VLC raises the bar

As far as media players go, VLC was already a notch above the rest, playing videos by default where other players required codecs and what not. VLC is a very stable multimedia player and I always respected it's functionality. In fact, I carry a portable version of VLC in my thumb drive - that's how useful I deem VLC to be and how dependent I am on it. But VLC 0.9.2 was released a while back and I didn't get a change to try it since Ubuntu has not yet updated VLC to the latest version. So I did it myself. What I experienced is beyond every expectation I had. VLC 0.9.2 blew me away.

1.) Subtitles - They used to look so ugly in VLC but now with the latest version, VLC lets you choose which font you want and the size as well, making subtitles more rounded and more pleasing to the eyes.

2.) Full-Screen controls - We use fullscreen mode so we won't need to see any controls but sometimes you want to use the controls and it sucks that you have to exit the fullscreen mode just to use the controls. VLC implemented a fullscreen control menu which auto-hides. Very useful.

3.) Adjust brightness and such - I cannot sleep at night without someone talking, or some distraction. So I watch videos on my laptop till I fall asleep. But at night, when the lights are off, the screen is really bright. VLC now lets you adjust brightness, contrast and colours too. Now, I can enjoy videos through VLC at night.

4.) The Interface - VLC 0.9.2 is MUCH nicer; especially on Ubuntu. The preferences windows is very well modified and it is leaps over the old preferences menu. I wasn't expecting this at all. They literally covered all grounds. The leap from the 0.8~ version to the 0.9 version is HUGE. If you're using the old VLC player, change to the new one and you'll easily be impressed by how far the VLC team have progressed.

5.) Customisations - There's another shortcut icon that lets you makes adjustments and customise effects (like the brightness stuff I said earlier), lets you modify your audio equaliser, adding motion blue and a LOT of other fascinating things.

6.) Encoding errors - You know that sometimes due to encoding problems and such, the audio and video are not synched? VLC lets you adjust the audio delay to match the video and also let's you match the subtitles delay to the video/audio as well. It's truly amazing.


VLC Player has implemented a lot of other new features as well, but these are the ones that just made VLC a permanent multimedia player for me. Install VLC player today from: VLC's Website