VLC 360: preview of VLC 3.0 with 360 support

Martin Brinkmann
Nov 25, 2016
Music and Video
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12

VLC 360 is a preview version of VLC Media Player, a popular cross-platform media player for Windows, Linux, Mac and mobile devices.

The preview version is labeled as VLC 360 to indicate that the core feature of the preview is 360 video and photo playback.

VLC 360 is provided as a technical preview for Windows and Mac OS X only. The organization plans to release VLC with 360 functionality for all platforms including Android, iOS and Xbox One when it comes out.

VideoLAN plans to make use of sensors on mobile devices for navigation.

VLC 360

VLC 360 is VLC Media Player at its core plus functionality to play 360° videos and photos. You may know this functionality already from YouTube or other Internet video sites where it is provided if videos uploaded to the site support it.

You may download VLC 360 from the project website. Please note that this is a preview and not a final product. If you install it, an installed copy of VLC Media Player may be upgraded to version 3.0.

The project website lists the capabilities of the 360° component:

  1. Play 360° videos that follow the spatial video spec.
  2. Play 360 photos and panoramas that follow the spherical spec.
  3. Supports zoom, little planet and reverse little planet modes.
  4. Mouse and keyboard controls.
  5. Open Source code.
  6. Accelerated with OpenGL and Direct3D11.

The project website links to two 360° videos and one 360° photo that you can download to test the functionality.

You may load any video or photo that follows the supported specs as well.

The new controls enable you to click-drag the mouse to look around in 360° when the video or photo playback starts. You may use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out, or use keyboard shortcuts (Page up or down) for that instead if you prefer to use the keyboard.

All playback controls, pause, stop and volume are provided as well in the toolbar and as shortcuts.

You may use the preview player as a regular video player as well, as it supports all media formats that the current stable version of the player supports.

In other news, VLC will likely support VR headsets -- Vive, Daydread, Oculus or OSVR -- in 2017, and will get support for 3D audio playback including support for head tracking headphones.

You can find out more about VLC 360 on the official VideoLAN website.

Closing Words

VideoLAN preps VLC Media Player for the future. With support for 360° media content, VR headsets, 3D audio playback and more, it is well prepared for the coming year. (via Deskmodder)

Now You: What's your take on 360° technology?

Summary
VLC 360: play 360 videos and photos
Article Name
VLC 360: play 360 videos and photos
Description
VLC 360 is a preview version of VLC Media Player, a popular cross-platform media player for Windows, Linux, Mac and mobile devices.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on August 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm
    Reply

    Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?

  2. Mike J said on August 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
    Reply

    Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.

    1. Martin said on August 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.

      1. Mike J said on August 2, 2010 at 2:30 pm
        Reply

        huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
        Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.

  3. myo said on August 1, 2010 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.

  4. Kishore said on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Reply

    Error:
    Buidling font Cache pop-up

    Solution:

    Open VLC player.

    On Menu Bar:

    Tools
    Preferences

    (at bottom – left side)
    Show settings — ALL

    Open: Video
    Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
    Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”

    Save
    Exit

    Re-open – done.
    Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts

    Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc

    1. Martin said on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm
      Reply

      Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.

  5. javier said on August 14, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    @Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
    I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.

    Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?

    I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…

    /thanks
    /j

  6. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,

  7. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.

    No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure

  8. Ted said on October 22, 2010 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me

  9. Evan said on December 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
    Reply

    I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).

  10. Mike Williams said on September 6, 2023 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?

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