VLC 3.0 Vetinari

Not bad, the year began and continues for Linux as a workstation. Following the third Wine , it is the turn of the most popular media player VLC. After a long and intensive development cycle, VideoLAN announced the release of an open source video player VLC 3.0.0 entitled Vetinari . The new version is available for Linux, * BSD, Mac, IOS, Windows and Android platforms. The new version has a lot of modern features: support for iPhone X, 3D sound, HDR video, as well as video playback with a 360-degree turn.

Among the most notable innovations are: support for 4k / 8k high-definition video, 10-bit video, HD audio codec forwarding, BD-J BluRay Java menu, NAS support, Google Chromecast and FTP, SFTP, SMB connections.

OS and platforms

• Android from version 2.3 to 8.1, also supports Android TV.
• Chrome OS.
• Linux, starting with kernel version 2.6.26.
• Windows XP and above.
• MacOS 10.7 to 10.13.
• iOS 7 to 11 version.
• Unix * BSD operating systems.

Major improvements

• Supports 12-bit HDR codecs and extended color space.
• Audio forwarding via HDMI for E-AC3 , TrueHD and DTS-HD HD audio codecs.
• Reading from remote file systems ( SMB , FTP , SFTP , NFS ).
• Wayland surfaces are supported.
• Supports Ambisonics 3D sound technology in 8+ audio channels.
• Automatically detect external audio track ( ac3 , m4a , aac , dts , etc.).
• Broadcast to remote transmitters such as Chromecast .
• Dynamic resizing of subtitles.

Networking opportunities

• NFS access using the libnfs module.
• SMB access using the libdsm module.
• Access over UPnP .
• Directory browsing for access via SMB/FTP/SFTP .
• New HTTP/TLS module to provide access via HTTP 2.0.
• The new SAT/IP module provides the ability to receive DVB-S over TCP / IP networks.

Hardware decoding

• VA-API much better at supporting 10 bits, HEVC and direct processing.
• The MMAL decoder and media output for rPI and rPI2 are significantly improved.
• HEVC support using OMX and MediaCodec on Android.
• HEVC support using DxVA2 and D3D11 on Windows.
• Support MPEG-2 , VC1/WMV3 on Android using MediaCodec .
• MediaCodec using NDK’s own API since version 5 of Android.
• OMX GPU zero copy mechanism support for decoding and displaying on Android using OpenMax IL .
• New decoder based on Video Toolbox (iOS / macOS) with support for H.263 , H.264/MPEG-4 AVC , H.265/HEVC , MPEG-4 Part 2 , and DV .
• Supports VP9 and WMV3 decoder formats using the OpenMAX API.

Losing video 8K 48fps 360 degrees on VLC 3.0, Android Galaxy S8

Audio and Video Decoders

VLC, by default, employs mechanisms for hardware video decoding and display on all supported platforms.

• New VA-API decoding and rendering engine for Linux. By default, Linux and * BSD systems use OpenGL instead of Xvideo for video output.
• Hardware direct mapping of VA-API , VDPAU , DxVA2/D3D9Ex , Video Toolbox (iOS / macOS) on OpenGL .
• New video decoders OggSpots , experimental AV1 and Daala , decoders TDSC , Canopus HQX , Cineform , SpeedHQ , Pixlet , QDMC and FMVC .
• New audio decoder MPEG-1 & 2 (I, II, III) + MPEG 2.5 based on libmpg123 .
• Fixed a tool for forming packages HEVC , H264 learned how to create time stamps. DTS supports extensions of the same name, such as, for example, DTS-HD . Single decoders with avcodec class can support up to 8 audio channels.
• Added libbpg image decoder based on libbpg .
• JPEG images define the correct orientation using the corresponding embedded tag.
• Supports overlapping and BluRay disc menus in the Java programming language.
• Support BluRay subtitle, aka HDMV .

Output audio, video and filters

• Line-scan elimination, color and sharpness adjustment, posterization with D3D9 , D3D11 , CorelImage and VA-AVPI .
• New video filter to convert fps frame rate to video.
• The SoX library used to restore the sampled signal acquired a sound module.
• The Ambisonics spatial audio processor and the Binauralizer audio filter included in the Spatialaudio module. Binauralizer works in tandem with Ambisonics in the 5.1 / 7.1 stream.
• Added zlib sweep filter, ADF stream filter.
• The actions of changing positions in the stream are accelerated.
• Added module timbre sound change.
• For the Android platform, it supports picture-in-picture technology.
• Added sound module for Samsung Tizen open mobile OS.
• PulseAudio supports audio forwarding in EAC3 and TRUEHD .
• Added the ability to forward audio in HDMI/SPDIF format for WASAPI (AC3/DTS/DTSHD/EAC3/TRUEHD) .

Containers

• Supports HD-DVD , .evo format ( H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, PCM, AC-3, E-AC3, MLP, DTS ).
• The code for demultiplexers was rewritten, improvements were made to the formats: MP4 , TS , PS , MKV .
• The isofLaC sound format is isofLaC , the search in fLaC files is fLaC .

And other comrades

• Supports open video compression standards VP8 and VP9 .
• Discover NetBios network resources using libdsm .
• Subtitle dubbing modules for macOS / iOS and Windows.
• Support systemd log.

A complete list of changes can be found at the link indicated at the end.

VLC 3.0.1

The latest minor version update also has some useful changes.

• Faster search in the mkv container file.
• macOS: SMB file access.
• macOS: 10-bit HEVC performance improved with VideoToolbox decoder.
• A number of fixes for Direct3d11 .

Where to get?

According to Repology VLC 3.0, it is available to users of Debian, Gentoo, Devuan, KaOS in the unstable branches of the corresponding distributions. Another innovation related to the release should also be noted - a self-sufficient Snap package was prepared .

Used materials

1. VLC 3.0 Vetinari
2. Release of VLC 3.0.0 media player
3. Changelog
4. VLC 3.0 "Vetinari" Officially Released as the Biggest Update Ever, Here's What's New