VLC è un player multimediale che supporta svariati formati audio e video (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg...), così come DVD, VCD, e molti protocolli streaming. Può anche essere utilizzato come server per fare streaming in unicast o multicast, sia in IPv4 che in IPv6, ed include tutti i codec necessari per eseguire i formati supportati.

Le novità di VLC 0.8.6e (come da file news.txt):

• Various bugfixes:
  • Resume playback for viewing content over FTP
  • Fixed XShm detection with remote X11

• Security updates:
  • Subtitle demuxers overflow (CVE-2007-6681)
  • HTTP listener format string injection (CVE-2007-6682)
  • Fixed buffer overflow in the SDL_image library (CVE-2006-4484)
  • Real RTSP overflows (CVE-2008-0225, CVE-2008-0295, CVE-2008-0296, VideoLAN-SA-0801)
  • Arbitrary memory overwrite in the MP4 demuxer (CORE-2008-0130, VideoLAN-SA-0802)

• Audio filter:
  • Fixed DTS to S/PDIF converter

• Audio output:
  • Fixed 5.1 audio on ALSA

• Access:
  • Fixed some RTSP hanging and user/password passing through RTSP URLs

• Stream output:
  • Fixed waiting for SPS/PPS problem in H.264 packetizer

• Encoders:
  • Improved compatibility for creating H.264 video files playable on iPhones
  • Improved detection of optimal amount of threads for multi-threaded H.264 encoding on multi-cpu systems
    • Note that this is used when transcode threads is set to 0 (default)
    • Not supported on Windows (multiple threads require manual configuration)

• Mac OS X Interface & Port:
  • Restored compatibility with Mac OS X 10.3.9
  • Corrected behavior of the Preferences panel
  • VLC no longer crashes on quit while playing

• Localization:
  • Updated Romanian and Polish translations