Video Lan Client (VLC), the popular free "catch-all" media player for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux (where QuickTime falls short or isn't licensed to play a format, this has become the easy substitute), has been updated to version 0.8.6 according to an article on arstechnica.

VLC 0.8.6, which is about an 11 to 22.7 megabyte download, is now a Universal Binary program capable of running natively on both Apple's PowerPC and Intel hardware architectures and includes support for the Apple Remote, Windows Media Video 9 files, VC-1, VP5/VP6, Flash video, TTA, WavPack lossless audio and Shoutcast TV files. H.264 support has also been rewritten for this version.

VLC is an open-source project. For information as to how to beta test or contribute code to the effort, click here.