VLC 1.1 Improves HD Playback, Adds WebM Support

VLC 1.1, a popular cross platform video player, has been updated with new features and numerous improvements.

Ready for HD
● GPU decoding on Windows Vista and 7, using DxVA2 for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2
● GPU decoding on GNU/Linux, using VAAPI for H.264, VC-1 and MPEG-2
● DSP decoding using OpenMax IL, for compatible embedded devices
● Improved support for MKV HD, including seeking fixes, and 7.1 channels codecs
● Support for new codecs, like Blu-Ray subtitles, MPEG-4 lossless and VP8

NB: so far, on Windows for GPU decoding, VideoLAN is recommending nVidia GPU, until ATI drivers are working with VLC architecture, and until the VLC developers get access to some Intel hardware supporting GPU decoding.


Extensions
New add-ons and script framework so one can personalize its vlc.
● Written in lua
● 2 main types of scripts:
o content add-ons, integrated in the playlist
o functionnalities extensions, like metadata searching on the web, or subtitles look-ups
● Very Simple

Web improvements
● Support for WebM decoding and encoding
● Improved web plugins
● Better streaming capabilities

Better Audio experience
● Integrated playlist in the Qt4 interface
● Multiple views (like album art) in the playlist in the Qt4 interface
● Support for AMR-NB, Mpeg-4 ALS, Vorbis 6.1/7.1, FLAC 6.1/7.1 and WMAS
● CDDB and CD-Text works now on the Windows port when listening to CD-Audio
● Support for DVD-Audio files (.aob)
● Improved meta-data and album-art support

Faster, Lighter
● Faster decoding, with up to 40% speed-ups, in HD resolutions
● First part of the Video Output core rewrite
● Removal or rewrite of dozens of modules, code simplification and tens of thousands of lines of code removed
● Some functionalities that are less used are now moved to extensions
● More assembly optimizatinons, especially SSSE3/SSE4 and ARM Neon
● Fewer threads used


Better for developers
● Simplified and improved libVLC, removal of exceptions for better C integration
● New phonon-backend for Qt applications, on all platforms
● New C++ bindings

You can download the new version of VLC from here.