VLC Media Player 2.0.1 improves Mac appeal

One month after open-source media player VLC reached its landmark 2.0 release, the VideoLAN Organization has released VLC 2.0.1 FINAL. The brand new update of this popular cross-platform media player divided opinion, particularly among Mac users, when version 2.0 shipped, and this latest release aims to fix many bugs and annoyances reported over the intervening period.

Version 2.0.1 also tweaks the revamped Mac OS X user interface further, plus adds support for MxPEG files and streams as well as limited support for Blu-ray disc menus. It also improves support for multi-tracked MKV video files and removes version 2.0’s “flawed” auto-detection of ALSA audio channels. There are also a number of security updates.

The most visible changes can be found on the Mac platform. Having already overhauled the user interface for VLC 2.0, version 2.0.1 tweaks things further to provide more customization options for OS X users.

The Qt interface can now be customized to let users replace the blue seek slider with a sleeker, native one. There are also fixes to the playlist, menus, the main toolbar and various dialogs, including add-ons, open, preferences and customization.

In terms of file and disc access, there are a number of major fixes in VLC 2.0.1. CDDB information retrieval has been both fixed and removed for music CDs, and a number of unspecified fixes for both Blu-ray disc playback and HLS support (particularly on the Windows platform) and for encryption. Also fixed is DVD decryption on some RPC-1 drives. Also fixed is UDP/RTP multicast stream reception on OS X Macs using the 10.7 SDK.

Other fixes include support for split RAR archives, tweaks to the web interface – adding support for .3ga and .drc file extensions while also fix mobiles display for remote control mode. In all there are over 120 bug fixes and a number of security updates.

VLC 2.0.1 FINAL is an open-source, free download for Windows, OS X and Linux.