Kickstarter-funded VLC for Windows 8 UI will be ready for beta testing in March according to VideoLAN President Jean-Baptiste Kempf. He hopes it will be as fully featured as the classic desktop version too, although it’s a totally separate app.
Mock-ups of ‘VLC for the new Windows 8 User Experience’ which you can see below, show an app which fits perfectly with the new look of Windows. They were created as part of the Kickstarter campaign.
VideoLAN are trying to create an app available through the Windows Store, although they believe there may be some barriers to this if all of VLC’s features are available, but they are trying.
Jean-Baptiste Kempf says the beta should be ready for Kickstarter backers to test in March. As far as getting the full VLC feature set, he says it ultimately depends on what Microsoft allow.
He also suggested that the first version may not be as efficient as the desktop app, but the goal was for a Windows 8 VLC that is at least as efficient or more so.
In other VLC news, TorrentFreak are reporting a project to get Bittorrent streaming available in VLC. It’s only at the discussion stage at the moment, although there’s a $10,000 ‘bounty’ for anyone who can provide acceptable code for VLC. This won’t be easy, as Bittorrent streaming has been looked at before by VideoLAN, and so far ‘all BitTorrent related modules for VLC have been of low code quality and have not been merged.’
Would you use Bittorrent streaming in VLC media player? Are you looking forward to the Windows 8 app?
