VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) 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.

VideoLan Client can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

Here are some key features of "VLC":

Inputs:

· UDP Unicast / Multicast
· RTP Unicast / Multicast
· HTTP
· FTP
· MMS
· File
· DVD
· VCD
· Audio CD
· DVB-S/C/T
· MPEG encoding card
· Video acquisition

Input formats:

· MPEG ES/PS/TS/PVA/mp3
· AVI
· ASF/wmv/wma
· Ogg/OGM/Annodex
· MP4/MOV/3gpp
· Matroska
· Wav
· DTS Wav
· Raw DV
· Raw AAC
· Raw ac3/a52 audio
· Raw DTS audio
· FLAC audio

Video Codecs

· MPEG-1
· MPEG-2
· DivX 1/2/3
· MPEG-4/DivX 5/XviD/3ivX D4
· Sorenson (SVQ 1/3)
· DV
· Cinepak
· Theora (alpha 3)
· H263/H263i
· MJPEG A/B
· WMV 1/2

Subtitles

· SVCD
· CVD
· DVB
· OGM
· Matroska
· MicroDVD
· Vobsub
· SubRIP
· SubViewer (v1 & v2)
· SSA1-4
· SAMI
· Vplayer

Video Filters

· Deinterlace
· Crop
· Image Wall
· Brightness-Saturation-Contrast
· Rotate
· Upside down
· Logo overlay

Video Output

· Native
· GDI
· X11
· Xvideo
· SDL
· Framebuffer
· ASCII art
· colored ASCII art
· MGA
· GGI

Audio Codecs

· MPEG Layer 1 and 2
· MP3
· AC3 (i.e. A52)
· DTS
· LPCM
· AAC
· Vorbis
· WMA 1/2
· ADPCM
· DV Audio
· FLAC
· MACE
· Speex

Audio Output

· Native
· S/PDIF
· multi-channel
· SDL
· ESD
· aRts
· File

Interfaces

· GTK+ (unmaintained)
· Gnome (unmaintained)
· QT (unmaintained)
· KDE (unmaintained)
· WxWidgets
· Skins
· HTTP/Webpage

Service Information

· SAP / SDP
· SLP

Misc

· Command line
· RTSP client
· Remote Control
· Infrared
· Mozilla plugin
· DVD Menus
· Audio Visualization Effects
· Localization
· ID3 tags
· CDDB CD info
· IPv6
· IGMPv3
· CPU acceleration

Open Directory in VLC is just a modified version of the Open in Kaffeine service menu.

I use it to open DVD/VIDEO_TS folders. VLC plays them with menus in tact.

homeTVstream is a collection of shell scripts and a PHP-based webpage for watching TV on your LAN computers.

This project is based on VLC, it encodes and streams video using port 8080 in an MMS stream, so you can watch it with VLC, using URL mmsh://yourserverip:8080/, or any other MMS-capable player, using URL mms://yourserverip:8080/, or just by opening the TV page in your web browser.

X-Chat NewsWindow is a perl script for X-Chat (or X-Chat Aqua) implements one of those annoying announcer scripts that announce your currently playing audio track in iTunes or your current audio or video track in VLC to your IRC channel because you feel for some reason that everyone wants to know.

I basically consider this script to be a better counterattack than just abusing the annoying mIRC users and getting the usual ignorant "pfft. sif mac" response. Since VLCs meta-data support leaves a bit to be desired, it obtains the album name from the containing folders name and the track name from the filename (minus the extension). This works quite well if you have a well labelled music collection. Note: If you use this script, exercise discretion. Not everyone cares what youre listening to.

To use this, you must first turn on logging in VLC. To do this, open VLCs preferences, and under the "Interface > Control Interfaces" preference page, tick the "File Logging" option. Then under the "Interface > Control Interfaces > Logging" page, enter "/tmp/vlc_log.txt" as the log filename. You can choose a different name or location if you wish, but if you do, change the path definition to it in the vlc_announce function below. You may have to choose the "Add Interface > Debug Logging" menu option (under the VLC menu) if VLC hasnt already turned it on via the preferences change.

fbxplay project is script to play or record (multiposte) channels using VLC or mplayer from free.fr adsl users only.

If you have router You must initially redirect ports 31336 & 31337 in UDP towards the IP network of the PC which will use the multipost accessible one since the options from ADSL TV.

(http://www.freenews.fr/index.php?itemid=2920) (WORK ONLY with http://adsl.free.fr users)

Kaffeine is a full featured Multimedia-Player for KDE. By default it uses xine as backend.

Kaffeine is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence.

Here are some key features of "Kaffeine":

· Timeshifting
· Instant record
· Electronic Program Guide
· On screen display

Whats New in This Release:

· DVB: scan: check for CA descriptors in PMT to correct CA flag.
· DVB: add a file size limit option (usefull for some "limited" filesystems)
· xine-part: added "QString screenShot()" dcop call (returns filename)
· DVB: save/load epg data
· DVB: insert PSI tables to make broadcast stream VLC compliant ( vlc requires SDT/PAT/PMTs )
· DVB: reworked dvbevents to speed up eit parsing and fix events duplication.
· dcop: make getTimePos() to return acurrate value.
· DVB: add a "recall" button, that zap to the previous played channel.
· DVB: make channel visible and selected after editing.
· DVB: reset search after zap.
· DVB: use iconv (a lot faster) instead of qtextcodec to convert sections strings
· DVB: improved epg filter.
· DVB: added a search field in channels list
· DVB: added a filter box to epg dialog, patch by Michael Hoertnagl
· DVB: added channels list rmb menu entry to edit channel.

ToxTox is a media browser / WebTV platform. You can watch your favorite (Internet) movies and control them with a remote, or use ToxTox as a platform to develop TV applications and interactive services.

It is based on Mozilla XulRunner and VLC. This project uses open standards like Ogg Vorbis, OPML, RSS, SVG, HTML, etc.

Whats New in This Release:

· This release features RSS support for podcasts with audio or video, OPML support for open and distributed directories, the ability to play local video and audio files, channels, the ability to customize the ToxTox main menu to suit your viewing needs by creating folders and storing content, a screen saver, and support for text input using a numeric key pad.

Java VideoLan Client Binding lets you use the VideoLan multimedia player in any Java software.

Here are some key features of "Java VideoLan Client Bindings":

· displays an original VideoLan Client
· using JVLCCanvas (extends java.awt.Canvas) or JVLCPanel (extends javax.swing.JPanel) is possible to embed VLC output in any application.

Whats New in This Release:

· This release has a cleaner classes layout, and is more intuitive to use.
· Parts of the native interface have been rewritten, some memory leaks corrected.
· Upgrading is recommended.

libdvdplay is a simple library designed for DVD navigation. It depends on libdvdread (which can optionally use libdvdcss).

NOTE: libdvdplay is no longer under active development. VLC has switched to libdvdnav which appears to be more reliable for DVD navigation than libdvdplay. Of course you are still welcome to use, work or submit patches to libdvdplay.

Currently supported platforms are Unix, Windows, BeOS and Mac OS X, but it should work on almost any platform.

Whats New in This Release:

· dvdplay_seek() now also works inside VMGM_DOMAIN and VTSM_DOMAIN.
· a couple of initialisation fixes.

AliXe is a Canadian project known for developing a SLAX-based live CD localised into French, has released a bi-lingual (English and French) edition of their latest version.

Called "ICE Edition", the new live CD includes the IceWM window manager, together with a range of GTK+ applications, such as:

· Bluefish
· Gvim
· Ghex
· Gimp
· Inkscape
· Gtkam
· GQview
· ePDFView
· BMP
· gMplayer
· VLC
· Firefox
· Sylpheed
· Gaim
· BitTorrent
· Gftp
· AbiWord
· Gnumeric
· Galculator
· Gparted
· D4X
· Aumix
· Graveman
· Xarchiver

Full packages list is here.

Its based on SLAX 5.1.8 Popcorn.

Whats New in This Release:

· Based on SLAX 6.0.0 RC6
· Kernel 2.6.21.5 with Xfce 4.4.1
· With the GTK applications
· Bilingual (english and french)

DVD95 is an gnome application to convert DVD9 to DVD5 (4,7GB). It need no additionnals packages, an onboard version of vamps and dvdauthor is used, to be as fast as possible. Interface is pretty simple yo use.

Shrinking factor may be computed for best results, or an adaptive compression ratio method may be used. Dvd can be converted to file tree or iso file. Result can be seen through xine, vlc, or mplayer. Burning is achived by third party software (k3b).

DVD95 support two copy modes :

- Menus less, one vide tiltle set, multiple audios an subtiltles.
- With menus, one vide tiltle set, multiple audios an subtiltles.

Whats New in This Release:

· Added managment of loop devices
· Patch to allow zero sub or zero audio in dvd2vob.c
· Added cs el pt_BR translations
· Corrected cell selection problem (src/dvdcell.c+dvdcopy.c)
· Corrected bug with lpcm tracks in dvdauthor mode
· Added Deutch language ( Thanks to : Stefan Nagy )
· Added ee_ET translation

VLS is a dedicated server that compiles under Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It isnt under very active development at the moment and we advice you to consider the Stream Output functionality of VLC instead.

The network on which you setup the VideoLAN solution can be as small as one ethernet 10/100Mb switch or hub, and as big as the whole Internet! The bandwidth needed is:

* 0.5 to 4 Mbit/s for an MPEG-4 stream,
* 3 to 4 Mbit/s for an MPEG-2 stream read from a satellite card, a digital terrestial television card or an MPEG-2 encoding card,
* 6 to 9 Mbit/s for a DVD.

INPUTS:

File
DVD
DVB-S (Hauppauge Nova-S / Nexus)
DVB-C (Hauppauge DVB-C)
DVB-T (Hauppauge Nova-t)
MPEG encoding card [4]
ASI card (SVN Only)
V4L device (SVN Only)

OUPUT:

UDP Unicast / Multicast
File

CONTROL:

Command line
Telnet

MISC:

IPv6
Send DVD subtitles

Parsix GNU/Linux is a live CD based on Knoppix and Debian Sid . It uses GNOME as its default desktop environment. Parsix GNU/Linux supports Persian keyboard and user can switch to Persian with Alt+Shift keys.

Parsix GNU/Linux can be installed on your harddisk and you can use it as your PCs operating system. We also included xFarDic English-Persian dictionary and Persian free fonts from FPF project.

Whats New in This Release:

· An updated version of Parsix GNU/Linux 0.90, code name Barry, has been released. Barry r1 introduces the projects first ever 64-bit edition, both 32-bit and 64-bit editions have been built from scratch using debootstrap, several fixes have been made, and merged all published updates from Parsix and Debian testing repositories as of Aug 15, 2007. Highlights: GNOME 2.18.3, Linux kernel 2.6.20.1 with CK and Suspend2 patches, read/write mode is the default for NTFS partitions, improved hardware detection system and hard disk installer, VLC replaces Totem.

Bestix is a Linux live CD. Two features distinguish this system from others:

(1) A simple user interface
(2) Outstanding language support

Bestix includes the following popular programs, and not much more:

· OpenOffice.org
· Firefox
· VLC
· Gaim
· Skype
· XChat

The software dialog helps you to download additional software if you need it.

Bestix supports your native language:

· by including all current translations of OpenOffice.org.
· by including a large set of fonts and keyboards.
· with character input methods (scim) for Chinese / Japanese / Korean.
· with a simple menu to help you choose the region/language when you start the CD.

The level of support varies from language to language, ranging from full support (translations of Firefox and OpenOffice.org, perhaps with spell checking) to font and keyboard support, with no translations. To find the status for your language, click here.

CherryTV is a simple TV remote implemented as a Web page.

I have had a Bt878-based TV tuner for quite a while.

I have not made good use of it, though.

While it works great both in Linux and Windows, I have some hardware issues... my only PC that can take a PCI card is my file server. Which is tucked away in a corner, and lacks any kind of monitor (or mouse. or keyboard).

So, watching TV there was not possible. The obvious solution is a streaming video feed that could be accessed everywhere at home using my wireless network.

But... what could I use?

I decided that the simplest streaming server that could be accessed from windows and linux was VLC.

It is a bit tricky to get the right incantation, but here it is:

vlc -v --color v4l:/dev/video --sout
#transcode{vcodec=DIV3,vb=256,scale=1,acodec=mp3,
ab=32,channels=2}:std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=:9998}

Then you can access it from windows using mms://192.168.1.2 and from Linux using mmsh://192.168.1.2 (if anyone knows why I have to use different URLs, Id like to know).

It doesnt work from mplayer, which is my default video app, but well.. it works.
Then there is a snag... how can you change channels? Well, you cant, it seems.
So, I wrote a throwaway CherryPy app in an hour or so, and I called it CherryTV.

How does it work (currently nerds-only)?
· You use xawtv to build a list of your TV stations using the channel editor.
· Copy your .xawtv file as xawtv in CherryTV ́s folder (one example included)
· Have v4lctl handy, and make sure it works like this:
· v4lctl setstation someStationName
· Start CherryTV
· Start vlc streaming as mentioned above (change IP as needed)
· Change stream URLs in cherryTV.py
· Start cherryTV.py
· Point your favourite browser to http://whatever:8080
· Choose whether your embedded video player works or not, and whether you use mms:// or mmsh:// URLs
· Open your external viewer if needed.
· Watch TV and be happy.