14 DAY TRIAL // VideoLAN has released VLC 3.1.0 for iOS and UWP, and both versions include ChromeCast integration just like the feature already available on the desktop and on Android.
Both versions come with hardware encoders, which should ensure that ChromeCast works smoother, as Jean-Baptiste Kempf, president of VideoLAN, explained in a post today.
“Indeed, here, for local streaming, we care more about speed and battery saving than we care about bandwidth efficiency, so hardware encoding is a good fit. On UWP, we're using Quick Sync Video for intel CPUs (that covers almost all CPUs since 3rd core generation),” he adds.
“In fact, VLC has a QSV encoder since 2013, but it's very rarely used, because people usually prefer software encode (x264). Here, we fixed it and modified it to work inside the UWP sandbox.”
UWP improvements
For UWP, the new version comes with several bug fixes and a large rework of the code base, with this release targeting the majority of Microsoft’s modern platforms, including Windows 8.1 RT. This means that the latest version of VLC can be installed on the Surface RT, launched in October 2012 and already discontinued.
As a UWP app, VLC 3.1.0 will run on Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 RT, and Xbox One. Kempf says that a release for Windows Phone 8.1 is even possible, but an issue needs to be fixed first and only then the developing team can think about releasing the new version.
Windows 10 users can already download the new VLC app from the Microsoft Store, while Windows 8.1 systems need to wait a little bit longer until a deployment issue is addressed.
VLC is one of the most popular media players on the market right now, being available on the majority of desktop and mobile platforms, while at the same time offering support for nearly all multimedia formats out there.