLC for iOS based upon its entirely re-written code base. Its success outperformed our expectations with more than 2.5 million downloads during the first week. Wow!

For the first major update, we listed carefully to the feedback received on the App Stores and through others channels.
It adds the following features and improvements:

  • Improved overall stability
  • Newly implemented menu and application flow
  • Added support for subtitles in non-western languages
  • Improved Subtitles support with options to choose font, size, and color
  • Add basic UPNP discovery and streaming for HTTP servers
  • Add FTP server discovery, streaming and downloading
  • Add Bonjour announcements for the WiFi Uploader’s website
  • Add playback of audio-only media
  • Improved VoiceOver and accessibility support
  • Added Deinterlace option (off by default)
  • Device no longer goes to sleep during media downloads
  • Improved video output on external screens
  • Improved Passcode Lock behavior
  • Minor usability improvements
  • New translations to Bosnian, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Marathi, Portuguese,
    Slovenian

Additionally, we took the time finish a complete walkthrough of the app to discover what’s actually included and to answer most questions.

At present, the update is being processed by Apple for the App Stores and will be available in your local store within a few hours from now.

We are looking forward to your feedback and to our scheduled forthcoming releases, which will add WebDAV support, multi-touch gestures and so much more!