It Looks Like VLC 3.0 Will Finally Be Released Soon
Thanks to Phoronix reader Fran for pointing out that VLC 3.0 release candidates have begun to not much attention. VLC 3.0 RC1 was tagged at the end of November and then on Tuesday marked VLC 3.0 RC2 being tagged, but without any official release announcements.
The VLC 3.0 release candidates are beginning to appear via Snaps, their nightlies source area has the very latest RC2 builds, and VLC 3.0 RCs are even now available already via Debian experimental.
But still information regarding these VLC 3.0 RCs are very light. The project's release tracker shows 168 issues closed and about 28 bugs currently blocking the v3.0.0 release of various crashes/regressions.
Among the changes to find with VLC 3.0 are:
- Zero-copy GStreamer video decoding and other zero-copy GPU improvements.
- HTTP/2 support.
- Improved UPnP support.
- Adaptive streaming support.
- Early work on Wayland support with the basics covered but it looks like more improved support will be in VLC 4.0.
- Optional systemd support.
- Support for network browsing with Samba, FTP/SFTP, NFS, and other protocols.
- There is also support for HDMI passthrough for audio HD codecs.
- Support for output renderers including Google Chromecast.
- Initial support for 360 video/audio.
- Better VA-API support including 10-bit handing, HEVC, and direct rendering support.
- A variety of new decoders and demuxers.
- Linux/BSD builds now use OpenGL video output by default rather than XVideo.
- VLC also now supports direct rendering with OpenGL using GL 4.4.
- A lot of VLC Android code has been reworked.
Overall, VLC 3.0 has shaped up to be a massive update to this open-source media player comprised of thousands of commits. There is no official communication yet on when the official release is taking place, but given the speed of these quiet RC releases, hopefully we are just weeks away from its debut.
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