Overview
VLC Media Player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, OGG, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
Note: While the software is classified as free, it is actually donationware. Please consider making a donation to help support development.
What's new in VLC Media Player
- Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.
Note: Starting with VLC 3.0.5, VLC is distributed with runtime hardening enabled on macOS Mojave. All external VLC plugins need to be signed by a DeveloperID certificate in order to continue working with the official VLC package.
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VLC Media Player Screenshots
- Intel 64
- Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later
Downloaded & Installed 3,940,271 times
1126 VLC Media Player Reviews
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You and @meco-jon51 may want to try the 10.14.6 supplemental update that just came out in early August, if you haven't already. Off chance there is a new driver in that update.
There are so many other quirky things broken in 10.14.6, really wished I had stayed on 10.14.5 myself; been contemplating restoring from my clone....
So far, there are no exploits in-the-wild. But keep an eye out for a VLC update past v3.0.7.1.
ARTICLE:
VLC Media Player Plagued By Unpatched Critical RCE Flaw
https://threatpost.com/vlc-media-player-plagued-by-unpatched-critical-rce-flaw/146611/
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Access:
* Update libbluray to 1.1.2
macOS:
* Fix bluray java menu playback regression in 3.0.7
Video Output:
* Fix hardware acceleration with some AMD drivers
* Improve direct3d11 HDR support
Even worse: my live TV streams are now out of sync.
Back to 2.2.8 once again.
This is a deal breaker for me, as I use this feature constantly to review short, specific clips over and over. I'm a little hard of hearing, so when I'm watching a video, often I miss something or can't make it out unless I hear it repeated a few times, so this feature to be able to quickly scroll back in very short increments is useful. Yes, I know you can click on the timeline bar, but the granularity is not as fine as using the scroll feature. For a 2 hour movie, clicking even the slightest amount on either side of the current time marker still results in a jump of several minutes or more, instead of seconds. This is on a Mac mini 2018 with the i7 upgrade, so I know it is not due (or shouldn't be) to CPU or video lag. it has been reported (actually had already reported it when 3.0.0 came out)
Well, in the end, v3 does not bring amazing improvements, so better stick with the old one. ;-)
As VLC3 is getting better, I've filed my issue about .ts audio being out of sync: https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=147595
We can't expect using great freeware such as VLC without spending some of our time reporting bugs. ;-)
I suppose that when they have enough reports about a specific issue they focus on it...
This is the only issue I've found, but it's a fundamental one for my use case, so I keep relying on v2.2.8 until it's fixed.
So I take back what I said about reporting issues to the forum, it's blatantly useless. :-(
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Access:
* Update libbluray to 1.1.2
macOS:
* Fix bluray java menu playback regression in 3.0.7
Video Output:
* Fix hardware acceleration with some AMD drivers
* Improve direct3d11 HDR support
So trying it is useless...
Just after writing my review, new trial with multilingual .ts: audio gets out of sync when I switch to a different language!
C'mon, VLC devs, do something good! Grrrrrrr! :-p
P.S.: I've checked this many times, in a clean account too, with .ts files. If you don't use .ts files, you might not meet this issue...
So just bought a MacMini 2018, with the i7, hex core, 12 thread upgrade and 32GB ram. Will give VLC 3.0.5 a spin this weekend, although since having installed Plex server and loaded my video library into that, I find I hardly use VLC anymore for entertainment viewing; but basically just to do quick views of short clips or to check the quality of a rip, or videos that I may not want to add to my plex video library permanently just yet until I decide whether to keep it.
until an explanation is posted .....
I've recently seen the same case with another app (Waterfox, if I remember well): I suppose some devs warn MU even before they update their own site! :-o
As it is a function I'm using a lot while playing movies on my 16:10 display, I've reverted once again to v2.2.8, hoping for the best in the next 3.0.3 update. ;-)
Thanks for any help.
You'll probably want to click on the Support link, bottom right on this page. ;-)
As a result, I'm still using 2.2.8.
As far as Serious Media playback, I use inFuse Pro on my Apple TV's because that's where my 5.1 speakers are.
Head over to VideoLAN and review the bug list for 3.0 so far, you read some of them, and you say 'Really?..How did that not get caught in testing?" Don't get me wrong, I'm a VLC supporter (I have donated) and advocate, but boy, this 3.0 release has been / is really sloppy.
First, loses its file association to play MKV files, at least for me. Previously with 2.2.8, MKV files were set to open with VLC by default. After installing 3.0, that association broke, In Finder, double clicking on an MKV will not launch VLC. Right click on MKV file in Finder and select Open and Open With.. no longer show VLC as an app that can open MKV. Tried to reset file association using the two usual methods 1) In Finder, Open With then 'Other..', but in the Finder dialog window, VLC is greyed out as an app that can handle MKV, so you can't select it. 2) Tried 'Get Info' on a MKV file, select Open With, VLC gone from list of apps, then try Other... same thing, VLC is greyed out in the Finder dialog. Appears VLC is not registering itself with macOS as an app capable of handling MKV. I reported this to VideoLAN.
Second, when set to resume playing at previous time mark of a video when you last stopped viewing it, appears broke. It always jumps to the time mark saved when the video was last play in VLC 2.2.8. For example, let's saly you view a video in 2.2.8, and stop watching at the 20 min mark. If you reopen in 2.2.8 it will resume playback at 20 min mark. Open the video in VLC 3.0, jump to a different time mark in the clip, like the 40 min mark, stop. Reopen, VLC 3. 0 should resume at the 40 min time mark, but instead resumes at the 20 min time mark of when it was last opened in 2.2.8. Apparently when quiting, it is not refreshing the time mark of where you are at the video in the metadata it stores for each clip. So when you restart, it reloads the same time info from metadata that was never updated. Reported this one as well.
You know the old saying, be wary of .0 (dot zero) releases.
About the second issue, have you tried trashing the old prefs? It used to fix issues in former versions — but I know how boring it is to reenter your prefs... I haven't done it but might do.
(the issue seemed to get fixed after reselecting "always" in the prefs but it doesn't seem to fix it on every file/format...)
I first tried in a clean user account with .avi, .mkv, .mp4 and .ts — all with subtitles (.ts with embedded ones): all is working as intended!
Turning into my main account — with prefs from v2.2.8 — I had issues with subtitles but resetting the prefs fixed everything, you just have to remember the important settings you used before and reset them (doing it with no video loaded is mandatory, otherwise they won't stick).
What I did is paused VLC, switch to Firefox, play a few Youtube videos, switch back, and e movie picked up where I left off, with no audio or video stuttering or skipping. I did this a couple times, even put VLC into fullscreen after resuming, without any issues. Maybe the issue is related to the specific media type, or setup being used here.
I take all my discs, and have put them into Plex media server as MKVs.
got this issue in 2 computers. iMac late 2013, 32 ram HighSierra and mac mini 2009, 8 ram with ElCapitan
all previous versions vlc work ok, so back to 2.2.8
Be careful how you use this site.
http://www.videolan.org/developers/vlc-branch/NEWS
Another of our editors updated the listing to version 2.2.7 yesterday afternoon (29 November), and I updated the listing to 2.2.8 today on the strength of its availability. As I said, however, I might have posted this too soon. In fact, both might have been posted too soon. Regardless of timing, no malware has been "injected," with downloads coming directly from the developers' site.
If you want to drop back to version 2.2.7, you can do so with the following URL:
https://mirror.wdc1.us.leaseweb.net/videolan/vlc/2.2.7/macosx/vlc-2.2.7.dmg
Version 2.2.6 can be had from the following URL:
https://mirror.wdc1.us.leaseweb.net/videolan/vlc/2.2.6/macosx/vlc-2.2.6.dmg
You can check the videolan mirrors .. not sure why they haven't updated the website for 2.2.7 and 2.2.8 :D
Their mirrors have the version, not updated anywhere else .. dunno why
https://twitter.com/videolan/status/839898786642165760
I let them know, and reverted to the previous version (2.2.4). However, there's apparently a security vulnerability in 2.2.4 -- something related to subtitle files, I think. (I didn't even know there was such a thing.) For now I'll just be careful not to do anything in VLC but play local video files.
Amazing universal player for pretty much any type of media file there is.
VLC remains the most useful non-problematic media player on the OS X platform and others — I also use it in Ubuntu — and most of the problems are of a nuisance character rather than show stoppers.
Of the new and old features of late that I REALLY appreciate is
- Plays back 1080p+ material without skipping also on older hardware
- Supports hardware acceleration
- Can play back from optical drives OS X deems as invalid
- Always connects the proper naming of subtitles to the correct language and puts it in a menu
- simple to choose alternative audio devices
- The Media library function
- Supports X265 very well
- Remembers playback position
- Plays back partial files
- Plays back DVD titles fully without issues
- Supports many odd formats
- Easy to place full screen on secondary display
- Works well on Ubuntu and Windows as well as other platforms.
I'd love if video and audio extraction could work better. I haven't tried the network stream functions yet but it's great they are there.
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If you work in tech long enough, you learn customer feedback is a two edge sword; for every customer who swears feature X is critical and needs to be a part of Os X, you can find two more who swear adding it would contribute to making OS X bloated and put third party apps out of business. For the most part, users are selfish and don' see the big picture. If it's a feature they want, a user will complain why it isn't in the OS, if it's a feature they don't use or care about, and it gets added to the OS, then they complain about why the OS is so bloated and slow, because Apple adds stuff YOU don't care about (but someone else does). It's a no win if you get too hung up on customer 'feedback' too much; the best approach has always been to build a good solid foundation for your OS, provide a rich environment and tools, and let the after market fill in the rest. iOS is a great example.
A health operating system requires a healthy developer community and third party apps. There are literally tens of thousands of Mac apps; you could probably find a group of users to swear that at least several hundred of those apps have features or functions that "should be a part of OS X, if only Apple would just listen". If Apple builds into OS X every feature some user feels should be a part of the OS (often because they don't want to spend $$ on a third party app), then that would put a whole lot of developers and companies out of business, and stifle third party development and innovation. And the very same customer base that at first was complaining Apple was too stupid to incorporate x and y, would then be shouting that Apple was being monopolistic, the 800 lb gorilla, forcing the small guys out of business and stiffling competition and innovation. Back in the day Apple included a backup program in OS X called naturally "Back up"; at the time there weren't many good third party options for backup, even BASIC backkup functions.
Naturally, people that didn't want to spend money to buy a third party backup solution with more features, complained about why Apple couldn't build a better Backup. At the same, you started seeing programs like ChronoSync and Carbon copy Cloner come out and get better and improve, and now there are many options and price points to pick from, and viola, Apple stops including Backup and redirects those internal resources to do other, more useful work.
If I am a Mac developer, and thought Apple will simply steal and incorporate every great app idea and function, my incentive to build anything great is greatly diminished. One of the great beauties of Mac OS X has always been that it is a great foundation for other people to come in and build fantastic third party apps.
SAdly, the history of media players for OS X has been pretty dismal. I believe in the free market, and if someone out there thought they could make a business developing and selling a media player, it would have been done by now. People say all the time that they would "pay for an app that did xyz", but in reality, I see that for most people, if there is a free option available, like VLC or Quicktime for example that is 'good enough', even if there were an outstanding media player app available TODAY, but was say $20 or higher, I honestly don't think enough people would buy it to make the company successful, and that is why, IMO, we HAVEN'T seen a killer media app hit the market yet.
- Plays back 1080p on quite old hardware (2009) without dropped frames
- has Stellar audio sync usually (except on some RM-videos
- has Great subtitle support
- Plays back DVDs and VIDEO_TS folders properly (hush)
- Remembers playback position, which is great for stuff like tutorials
- is Very stable
- is Controllable from iPhone (releases at least)
- plays back audio formats iTunes doesn't understand
Impossible to be without. Thank you team!