What’s great about Android is the talented devs who use the platform. Case in point: CVPCS, an Android dev, wanted to use VLC on his Android phone as he used VLC all the time on his desktop. So he built a pre-alpha version for everyone to use.
It’s a really early build so he won’t be providing support for the app. However, he is letting you download the VLC app he built. And here comes the downside of Android… as there are so many devices out there, there isn’t a universal VLC app that will work on all of them. Instead, CVPCS has effectively developed two VLC versions, a NEON and a NO-NEON (the differences are in the processor types).
How do you find out which version you need? It’s sort-of simple, you’ll need a file manager to locate the file “/proc/cpuinfo”. Open that file and you’ll 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
As CVPCS says, “If you see the word ‘neon’ on the Features line, then your device supports NEON extensions. If it’s not there, then you’ll have to use the NO-NEON variant of VLC.” Download VLC here and be sure to check out the full instructions over at CVPCS. [CVPCS via Phandroid]