The VLC media player is a popular open source app for Mac, Windows, Linux, and even iOS. The best thing about VLC is that it’s capable of handling almost any video format you can throw at it without breaking a sweat — although the iOS version is limited by the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad hardware, making HD video playback difficult. Still, I can’t help but be a little excited that the developers are working on a version of VLC for Google Android.
The new Android app could be available for download within the next few weeks. Early development was apparently difficult because Android’s multimedia output libraries were written in Java, but Google recently released tools that let the VLC team write native code for Android.
There already a couple of other excellent video players for Android, including Rockplayer, VPlayer, and ArcMedia, but I’m looking forward to seeing what VLC brings to the table.
