A Windows 8 Metro version of the VLC open-source media player has been launched following a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The beta version of the Windows 8 VLC media player has been launched after the service managed to raise $78,136 (close to £50,000) on Kickstarter.

If you have a Windows 8 PC, laptop or tablet with a x86 or x64 processor you can download the beta version from the Windows Store now, but you will see some missing features at the moment.

The app is capable of playing video and audio formats including mkv, flac, mpc, ogg and mov in addition to the codecs supported by the regular desktop app.

However, support for Windows RT devices is still in the pipeline, you’ll only receive limited support for subtitles at present and the app is considerably slower than the VLC desktop app, especially when it comes to video decoding.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Windows 10

The app has been released in beta so that users can test it and offer feedback to parent company VideoLAN.

You’ll still be able to use the desktop version, but if you want the Metro-style app, you can download it now, but you’ll just have to deal with some of the early bugs.

As for VLC coming to Windows Phone devices, VideoLAN has confirmed it is working on it.

“We already have a design for Windows Phone 8 and a working proof of concept. But the isse of Windows RT applies in the exact same way, aka compiling for ARM. We might need to be a Windows Phone 8.1 app though, for performance reasons,” explained VideoLAN President, Jean-Baptiste Kempf to Neowin. “I don’t think this will be an issue, since Nokia said that all Lumias will upgrade. But I will know more after Build Conference, when we get access to WP8.1 SDK.”



Read more: Best laptops 2014