Popular media player VLC has been updated to version 2.0.2 and despite the minor version number increase, the changes should be immediately noticeable. The big news here is addition of support for Retina display so if you have invested in a new MacBook Pro, this is one app that will enable you to take full advantage of the enhanced screen.
Retina display support means that not only can video itself be seen in much better quality, but also that subtitles and any other overlays for a particular file can be displayed at a much higher resolution. This is clearly a release that will be of most interest to OS X users, and in addition to the new display option, a number of known problems have also been addressed. Blu-ray playback has been improved and issues that users had experienced with rotating, cropping and zooming with video have also been fixed.
Additional changes and additions include better support for compressed file formats and H.264 webcam output. Previous versions’ problems with HTTP access through a proxy and issues with certain file types have also been addressed. The on-going development of VLC, particularly for OS X, means that this continues to be one of the most impressive and feature-packed media players available.
Audacity, the free, cross platform audio editing tool has also been released. Again, there is not a very big increase in version numbering, but Audacity 2.0.1 is still worth a look thanks to the number of big fixes that are included, but there are also new effects and features to explore. For Mac users, there is now compatibility with VoiceOver screen reader.
You can find out more and download free copies of the programs by paying a visit to the VLC and Audacity review pages.