VLC Media Player is an Open Source and fully featured media player.
The 'Preferences' panel is so long that you need quite much time in order to fine tune every setting. I could find there everything I want from a media player.
The interface is not that user friendly because of the great number of options. Only the basic options are available from the main window.
The real power of this player is the fact that it can be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high bandwidth network. You can to stream video files but in order to do this you need a powerful CPU such as the latest Intel Core Duo in order to support the encoding needs of the stream server.
It can play various file formats such as MPEG1, MPEG2 and MPEG4, including the MPEG4 subsets such as DivX, XviD, etc. and audio file formats such as mp3, ogg, etc. I like the fact that it won't rewrite the ID3 tag of the mp3 files in the way
iTunes does. Some people think about this just like me and they won't like to get their files modified by the audio/video player.
The full feature list and the compatibility list among the supported operating systems is quite wide so I suggest you to contact the producer's site in order to check if a feature that you need is on that list. Behind this minimal interface you get an unimaginable player.
Pluses: it is free of charge, it has the support for lots of audio and video types, it can be used as a video stream server or client into a high bandwidth network, it has a very wide 'Preferences' panel featuring everything you would want from a media player. In order to configure it well it won't hurt to read its documentation in order to get maximum from VLC.
Drawbacks / flaws: the interface is a little minimal. I would like to have quick access to more options. The player has some issues with certain file formats, such as
In conclusion: a quite impressive media player. If you aren't looking for an eye candy filled with many buttons interface and you love the functionality, I think you might like this player.
version reviewed: 0.8.6c
VLC Media Player for Mac Publisher's Description
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, etc.) 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.
System Requirements Mac OS X package for 10.3.9 up to 10.4.
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