VLC, one of the most popular media player applications, is ready to support 360-degree content. This makes the media player the first in the market to do so.

VideoLan, the creators of VLC, teamed up with the 360-degree camera maker company Giroptic which provided VideoLan with samples, cameras, code and expertise to achieve this feature. The player can now display photos, panoramas and videos in 360-degree mode. The point of view in the footage can be simply controlled using a mouse and keyboard. The 360-degree feature is open source and cross-platform, accelerated with OpenGL and Direct3D11.

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VLC has posted a demo of the feature on its official website. It will work on both Windows and Mac operating systems. The complete bundle of this feature and other changes is expected to arrive by the end of the month as part of the VLC 3.0 version update.

"VLC is one of the video players most widely used in the world. We are very proud to contribute our expertise in 360° to this open source player. This will allow the millions of VLC users to take full advantage of a promising new technology and be widely involved in its democratization.", said Richard Ollier, co-founder and CEO of Giroptic.

VLC, which supports a lot of video formats and platforms, is also expected to make the new features available for Android, iOS and Xbox One shortly. Users will be able to navigate the clips with the help of accelerometers present on their smartphones. Additionally, VLC will also release support for Virtual Reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift, Google's Daydream, and the HTC Vive in 2017.

VLC is planning to support 360-degree audio as well including head-tracking headphones, but this is not expected to happen in the near future.