VLC Open-Source Media Player For Android [Download]

Posted by : Flex Next Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Get your MKV’s, AVI’s and ANIME’s ready! Android developer/modder extraordinaire, CVPCS, was able to compile a working pre-Alpha version of VLC media player for Android. If you’re unfamiliar with VLC, it’s essentially a open-source (we like those words around here) media player for Windows, Mac and everything in between that allows you to play virtually any video format on your desktop. That alone should help you see the value in bringing this amazing tool to Android.

Because of the way VLC is built, it can’t (or wont) support all Android devices. Instead, it separates them according to your processor, into 2 categories: NEON and NO-NEON. How do you find out if your device is NEON? Simply use a file manager app, dig around in your system files and locate the folder /proc/cpuinfo and then take a look inside. You should see something like this:

Processor : ARMv7 Processor rev 2 (v7l)
processor : 0
BogoMIPS : 1597.74

Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp thumbee neon vfpv3
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x1
CPU part : 0xc09
CPU revision : 2

Hardware : mapphone_CDMA
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000

Take a look at the Features line and look for the word “neon.” If it’s there — then you have yourself a NEON device. If not — then you’ll have to use the NONEON version of VLC. Okay, let’s get to the good stuff. The download. Seeing how this is such an early pre-Alpha build of VLC for Android, CVPCS will not be providing support. If you want to try out VLC for Android still in its early stages:
NEON VLC for Android
NONEON VLC for Android