\cf0 Welcome to the VideoLAN Client ! VLC is a multi-purpose mutimedia tool : it can play DVDs and VCDs, or read a stream from the network. VLC has originally been developed for GNU/Linux systems, but has been ported to numerous operating systems, including Mac OS X and Win32. The Mac OS X port is a bit young and immature, as you will notice, and there are many caveats. We are working hard to improve it, and if you think you can help us in any way, please drop us a line.\
\cf0 Welcome to the VideoLAN Client ! VLC is a multi-purpose mutimedia tool : it can play DVDs and VCDs, or read a stream from the network. It also supports DivX/MPEG-4 files, via the same codec as the QuickTime plug-in (and features the same bugs). VLC has originally been developed for GNU/Linux systems, but has been ported to numerous operating systems, including Mac OS X and Win32. The Mac OS X port is a bit young and immature, as you will notice, and there are many caveats. We are working hard to improve it, and if you think you can help us in any way, please drop us a line.\
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You may find the following frequentely asked questions useful :\
You may find the following frequentely asked questions useful :\
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\f1\b \ul 1. How do I read a DVD ? The menu item is disabled !\
\f1\b \ul 1. How do I read an SVCD ?
\f0\b0 \ulnone The menu item hasn't been implemented yet, but you can access all features of VLC using the command line. First open a terminal window (Terminal.app in your Applications folder) and change to the directory where you copied VLC - for instance if you copied it to your Applications folder, type :\
\f2 cd /Applications\
\f0 \
Then type :\
\f2 ./vlc.app/Contents/MacOS/vlc dvd:/dev/rdisk1\
\f0 \
VLC should play your DVD. On some configurations, /dev/rdisk1 isn't the DVD drive, and you will find it as /dev/rdisk2, /dev/rdisk3, etc. YMMV\
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You can access all the capabilities of VLC through the command line (since the native interface support is still very poor), such as choosing audio channel, subtitles, and titles/chapters. To view all the options available, please type :\
\f0\b0 \ulnone The same way you read a DVD, except you replace
\f2 dvd
\f0 by
\f2 vcd
\f0 . Eg. :\
\f2 ./vlc.app/Contents/MacOS/vlc vcd:/dev/rdisk1\
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\f1\b \ul 3. How do I read an SVCD ?
\f0\b0 \ulnone \
\f0\b0 \ulnone \
SVCDs contain plain MPEG-2 files and do not require any specific plug-in. just copy the .vob files in the SVCD onto your hard drive, and use the "Open File" menu item in VLC (drag and drop doesn't work yet).\
VLC is currently unable to read SVCD directly from the drive. SVCDs contain plain MPEG-2 files which can be directly read. Just copy the .dat files in the SVCD onto your hard drive, and use the "Open File" menu item in VLC (drag and drop doesn't work yet).\
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\f1\b \ul 4. Audio and video are out of sync by 300 ms !\
\f0\b0 \ulnone This is a known issue, and we're working on it. In the meantime, launch the application with
\f2 --desync\'ca300
\f0 (the exact number depends on your machine), eg. :\
\f1\b \ul 5. The video is choppy ! It's like we're dropping frames\
\f1\b \ul 2. The video is choppy ! It's like we're dropping frames\
\f0\b0 \ulnone That's the normal behavior when the CPU isn't fast enough to decode all frames. Though there is some room for improvement, do never expect VLC to be able to decode MPEG-2 streams on a low-end G3 machine. Apple DVD player uses specific hardware accelerations from the video board of those systems, and we currently lack documentation to do the same. If you think you have information which might help us, please contact us, otherwise please don't complain about this.\
\f0\b0 \ulnone That's the normal behavior when the CPU isn't fast enough to decode all frames. Though there is some room for improvement, do never expect VLC to be able to decode MPEG-2 streams on a low-end G3 machine. Apple DVD player uses specific hardware accelerations from the video board of those systems, and we currently lack documentation to do the same. If you think you have information which might help us, please contact us, otherwise please don't complain about this.\
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If VLC is slow on your G4 system, try and quit or hide all running applications. See with
If VLC is slow on your G4 system, try and quit or hide all running applications. See with
\f2 top
\f2 top -u
\f0 in a terminal window which applications take the CPU. Minimizing the VLC controller window might help, too.\
\f0 in a terminal window which applications take the CPU. Minimizing the VLC controller window might help, too.\
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\f1\b \ul 6. How do I play a DivX file ?\
\f1\b \ul 3. I only get a black picture !\
\f0\b0 \ulnone VLC doesn't support DivX or OpenDivX or MPEG-4 files at present. We are working on it too, but this isn't expected to happen in the near future.\
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\f1\b \ul 7. The fullscreen menu item has disappeared. This sucks !\
\f0\b0 \ulnone The menu item has been temporarily removed for technical reasons. It doesn't mean that the feature has been removed. To turn on fullscreen mode, just hit 'f' in the video window. To go back to windowed mode, hit 'f' again.\
\f0\b0 \ulnone We haven't found the reason why some people get this problem. However, users have indicated a workaround : switch your screen depth to thousands of colors instead of millions. If you think you have information to help us find the bug, please drop us a mail.\
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Thanks for reading this file. For additional information, subscribe to the vlc mailing list on \ul http://www.videolan.org/.\ulnone \
Thanks for reading this file. For additional information, subscribe to the vlc mailing list on \ul http://www.videolan.org/.\ulnone \
-- \
-- \
Christophe Massiot <massiot@via.ecp.fr>, 6 Apr 2002, for the VideoLAN team.}
Christophe Massiot <massiot@via.ecp.fr>, for the VideoLAN team.\
