VLC for Mac gets 4K support, dozens of new features including G2M4 playback
The VideoLan Organization has released a major update to the VLC media player for OS X and Windows. VLC 2.1 adds a number of significant updates to the popular open-source media player. For starters, VLC now supports "Ultra HD video," otherwise known as 4K. That means VLC is now capable of outputting video at more than twice the resolution of Blu-ray. This, of course, requires that you have source video files of 4K quality.
In addition to 4K support, VLC 2.1 now also offers OpenGL ES, which will make outputting video to iOS and Android devices much easier. The update has also added support for more than a dozen other video codecs. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. VLC 2.1 offers dozens more new features in all areas including audio, formats, inputs, mobile and for developers. On top of all the new features, more than 1,000 bugs were also fixed.
For one group of Mac users, the new VLC offers a potential solution to a longstanding pain point. Citrix's GoToMeeting web conferencing platform does a nice job of recording presentations for later review, but recordings made with the default settings in the company's Windows client use a proprietary codec (G2M4) to save space and bandwidth. With no way to play these encoded videos on a Mac, G2M users have resorted to elaborate re-encoding schemes to render the files accessible. There's now light at the end of the G2M4 tunnel; VLC 2.1 lists compatibility with the codec among its new features, so Mac users should be able to play the encoded files without a problem.
VLC 2.1 is a free download.
