The open source media player VLC is a highly versatile tool that is famous for handling just about any DRM-free video format in existence today without breaking a sweat. Version 1.1 is even better – how, you ask? Well, it supports Google’s new WebM format, and apart from that, the real kicker would be hardware video accleration support. Basically, this means VLC 1.1 will make full use of your GPU to accelerate video playback, freeing up your CPU to perform other tasks. Unfortunately for ATI users, VLC 1.1 currently supports NVIDIA graphics processors only, although ATI support should be in the works after the company updates its range of drivers. As for Intel, similar support should be on its way once the VLC team looks into Intel hardware that supports GPU decoding. Bear in mind that GPU acceleration is limited to Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Linux versions of VLC 1.1.
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