The first beta of VLC for Windows 8.1 hits the store (Intel only)

It’s been a long time coming but the Windows 8/8.1 version of the fabulous VLC player is finally coming to the Window Store. The app is currently in beta and is in the store today. It works on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 but it’s currently only for the Intel version of Windows with the Windows RT version coming soon, the developers say it will follow “as soon as we are able to compile” and the ARM version should also work on Windows Phone.

The app will play the wide range of formats that the desktop version of VLC will play which includes MKV, Ogg, Mov, FLAC and supports the same codecs as the desktop app including MPEG-1 and WMV3. Background audio is supported as is DLNA, there is also a nice live tile. It’s still early days and there are a plenty of issues with (see below).

You can download the app from the Windows Store, I am going to be testing it on my Toshiba Windows tablet and will write up my findings tomorrow.

Features from one of the developers blog:

works on Windows 8.0 and 8.1: too many people are still on 8.0, so we had to use that. This decreases the stability of the application, though…

is compiled for Intel x86 CPUs: Windows RT version will follow as soon as we are able to compile it. ARM version will also apply to Windows Phone.

plays all video and audio formats of VLC, including MKV, Ogg and Mov files or FLAC and MPC;

supports the same codecs as the VLC application for desktop, from MPEG-1 to H.265, through WMV3 and VC-1;

supports multiple-audio tracks selection;

supports embedded subtitles;

supports Background Audio playback;

features a easy-to-navigate but complete UI, notably for audio browsing;

supports Live Tiles!

supports removable storage and DLNA servers.

However, there are a few limitations:

This app is currently slow, and is slower than VLC for desktop for video decoding and has no hardware acceleration;

Subtitles support is not very good yet, and notably it only supports embedded subtitles; this is our major point of focus for now.

Audio does not seem to work in all configurations;

Playlists and streams are not supported in the UI (they are present in the core)

It’s clearly not as stable as it should be.