Open source media player embraces HD
The VideoLAN project is shipping version 1.1 of its open source VLC media player, adding hardware acceleration, WebM support, and faster HD decoding, but deleting Shoutcast support. Meanwhile, several industry reports suggest possible reasons for Adobe's temporary suspension of its beta 64-bit Linux version of Flash.
Available for Linux, Mac, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 computers, the new version of the open source VLC media player is most notable for offering hardware accelerated GPU (graphics processing unit) decoding on all but the Mac platform.
For GPU decoding, VideoLAN is recommending Nvidia GPUs for Windows users, "until ATI drivers are working with VLC architecture, and until the VLC developers get access to some Intel hardware supporting GPU decoding," says the VideoLAN project. No recommendations are made for Linux users.
