VLC for Mac death is “greatly exaggerated” / What is Lunettes?
VLC for Mac is being maintained. However the old Cocoa graphical interface of VLC, is not being maintained at this time.
The reason is that we are in the process of rewriting a new interface for VLC. Its codename is Lunettes.
Why a rewrite? This is something really easy to see. VLC for Mac is just not “Mac” enough.
So far, we could name 3 reasons for that:
VLC for Mac must attract designers.
They can’t easily give a refresh of the graphical interface.
Hence, we have decided to offer to designer the possibility to edit via a simple text file the look of VLC. Even Windows and Fullscreen Head-Up-Display can be changed using CSS.
VLC for Mac’s interface code comes from the 2000s.
We need to refresh it.
We want to use VLCKit which is pure Cocoa, Objective-C 2.0 with bindings supports. This will help us concentrating on features.
As a positive side effects, we’ll not use old non-64 bits compatible APIs.
VLC for Mac need a good interface to be the best Video Player.
• We want to make sure you’ll get the best experience ever when watching your favorites TV shows or Movies using VLC.
• For instance, if I am watching a TV show, and then quit Lunettes. At next launch Lunettes will offer you to go back to where you were.
• Then, we added a better way to visualize the media discovery. This is a seldom known feature of VLC. Now, if you are on a local network that streams TV content (Freebox), Lunettes will automatically show them.
• Then the famous playlist fades out: It is not visible by default, and you don’t have to use it anymore.
• Also in fullscreen you can now scroll through your playlists or TV channels.
• And finally Lunettes is 64 bits.
For now, Lunettes is being hosted at: http://wiki.github.com/pdherbemont/Glasses
That said, Lunettes is still under heavy development. And we hope to be able to release a test version in January.
We still want new developers to help us! Try to build VLC and Lunettes!
[Attribution: OSNews. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Babakool” for the heads up.]
This is great news because VLC *destroys* Quicktime. Pure and simple.
But will it be snappier?
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“…Mr. Molehill? I’m sorry, we were expecting a Mr. Mountain… oh, there never was a Mr. Mountain to begin with? I see, well thanks for clearing that up for us, Mr. Molehill.”
@ macarina
Destroys?
Cough, cough, sure for obscure video formats and odd ball porn but destroying all that QuickTime is?
Do you even understand what QuickTime is?
I’d love QT to open everything, maybe it should also do .docx translations as well.
Get real, VLC is a great, nay, essential tool in the battery of media apps, but to say it destroys QT is more than a little over the top.
@macarina
That is rubbish.
Quicktime powers iMovie, Final Cut and itunes.
I don’t see that happening with VLC any time soon.
The only reason people use VLC is to watch illegal avi downloads
Its Friday…
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“The only reason people use VLC is to watch illegal avi downloads”
And just what is wrong with illegal avi downloads???? LOL
Just a thought.
en
This is a major hole in Apple’s software line up. The new camcorders write in AVCHD format on CF cards, but there is no good way for me to view them right off of the card. VLC plays these, but the performance is horrible even on my i7 iMac.
I know I can import into iMovie and then convert to QuickTime, but this takes a long time.
Apple or someone needs to make an AVCHD player software that can play videos straight from the .MTS files created by most new camcorders.
Why don’t they charge for it?
So what do folks recommend for viewing the inescapable .WMV file?
I use VLC; Flip4Mac sucks, IMO.
Please add to your list of reasons you delete posts the words “snappy” “snap” “snappier” any anything else that passes for a synonym for these terms of silliness. Thank you.
…”Apple or someone needs to make an AVCHD player software that can play videos straight from the .MTS files created by most new camcorders.”
There isn’t such a dedicated player in Windows either. VLC will play it, Media Player will play it, but the playback suffers EXACTLY the same way it suffers in Mac OSX. AVCHD puts heavy demands on the processor in order to properly decode and display 2-megapixles frames every 1/30th of a second. This is a situation where hardware (and OS, to some extent) need to catch up with other technology.
I’ll download the new version, but it’ll have to be pretty good to beat QuickTime+Perian.
——RM
Users will be Lunettics???
I believe Elgato’s Turbo.264 HD handles AVCHD content directly from camcorders in an efficient manner
Lunettes means “glasses” or “spectacles” in french.
Another important thing VLC is good for – taking screenshots from DVDs. I believe this activity falls well within “fair use” guidelines, yet Apple’s DVD player annoyingly prevents you from doing this. Ditto for attempting to take screenshots from movie files in QuickTime Player.
@ “Attn MDN” – Since this only seems to bother you, perhaps you can just not read the comments? Or go visit another site that’s not nearly so snaptastic?
ANYTHING is better than Quicktime. How many more years of gamma errors do we have to put up with when converting a movie?
i agree…anything, ANYTHING is better than Quicktime.
My main complaint with QT is that, several versions ago, it stopped playing those old mpg movies I made in the 90’s. VLC still plays them.
And the new QT player? What a joke. If you think less is more then the new player is for you. When they finally kill off QT Player Pro then what is left? iMovie?
And why do they unnecessarily cripple QT Player Pro anyway? Apple says you can’t edit an mpg file, so that’s why there is no cut/copy/paste, etc when viewing an mpg movie. However, a simple Applescript can tell the player to do all those things, and it does it just fine.
It may help to have a new interface, but it’s already the best player out there.
I totally agree with Macarina, Wingsy and IDArgyll, QT is easily one of the crappiest media players out there. A whole host of players are a thousand times better than QT. Crippled to the point it cant play half of what is out there, VLC is so much better.
Would everyone agree that we want VLC’s ability to play virtually any video codec and format combined with QT’s slick, polished UI?
@Attn MDN…if you do that then you will miss jokes like……
I want turtle soup!
And make it snappy!!!!!!
Great news! VLC will get better. I just received a wmv file and it played perfectly in VLC. I dislike wmv but I dislike being powerless even more. I only wish hardware players were powered by vlc. I’d take three today.