VLC 2.0 available now, includes faster decoding and experimental Blu-ray support

After beginning as an academic project back in 1996, VLC hit version 1.0 in 2009 and today it has reached 2.0. VLC — one of the best-known, catch-all media players out there — has plenty of major improvements across its Windows, OS X, and Linux variants to go along with that big version number bump. The most noticeable changes come to Mac users; we’ve detailed in-depth the OS X version’s interface improvements in our hands-on with the release candidate, but suffice it to say that the experience has been completely re-tooled with fullscreen support in Lion and a new one-window layout.

Other than the UI changes in OS X, the changelog says that decoding in all flavors of the app is now improved on multi-core and mobile systems, alongside enhanced GPU support. There’s also experimental Blu-ray playback and, of course, the software can now handle even more codecs. Version 2.0 is available now for Windows (XP SP2, Vista, and 7), OS X (10.5 or later on PowerPC or 32-bit and 64-bit Intel machines), and Linux, with iOS and Android versions on the way.