VLC media player

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VLC media player
VLC program icon

Cross-platform media player
Developer(s) VideoLAN Organization
Release information
Initial release {{{released}}}
Stable release 3.0.6 (January 9, 2019)
Preview release N/A
Compatibility
Operating system Cross-platform
Additional information
Use Media Player
License LGPL
Website http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

VLC media player, also known as VLC, is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Features

  • VLC is popular for its ability to play the video content of incomplete, unfinished, or damaged video downloads before the files have been fully downloaded. (For example, files still downloading via BitTorrent, eMule, or Gnutella). It also plays m2t MPEG Transport Streams (.TS) files while they are still being digitized from an HDV camera via a FireWire cable, making it possible to monitor the video as it is being played. This is because it is a packet-based player.
  • The player also has the ability to use libcdio to access ISO files so that the user can play files on a disk image, even if the user's operating system does not have the capability of working directly with ISO images.
  • VLC supports all codecs and all file formats supported by FFmpeg. This means that DVD Video and MPEG-4 playback as well as support for Ogg and Matroska (MKV) file formats work "out of the box". However, this feature is not unique to VLC, as any player using the FFmpeg libraries, including MPlayer and xine-lib-based players, can play those formats without need for external codecs. VLC also supports codecs that are not included in FFmpeg.
  • VLC is one of the free software and open source DVD players that ignores DVD region coding, making it a region free player, even on locked RPC-2 firmware.
  • VLC media player has some filters that can distort, rotate, split, deinterlace, mirror videos, create display walls, or add a logo overlay. It can also produce video output as ASCII art.
  • VLC media player can play high definition recordings of D-VHS tapes duplicated to a computer using CapDVHS.exe. This offers another way to archive all D-VHS tapes with the DRM copy freely tag.
  • Using a FireWire connection from cable boxes to computers, VLC can stream live, unencrypted content to a monitor or HDTV.
  • VLC media player can display the playing video as the desktop wallpaper, like Windows DreamScene, but this feature is not currently available on Linux.
  • VLC media player can do screencasts and record the desktop.
  • On Microsoft Windows, VLC also supports the Direct Media Object (DMO) framework and can therefore make use of some third-party DLLs.
  • VLC can be installed and run directly from a flash or other external drive.
  • VLC can be extended through scripting. It uses the Lua scripting language.

Screenshots

Screenshots are available on VLC here.

Supported formats

Supported platforms

  • Windows
  • Apple Platforms
  • GNU/Linux
  • Android

Official downloads of VLC media player are available here.

External links