The creators of VideoLAN, a world-reknown free and open source cross-platform media player for streaming video across a local area network (LAN), has received a significant update this morning and the first release candidate is available for public download starting today.

According to the release, VLC 2.0 features a completely redesigned user interface and includes enhancements such as native full-screen mode for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, a redesigned subtitle manager, support for multiple video files inside .RAR archives and enhanced video output modes.



VideoLan 2.0 on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

Developers of VideoLAN have also designed this release to allow native Blu-ray support on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, while Microsoft Windows users will get to enjoy a 64-bit version.

Based on the screenshots, VLC 2.0 for Mac substitues the previous Spartan interface design in favor of an iTunes-esque appearance that sorts media types in the left-hand column and flows more naturally with Apple's overall Mac OS X user experience. Of course, the developers have also added support for VLC lua-based extensions which conveniently allows users to fetch subtitles from repositories automatically.

The full VLC 2.0.0 changelog can be found here, and the release candidate for Mac OS X can be downloaded here.