VLC 3.0 Released With Chromecast And HDR Support

In our list of the best media players for a PC, VLC media player ranks at #1 for all the right reasons. Apart from a massive popularity, this free and open source media player supports a large number of audio/video codecs. To make your experience even better, as a major update, the developers have shipped the new VLC 3.0 “Vetinari” release.

What makes VLC a great option for fulfilling your media playback needs, is its cross-platform support. You can install it on tons of platforms, including Windows, Linux, BSD, macOS, iOS, Android, and Xbox.

A major feature of VLC 3.0 is the activation of hardware decoding by default to let you enjoy 4K and 8K playback. The other features are the newly added support for 10bits, HDR, 360-degree video, 3D audio, etc.

What really makes this release special, in my personal opinion, is the native Chromecast support. You can also use it for browsing local network drives and NAS.

Specifically for Android, VLC 3.0 comes with support for Android Auto with voice actions, Picture-in-picture mode, playlist file detection, HEVC hardware decoding, and more.

The development team claims that this release consumes less CPU and GPU than other competing players around. In mid-April, you can also expect a VR version of VLC.