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Archives For November 30, 1999

VLC Media Player 2.2.8 Released with Security Fixes (PPA)

Last updated: December 6, 2017

VideoLAN finally announced the release of VLC media player 2.2.8.

VideoLAN and the VLC development team are happy to publish version 2.2.8 of VLC media player today.

This release fixes a security issue in the AVI demuxer. Additionally, it includes the following fixes, which are part of 2.2.7: This release fixes compatibility with macOS High Sierra and fixes SSA subtitles rendering on macOS. This release also fixes a few security issues, in the flac and the libavcodec modules (heap write overflow), in the avi module and a few crashes.

For macOS users, please note: A bug was fixed in VLC 2.2.7 concerning the update mechanism on macOS. In rare circumstances, an auto-update from older versions of VLC to VLC 2.2.8 might not be possible. Please download the update manually from our website in this case.

The source tarball was available more than a week ago. It’s been made into main repository of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

For Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 16.04, I’ve wrote about how to install VLC 2.2.7 via PPA, which now contains VLC 2.2.8.

VLC is also available as Flatpak for Ubuntu 16.04 and higher. Install latest Flatpak via PPA, then open terminal and run command to install VLC via Flatpak:

flatpak install --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.videolan.VLC.flatpakref
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How to Install VLC 2.2.7 (2.2.8) in Ubuntu 16.04, 14.04

Last updated: November 22, 2017

Although they are not officially announced, VLC media player 2.2.7 (and 2.2.8 with single fix) now are available for download. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 14.04, and derivatives.

Changes in VLC 2.2.7 include:

  • Fix flac heap write overflow on format change
  • Fix crash in libavcodec module (heap write out-of band) (CVE-2017-10699)
  • Fix infinite loop in sami subtitle
  • Fix AAC 7.1 channels detection
  • Fix potential crash in ASX parser
  • Fix AVI read/write overflow
  • Fix compatibility with Mac OS High Sierra
  • Fix regression in ASS subtitle decoding for Mac OS
  • Fix crash during automatic update in Mac OS X. Some users might need to manually update to the newest version.
  • Fix Direct3D9 output with odd offsets
  • Fix crash in MTP
  • Support libupnp 1.8

And VLC 2.2.8 fixed AVI invalid pointer dereferences for demuxers.

VLC 2.2.7

Install VLC 2.2.7 in Ubuntu 16.04/14.04:

There are quite a few PPAs with VLC packages for Ubuntu. At the moment, you can install VLC 2.2.7 in Ubuntu easily via Jonathon F’s PPA.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching “Terminal” from start menu. When it opens, run command to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vlc

Type in your password (no visual feedback due to security reason) when prompts and hit Enter.

VLC 2.2.5 PPA

2.Remove old VLC version, if you installed it from Ubuntu Software, to avoid a package conflict:

sudo apt remove --autoremove vlc vlc-nox

3. Finally run commands in terminal to check updates and install VLC 2.2.7:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install vlc

How to Restore:

To restore VLC media player to the stock version in your main Ubuntu repository, run command to purge the PPA:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:jonathonf/vlc
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VLC 2.2.6 Released with 3 Bugs Fixed [How to Install]

Last updated: May 25, 2017

The VideoLAN team rolled out the new VLC media player 2.2.6 release, less than two weeks after the last VLC 2.2.5 (& 2.2.5.1), with only 3 bugs fixed.

VLC 2.2.6 fixed following bugs in the previous release:

  • Fixed the systematic green line video output on NVIDIA devices.
  • Fixed direct3d SPU texture offsets handling
  • Demuxer: Fixed heap buffer overflows

VLC 2.2.6

How to Install VLC 2.2.6 via PPA in Ubuntu:

While there’s now official Linux packages, you can install VLC 2.2.6 via the third-party PPA, available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and derivatives.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vlc

VLC 2.2.5 PPA

2. Then upgrade VLC via Software Updater after checking for updates:

NOTE: if you’re trying to upgrade from VLC version older than 2.2.4, REMOVE VLC first to avoid unmet dependencies issue:

sudo apt-get remove vlc vlc-nox && sudo apt-get autoremove

Uninstall:

To restore VLC media player to the stock version in your Ubuntu main repository, purge the PPA via command:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:jonathonf/vlc
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How to Install VLC 2.2.5 in Ubuntu 16.04, 14.04

Last updated: May 12, 2017

VLC media player 2.2.5 was released recently with a great number of improvements. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 16.04.

It has been almost one year since the last VLC 2.2.4 was released on June 2016. VLC 2.2.5 features:

  • Fix green line rendering on Windows with AMD drivers
  • Fix mp3 playback regression on macOS and 64bit Windows leading to distortion for some media
  • Fix screenshots size
  • Improved lua scripts for various websites
  • Various security improvements in demuxers and decoders
  • Security hardening for DLL hijacking environments
  • Fix scrolling sensitivity on Sierra
  • Fix screen recording on Windows
  • See the changelog for details.

VLC 2.2.5

How to Install VLC 2.2.5 in Ubuntu / Linux Mint:

Besides building VLC 2.2.5 from the source tarball, Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, and Linux mint 18 users can install it from the unofficial PPA.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching “Terminal” from start menu. When it opens, run command to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vlc

Type in your password (no visual feedback due to security reason) when prompts and hit Enter.

VLC 2.2.5 PPA

2. (IMPORTANT) Remove old VLC version to avoid a package conflict:

sudo apt remove vlc vlc-nox

3. Finally run commands in terminal to check updates and install VLC 2.2.5:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install vlc

How to Restore:

To restore VLC media player to the stock version in your main Ubuntu repository, run command to purge the PPA:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:jonathonf/vlc
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How to Install the Latest VLC 2.2.4 in Ubuntu 16.04 via PPA

Last updated: July 11, 2016

vlc_logo_icon

The latest stable VLC media player has reached the 2.2.4 release. While Ubuntu 16.04 provide the old 2.2.2 release in its universe repository, you may install / upgrade VLC via a PPA.

VLC 2.2.4 release highlights:

  • Fix crash in G.711 wav files
  • Fix mp3 crash in libmad
  • Fix out-of-bound write in adpcm QT IMA codec (VideoLAN-SA-1601, CVE-2016-5108)
  • Fix overlay creation on Windows XP for DirectDraw video output
  • Improve compilation support for GNU/HURD
  • Minor UI improvements for the Qt interface on Windows, Linux, BSD, …

VLC 2.2.3 release highlights:

  • Notable number of improvements, like green lines in the Windows video output and resuming where you left off.
  • It also improves our codec support by adding new formats and providing faster decompression.
  • More than 30 fixes for issues reported for 2.2.2.
  • You can finally open more than 15 elements from the Windows’ Explorer.

VLC 2.2.4 in Ubuntu 16.04

How to Install VLC 2.2.4 in Ubuntu 16.04:

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the command below to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nicola-onorata/desktop

Type in password (no visual feedback) when it asks and hit Enter.

VLC 2.2.4 PPA

2. Upgrade VLC via Software Updater, or run the commands below one by one:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install vlc

3. The PPA also contains a group of other apps, so you may remove the PPA after installing VLC by launching Software & Updates -> Other Software.

remove-vlc224-ppa

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How to Install VLC 2.2.2 in Ubuntu 15.10

Last updated: February 10, 2016

VLC icon

VLC 2.2.2, the second bugfix release for VLC 2.2 series, was released a few days ago. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 15.10 Wily via PPA.

VLC 2.2.2 “Weatherwax” is the second update to VLC’s 2.2 release series.

It fixes numerous security issues, notably in the MP4, RealRtsp and Sparkle modules, but also important crashes for the MXF, ADPCM, Telextext, Skins and Qt modules.

It also improves our codec support by adding new formats and providing faster decompression.

More than 100 fixes for issues reported for 2.2.1.

Full support of Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

For a complete list of changes, see the ChangeLog.

Install VLC 2.2.2 in Ubuntu 15.10:

The new release has been made into Software Center for Ubuntu 16.04. Below is how to install VLC 2.2.2 in Ubuntu 15.10 using a third-party PPA repository.

1. Add PPA

Open terminal from App Launcher or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, paste below command and hit run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nicola-onorata/desktop

VLC 2.2.2 PPA

Type in password (no visual feedback when typing) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Launch Software Updater and upgrade VLC after checking for updates.

upgrade VLC

Or run below commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install vlc

3. (Optional) To revert back the 2.2.1 release, purge the PPA via ppa-purge tool:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:nicola-onorata/desktop

If everything goes OK, you may disable or remove the PPA via Software & Updates -> Other Software tab, since the PPA contains many other packages you may not want.

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How to Upgrade to VLC 2.2.0 (Stable) in Ubuntu 14.04

Last updated: July 16, 2016

VLC 2.2.0

VLC 2.2.0, codename WeatherWax, finally goes stable. Here’s how to upgrade it in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or Linux Mint 17.1 while it’s already made into Ubuntu repositories for 14.10 Utopic and 15.04 Vivid.

VLC 2.2.0 was released a few hours ago with numerous new features, fix more than one thousand bugs and improves the scope of the formats supported. Here are some of the new features:

  • Auto-rotation of phone movies, to fight Vertical Video Syndrome
  • Resume playback where you left off in all versions
  • Extensions API and repository to download extensions directly from the application
  • GPU 0-copy support for decoding and displaying using hardware
  • Subtitles download from the web, using OpenSubtitles
  • Audio core upgrade, notably to support short samples
  • Improved support for UltraHD codecs, H.265 and VP9
  • Support for BD-Java menus and overlay in Blu-Ray
  • Acceleration of VP9 and H.265/HEVC decoders
  • Support for encoding in H.265, Opus and VP9
  • Rewritten support for WMV, Ogg, MP4 and AVI, notably for seeking
  • Support for WebVTT, Ogg/VP8, Opus/MKV
  • Support for Digital Cinema Packages and encrypted DCP with KDM
  • Support for THP, Renderware videogames files
  • GPU accelerated auto-rotation, in OpenGL, Direct3D and Mediacodec
  • GPU 0-copy decoding-rendering for Linux using VDPAU
  • Support for HLSL shaders in Direct3D video output
  • OpenMAX IL improvements for Android, Linux and rPi
  • Support GStreamer codecs
  • Support for MMS split streams for audio selection (European Parliament)
  • Support FTPS (FTP/TLS) protocol
  • New decoder for VP8 and VP9 using libvpx for Linux distributions without avcodec
  • Improvements on Teletext, Subrip, and Tx3g subtitles
  • Support for MSN audio, Atrac3+, VP7, Bink, TAK, On2 AVC, DK3, DK4
  • Support for IMC, Vivo g723.1, Smacker, FIC, Auravision, Canopus Lossless
  • Support x264 and FFv1 codecs RGB modes
  • Support drag’n drop in the skins2 interface
  • Support of audio ducking in various audio outputs
  • Full list of features HERE

Install / Upgrade to VLC 2.2.0 in Ubuntu 14.04:

The 2.2.0 release is available in the Software Center for Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04 out-of-the-box. Thanks to Doug McMahon, VLC 2.2.0 for 14.04 Trusty is available in this PPA.

1. To add the PPA, open terminal from menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vlc

Please read the PPA description before press Enter to continue adding the PPA.

2. After adding the PPA, run below commands one by one to upgrade to the 2.2.0 release from previous version:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-*

Uninstall/Downgrade VLC:

To downgrade to previous release, install ppa-purge and purge the PPA which also downgrade packages installed from it:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

sudo ppa-purge ppa:jonathonf/vlc

To remove VLC, just run:

sudo apt-get remove vlc vlc-plugin-*
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Make VLC Remember Last Played Position in Ubuntu Linux

Last updated: July 28, 2015

VLC remember video position

 
This quick tutorial shows you how to make your VLC media player remember the position of the last played files with a plugin called srpos.

srpos plugin works for VLC 2.1.x in Windows and Linux. It allows you to automatically save and restore up to 100 last played files position.

How to install this plugin:

For Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17 and their derivatives, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run commands below one by one to install it from PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:samrog131/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install vlc-srpos-plugin

For Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 13.10 and their derivatives, you may consider upgrading VLC to the stable release v2.1.4 as the 2.0.x in their repositories are not supported. To do so, run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:djcj/vlc-stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install vlc

After that, download .deb package from: Launchpad Page

  • download vlc-srpos-plugin_0.3~trusty~ppa1_amd64.deb for 64-bit system.
  • download vlc-srpos-plugin_0.3~trusty~ppa1_i386.deb for 32-bt system.

Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04 user can also download & install the .deb directly from the launchpad page if you don’t like Ubuntu PPAs.

How to Use the Plugin:

Once the plugin installed:

1. Re-open VLC, and go to menu Tools -> Preferences.

2. Under bottom left corner, select show All settings.

3. Navigate to Interface -> Control Interface on left sidebar.

4. Check the box where it says “Save/restore position of the last played files”

5. Save and close VLC. The plugin will work the next time you launch it.

vlc remember playback position

Plugin website.

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Ubuntu 14.04 Quick Tip: Enable Notification for VLC

Last updated: June 29, 2014

Ubuntu 14.04 vlc notification

Here is a quick tutorial about how to make VLC media player use Ubuntu desktop notifications in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty LTS.

VLC is one of the most widely used media player in Linux desktops. It is well integrated with Ubuntu Unity except that it does not use the native libnotify daemon so that you won’t see any notification bubble that indicates what’s playing. To enable this feature, follow below steps.

1. Open VLC media player, go to menu Tools -> Preferences.

open VLC preferences

2. On the left bottom, choose All to display all VLC settings.

all VLC settings

3. Go to Interface -> Control Interface, check the box where it says “LibNotify Notificatior” to make VLC use Ubuntu’s notification daemon.

VLC use Ubuntu notification

4. Click to expand Control Interface in left sidebar and you can change the notification bubbles timeout under Notify settings.

use-ubuntu-notification-timeout

Restart VLC media player and enjoy!

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How to Install VLC 2.1.2 in Ubuntu 12.04/12.10/13.04/13.10

Last updated: July 28, 2015

VLC 2.1.2 Ubuntu 12.04

 
The popular VLC media player has reached version 2.1.x with some fantastic new features, bug fixes and performance improvements. However, the official PPA for Ubuntu 13.10 and earlier is stuck at version 2.0.8.

There’s now a third-party PPA that provides the most recent build of VLC (it’s 2.1.2 so far) to Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 13.04, and Ubuntu 13.10 users. The PPA is maintained by djcj

install vlc 2.1.2 ubuntu 13.10

The PPA is not officially endorsed, supported or otherwise backed by the Videolan team. Use it at your own risk!

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below to add the PPA and install VLC.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:djcj/vlc-stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install vlc

If you don’t like the PPAs, directly download & install the DEBs from the launchpad page.

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