Yet another blog for JBKempf - Tag - Windows 7

VLC 1.0.3 is out!

JBK — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:40:00 +0100

Again? A release? Why ?

Instead of enumerating the features that VLC 1.0.3 brings you, let’s talk about why we had to do yet another release.

Speeding the development

With the 1.0.x branch, we decided that we would speed up the release cycle for minor versions, for a few reasons:

we didn’t want major bugs to stay around for too long,
we find it easier to track regressions,
we can fix crashes and potential security issues in a better timely fashion.

That doesn’t mean we were careless about the quality of older releases, it means that now we care MORE about user feedback and quality. This is unlikely to change…

Therefore, since 1.0.0 has been out, we have had:

1.0.1, 3 weeks after 1.0.0.
1.0.2, 8 weeks after 1.0.1.
1.0.3, 1 month after 1.0.2.

1.0.3 is important for Windows users

On Windows, VLC up to 1.0.2 used a way to scale the video that seems to be unsupported by the lastest drivers for Windows 7 (and now affects some Vista drivers too, because they backported the improvements…) and therefore the quality of the video was very bad and pixelated. VLC 1.0.3 fixes that.

Moreover, since VLC has now earned the logo for Windows 7 compatibility, we had to fix this huge bug. :D

I hope you understand our point and have fun with it.

VLC and Windows 7 Logo

JBK — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:07:00 +0200

Compatible with Windows 7

The new operating system from Microsoft Windows 7 will be out this month.

As every time with Windows, there is a new Logo program for certification. As opposed to Vista, where they were 5 or 6 different logos, there is just one logo for everyone.

VLC 1.0.2 has been tested against the testing suite and was considered as "Compatible with Windows 7". This just mean that VLC conforms to the specifications and tests from Microsoft. It is supposed to check for common issues to minimize the number of crashes, hangs, and reboots and is compliant with Windows 7 64-bit.
VLC also install and uninstall in the correct way on Windows 7.

Of course, this should be transparent for all users, but it will matter for people upgrading older install of Windows to Windows 7. This also shows the quality that can be managed in open source community.

Works with Windows Vista

At the same time, VLC also got the "Works with Windows VIsta" Logo. I am not sure it is really of any interest now. :D

VLC issues on Windows 7

However, be careful, VLC still has issues on Windows 7, because of many broken drivers, made by major hardware makers. It can show pixizelated outputs when rescaling. Please change the video output to OpenGL and restart VLC as a work-around.