The next VLC media player release is drawing near (it will be ready when it will be ready), and it comes with a lot of new features and bugfixing:

GPU decoding

One of the coolest new features (do I say that because I worked on it?). We can now decode videos using a graphic card, with DxVA on Windows Vista and 7, and VAAPI on Linux. If you want to test, we are looking for a little help.

Media library

That is a feature a lot of you are waiting for. We will now store a list of all your files in a database using Sqlite.

Windows 7 integration

Some of you already know that VLC media player 1.0.3 is compatible with Windows 7. We didn’t stop there. The next release will bring you cool taskbar buttons à la WMP, jump lists, thumbnails, etc.

Interface rework

I like the grey VLC. Maybe I have forgotten what the word “ergonomic” means. But some of the developers have not, and they’re doing an amazing work with the Qt interface, to change the layout, add nice effects and make it a lot prettier.

Lua extensions

People who read my previous blog know that I love tweaking VLC with Lua scripts. One developer had a nice project for this year’s Google Summer of Code: adding a way for lua scripts to change the interface. Now, lua scripts can add menus, open windows, etc. OK, it doesn’t sound cool at first, but what you will see thanks to this code is really nice: automatically downloading lyrics and subtitles, finding data on IMDb, doing a Google search, whatever you want! Isn’t that cool?

Still not convinced?

These were the features I’m excited to see in the next release. But that’s not all:

• N900 port
• Milkdrop visualizations using projectM
• WPL and ZPL playlist support
• desktop mode for Direct 3D video output (you know, the trick to show the video as a wallpaper…)
• …