I think everyone here knows, I'm a big fan and proponent of VLC. But the release of 0.8.6 (in my opinion) was premature.
Sometimes you just have to release. VLC can't wait a gazillion years untill it supports every format out there.
1. The remaining problems with WMP 11 or WMF 11 is that VLC does not support WMAP audio of which 90% of the videos that uses WMV3 or WVC1 also use WMAP multi-channel audio which is now completely unsupported even if you use the --codec dmo switch.
Why don't you report this before the release ? I NEVER saw a bug report about this.
2. The new use of WMV and WMA under ffmpeg is very slow to activate under 0.8.6 and you may miss anywhere from 5 to 20 seconds of the start of any video. This assumes the use of WMF 9 for WMAP audio which is now obsolete.
BTW WMP 11 using WMF 11 shows vastly superior speed in the decoding of WMV3 with WMAP audio. Less CPU usage means fewer skipped frames. Specially for HD content in the higher resolutions.
It might be slow, but it's Free and Open Source, which is more important
3. While DVB cards are now supported under Linux it is still not supported under Windows.
That is a BIG feature that was NEVER part of the 0.8.6 roadmap. It's not even ON the roadmap yet, just on the wishlist
4. Play list support is still not complete and as near as I can tell neither is complete support for some of the protocols used for streaming. Seemingly simple things like a link that refers to another link, which seems to be quite common these days as more and more websites share files, makes using VLC to receive a stream a rather frustrating experience for many end users that are used to pressing a button rather than having to learn to trouble shoot the issues.
Most of this is fixed in 0.9.0, but could not be backported due to the heavy API changes. Please file
specific trac reports for all remaining issues.
5. With each new version of VLC MPEG 2 playback has shown a slight bit more jitter starting with 0.8.4. This includes the DVD but 0.8.6 reaches a new low in this area and for me has become to annoying to continue to use. VLC's messages are empty and PowerDVD or WinDVD have become vastly superior with each newer version.
I have seen no issues with the Mac OSX release, nor did i hear any complaints working towards 0.8.6
Don't expect ppl to be psychic please.
6. There have been problems with the access module for VCDs since 0.8.2 and there has been NO attempt now in 4 releases to fix it. Considering this is apparent for all VCDs it should not take a specialist in this area.
This is a known issue. I have looked at it extensively, but it still cannot be pinpointed. It's not sync issues btw, it's a problem witht the calculation of the duration of the video compared to the datasize of the video. The sync is perfect, it's the conversion between msf -> bytesposition
It's still high on my personal priority list, and I hope to have it fixed before 0.9.0
7. While it's good news to hear that the filter modules for transcoding may finally be finished, many of the formats and containers are in desperate need of updating and for a streaming solution this is (in my opinion) the heart of any quality you may expect, using VLC as a server when the program itself wants control of the stream through any of the transcode functions. There has been allot of work by others in the open source community to make various formats and containers more compatible and VLC has fallen way behind in this area. A good example of this is OGG/OGM that continues to crash Explorer and its inability to except just a very few formats. Also the lack of AVI or Matroska (MKV/MKA) as containers further limit the usage full potential in these areas. I find it interesting that ffmpeg is now able to support these yet VLC is not.
They are nowhere NEAR finished. Everything is still VERY experimental, especially with regard to more advanced features as metadata.
However 0.9.0 should see USER visible support for AVI and matroska muxing.
8. On a lessor front I was on doom9 last night and it seems that a GUI supporting MP4 menus has become available. While sill in a alpha state it appears some what clumsy to use but shows some progress in this area. VLC has been able to support MKV menus for some time now, yet there is no documentation or any help regarding the usage. So DivX is the only viable solution with no usable open source counterpart.
VLC does not support MKV menu's The developer that started that work, never finished it. It works most of the time, but is not actively being developed or maintained. MP4 menu's are SOO advanced, that it's almost impossible to support them all. A lot of things are currently higher on the priority list (API design of the plugins, vout rework, teletext, new windows interface)
9. While VLC is able to support VOBSub Subtitles under MP4 using MP4box it seems it does not have compatibility to Nero. As both of these offer support for VOBSubs it would be nice to see where the problem lies and an attempt to resolve it should be made. If this is at all possible.
I never saw any samples that show this problem. Show them to me, and I will fix them.
10. Chapters in MP4 rather fall in the same category as they are now supported in the container, but there is no support in VLC. According to doom9 support for subs and chapters is available in QuickTime in a standard format and information along with references on this is also available in the doom9 forums.
Chapter support for MP4/MOV is on the ToDo list. It was never part of the 0.8.6 roadmap. Samples again would help.
11. As VLC's user base grows so has the request for the transcoding of subtitles. I realize this is not a particularly easy feat (and burning of subs in to the picture is possible for most formats) as VLC is a packet based streaming player and this could cause problems for timing in any format or container. On the other hand it would build the strength of the player in general even if there was support for only one more format that was common like SRT. The only support at the moment is DVB subs and this is very uncommon, as it provides very limited support under MPEG TS.
Let's try and get subtitle support worked out first. Then we can focus on more advanced things.
12. It appears there has been no work on the MicroDVD .sub format and it is still locked at 25 FPS.
Are you sure? I have fixed the wxwindows sub-fps box to allow float values. That should probably fix your weird problems. Also I made 3 other small fixes that should improve detection and overriding this value. I did this in the last day before the release
I still have not had the opportunity to look at a number of areas like resolves for DV or Mjpeg support that seems to have gone haywire in 0.8.5. Nor have I looked at h.264 to see if it now supports both styles of interlacing.
DV in Avi is supported in 0.9.0
DV raw HD is not yet supported
MJPEG decoder was improved, but might still not support a couple of the JPEG styles
H264 PAFF interlacing is not yet supported by ffmpeg (the only free/OS h264 decoder)
I know I'm piling a lot of things on here that any Developer is going to say oh no here we go again. All it takes is time and Man Power or there are no active developers for the Windows versions. Please don't think I don't empathize with this, but you can't ignore your largest user base or continue to piss of any one making a valid request.
No one is paid to do this. People have a life and do this on the side. You cannot expect anything. Everyone on the team is doing this JUST for fun, and not for those millions of users. Sure, we like to make dayjobs out of this, but we are unfortunately not yet Mozilla. It's as simple as that.
I know I find myself at times defending VLC when I should be saying YA! I would like to see that too! I would also like to remind everyone that there are Windows emulators for most operating systems that allow a developer to work out the bugs for Windows specific code. Still, I do realize this takes time and manpower.
Also please don't think we don't all appreciate the improvements and hard work that goes into any revision as that is not what this is about.
Respectfully
DJ
And this is the reason why most developers don't visit the forums at all. Everything i want for VLC is in the Features paradise of trac. That is where it belongs, not here.
I have noticed the interest and quality of the questions here has declined in the last month. It seems in life that you are only as good as your last success which can be quickly forgotten. In software everyone looks forward to new versions to resolve the bugs encountered in the last version. I guess it all depends on the averages here as to how many people you believe can be appeased for the quantity of the fixes there was time for between releases. 
As for ffmpeg I have very mixed feelings as to the problem here and will try to gain a bit more info. While MPlayer is not showing the problem in the latest release, I have not examined why! 
Again I will try to look a bit deeper into the issue.
