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VideoLAN's VLC media player, arguably the world's best media player, hit version 0.9.9 in early April. Three months and more than 78 million downloads later, VideoLAN has announced VLC 1.0.0, or "Goldeneye."

Your media will never be the same.

In fact, with VideoLAN's VLC media player for Windows, Mac, and Linux, it doesn't have to be. One of the amazing things about VLC is that it can play anything that you've ever even thought about playing. That random media format that one site in Ecuador requires--VLC likely plays it, while Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, etc. likely will not.

This is, in part, a natural result of VLC's open-source heritage. Licensed under the GNU General Public License, VLC attracts a diverse array of developers with disparate media interests. Those interests translate into a media player that really can play every obscure media format I've ever thrown at it. (And in my hunger for Arsenal videos, I've found many different video formats that Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, etc. didn't know what to do with.)

Here are a few of the features now available in VLC 1.0.0:

• Live recording
• Instant pausing and frame-by-frame support
• Finer speed controls
• New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, ...)
• New formats (Raw Dirac, M2TS, ...) and major improvements in many formats
• New Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
• Video scaling in full screen
• RTSP Trickplay support
• Zipped file playback
• Customizable toolbars
• Easier encoding GUI in Qt interface
• Better integration in Gtk environments
• MTP devices on Linux
• AirTunes streaming

I regularly use VLC to transcode media files, including files I originally streamed from the Web:

VLC can transcode virtually any media file.

(Credit: Matt Asay)

If you don't have VLC, I encourage you to download it and give it a try. It really is an amazing media player, one that has far more tricks up its sleeve than the proprietary media player that came with your computer.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

TuneWiki is one of the most ambitious social music projects we've seen. It is part licensed lyrics spooler for your own songs and for streaming YouTube videos, and part network--you can see where else in the world other TuneWiki users are playing your track. What began as an Android app created for Google's Android Developer Challenge (and finished as one of 10 winners) grew into a Web site and is, as of Monday, a Windows Media Player plug-in.

TuneWiki for Windows Media Player has a few flubs and flaws, but on average, the lyrics and music maps add the utility and interest to make the free application a helpful addition to Windows Media Player.

Those familiar with TuneWiki's Web site will see the similarities right away. TuneWiki's interface reskins Windows Media Player's 'Now Playing' window. The top half of the screen displays either a music map of where else in the world songs are playing, a YouTube video, album art, or top songs nearby, depending on if you're playing a song from your library, watching a YouTube video through TuneWiki, or browsing the map.

The bottom half of the screen, below the ad space, is where you'll see the available lyrics stream, plus commands to translate into other languages, help TuneWiki resync the song, and expose the scroll bar for manual lyrics perusal.

The unskinned Windows Media Player playlist forms the right side bar unless you banish it. We suggest you don't--you may have a harder time queuing songs if you do.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

TuneWiki has its share of rough edges. Some tools aren't immediately intuitive, like the resyncing button. Instead of clicking it to have the song resync itself, you click it, then click each line of the song as it plays to help TuneWiki time the lyrics more accurately. Unless you're an approved editor, your version of the time-synced lyrics will be stored locally, but may not make it into TuneWiki's larger database.

Also not obvious is the fact that only approved editors can edit existing lyrics. A text notice on the editor-only area would wipe away potential confusion and frustration. Anyone, however, can add lyrics to TuneWiki's wiki if there aren't any to begin with. (You can apply to be an editor at forums.tunewiki.com. TuneWiki currently tallies abut 1,500 editors.)

Some other issues we encountered were performance-based or preference-related. We'd like the size of the YouTube video to be adjustable, for instance. If the YouTube video stops, as it did once during testing, we want to refresh it without closing and reopening the app. When searching for songs, we'd like a more elegant display of the artist and album information returned in the results. TuneWiki's plug-in is good enough to use on its own, but in a few iterations from now, after a scrub-up, it should be even more promising.

If you've ever struggled to play a file you downloaded from the hinterlands of the Web, you clearly didn't try opening it with VideoLan's VLC media player, a free, hugely popular, and open-source media player. VLC can open anything.

VideoLan released on Thursday version 0.9.9, a bug fix release that corrects a few issues with the previous version.

The best media player just got better and is rapidly approaching 1.0 status.

Version 0.9.9 adds the following improvements to the feature-packed VLC player:

• Fullscreen behavior on Windows with multiple screens.
• Workaround bug with libxml2 >=2.7.3.
• Video performance on Intel-based Macs.
• Various decoders updates on Windows.

An experimental native decoder for Real Video 3.0 & 4.0 using FFmpeg has been added and many fixes happened in our Real Media demuxer. This should improve Real Media Files support on all platforms.

VideoLan's logo

(Credit: VideoLan)

If you're an existing VLC user, you might opt to skip this release if you haven't noticed the problems above. But on my Mac, I did notice an improvement in video performance, to the point that in my non-scientific test, the VLC felt like it performed slightly better than Apple's QuickTime and certainly plays a much wider range of video formats. That update alone made the download worth it.

If you've yet to try VLC, do so. Whether you just want to play media files or also want to convert them, VLC can handle just about anything you throw at it. When all other media players fail, whether on Windows, Linux, or the Mac, VLC will almost always deliver.

You can download VLC media player 0.9.9 from Download.com for Windows and Mac. It's open source, but that's not why you'll want to keep using it. You'll use it because it's better than its proprietary peers--by a long stretch.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

(Credit: RIM)

Not everyone uses iTunes' MP3 library. Really. BlackBerry maker RIM has acknowledged the batch of people who use Windows Media Player to organize their music with Wednesday's release of RIM's updated music-syncing application, BlackBerry Media Sync 2.0. The latest version of BlackBerry Media Sync will let you synchronize songs and playlists from the Windows Media Player's library to your BlackBerry, in addition to syncing music from iTunes. You'll be able to download BlackBerry Media Sync 2.0 to your PC for free from RIM's site when the software becomes available today (there's a preview version available for Macs). If you've already got a previous version installed on your BlackBerry, you'll automatically be notified about the upgrade.

Unless we hear otherwise, we assume that version 2.0 of BlackBerry Media Sync will retain the same requirements as the previous version--version 4.2 and higher of RIM's operating system and mass storage capability. We also expect it to remain compatible with the BlackBerry Storm, Bold, Pearl Flip, Pearl, Curve 8900, Curve 8300, and BlackBerry 8800 Series smartphones.

Like what you see? Review BlackBerry Media Sync 2.0.

The Filter is a multijukebox plug-in for Windows and Mac that uses artificial intelligence and the All Music Guide database to create custom iTunes, Winamp, and Windows Media Player playlists based on a variety of user inputs, such as a few songs of your choice, specific artists, or music genres. It also works for video, including movies, TV shows, and Web-only videos.

Upon start-up, The Filter scans your entire music library, which takes considerable time if you have more than 10,000 tracks. It compares the metadata for those files against the All Media Guide database, as well as your own playing history to compose new playlists based around various parameters. A lot of its success will depend on your library, of course, and how well your tracks are tagged. You'll need a username and password to access The Filter service, and, in fact, you can't finish the registration process without rating at least three musicians and three movies.

The interface has been improved so it's no longer buggy, although there is a bit of a delay--one or two seconds--while it coughs up a new playlist. Its icon lives on the Quick Launch bar. Right-clicking accesses a context menu, and from there users can jump to Preferences, thefilter.com, or change the default playlist generation from being based on the song to the genre. Double-click on the icon and it automatically generates a playlist, as long as a track is currently playing. Playlists are generated from Bayesian mathematics algorithms and evidence models, and you can configure how much your playlists are influenced by album sales.

The Filter offers a strong alternative to iTunes' Genius playlist, as well as giving recommended playlists to jukeboxes that otherwise would have none.

We last took a look at the iTunes plug-in The Filter way back in 2006, so it's high time to see what this alternative to the Genius playlist is up to. Of course, when it first came out there was no Genius playlist, nor a Mac version--now that there's both, does it hold up?

Certainly the most obvious benefit is that although you do need to register to use the playlist, you don't need to hand over your credit card number to this Peter Gabriel-supported plug-in. These days many people probably don't care, but to me this is a strong vote in The Filter's favor.

Paranoia aside, The Filter seems to have made some serious, quality improvements. It still uses Bayesian mathematics algorithms and evidence models to make its suggestions, and it still takes what feels like forever and a day to scan large collections. That's not an improvement, of course, but it no longer lives on top of all other windows, either.

Instead, its icon lives on the Quick Launch bar. Right-clicking accesses a context menu, and from there users can jump to Preferences, thefilter.com, or change the default playlist generation from being based on the song to the genre. Double-click on the icon and it automatically generates a playlist, as long as a track is currently playing. Aside from scanning your collection I found The Filter to be reasonably responsive, if not zippy.

The Taste Profiler is a mandatory aspect of using The Filter. Before it can recommend playlists, and before you even finish installing it, The Filter requires that you rate at least three musicians and movies. In addition to music and movies, you can also rate TV shows and Web-only video.

The overall experience is slower than using Apple's Genius playlist, probably in no small part because it's a plug-in. However, The Filter now works with Windows Media Player and Winamp, although not MediaMonkey, on the PC, so non-iTunes lovers will probably be willing to suffer through the one- or two-second delay in getting their playlist kicked back to them. Rolling in all kinds of videos make this even more useful to today's mediascape.

On Monday Boxee, the Mac, Linux, and Apple TV-only Xbox Media Center derivative, announced the immediate support of video programming from Hulu and CBS. Users are now able to access the entirety both services catalogs of movies and TV shows through Boxee's interface. I spent the greater part of last night giving it a spin and while not perfect, it's off to a tremendous start.

Unlike some of the streaming solutions I've seen on other platforms, like the unofficial Netflix Watch Instantly for Windows Media Center plug-in, the beauty of Boxee's solution is that any semblance of a browser (the platform that these video viewers were designed for) is nonexistent. The Hulu player is the same as you get through your browser, but it's been modified to run without some of the border options like the "dim lights" and full screen toggles which, when using Boxee's system, become irrelevant. Likewise, the CBS player has had its user comments and rating system removed in favor for Boxee's own community tools.

The removal of both players' UIs in place of Boxee's presents some problems. With both the Hulu and CBS video player you're able to jump around to different parts of a show. In Hulu's current iteration this isn't possible. What's worse is that the player controls are still present, but you're not able to click on them since the Boxee UI pops up to block them with any user movement. This isn't a deal breaker with short 20 minute programs, but on longer, hour-long shows it's a pain.

Catch on old episodes of Alf on Hulu, now on Boxee--along with CBS programming.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

I still think one of Boxee's greater draws is not as a video player as much as being a highly capable Internet radio jukebox for multiple platforms. You're able to tap into Last.fm, the BBC, Jamendo, and standards like Shoutcast. Managing any of these services is just as easy with a remote control as it is with a keyboard. Considering most game consoles and set top cable boxes can't do this, there's some serious potential for bringing these services into your living room, where before it was only possible with a home theater PC.

Boxee remains in private beta, although is on track for a public release at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Note: CBS is the parent company of Webware's publisher CNET News and owner of the Last.fm social music service.

Browse through full episodes or clips from CBS' catalog.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Along with VLC and the KMPlayer, GOM Media Player's support for a wide range of file formats has helped it stand out as a firm favorite. A pop-out playlist can save and organize your various media files, though the limited sort modes--two--hardly makes it a champ.

More impressive are the customizable settings on the control panel. Here you can adjust a video's image brightness, hue, and saturation. There's no preview window, and changes occur as the video runs, so unless you care for a rousing session of trial and error, be sure to tweak the settings after clicking "play." There's also a built-in screen-capture feature that includes zooming and panning, customizable themes, hot keys, a host of preset and adjustable audio controls, and the patented ability to play broken AVI files.

GOM is weakest when you're looking for help documentation and trying to tweak Save settings, but overall it's a strong player worth at least a supporting role in your video-watching habits, if not top billing.